Part III: The Nine-Step Sales Process

Being clearly focused to meet your potential client is as important as what you’ll say later when you ask them to buy. Your mental attitude determines how far you’ll go with this prospect. Your mental attitude also helps lower “garbage can lid” to help you “see the whites of their eyes.”

Imagine the following scenario: You drive to the prospect’s office and park in front. As you get out of your vehicle, the door to your prospect’s office opens, and a red carpet rolls out. Two trumpeters now appear on either side of the door as they trumpet your arrival.

As you walk up the red carpet, your prospect comes out, puts his/her arm around your shoulder and escorts you in. As both of you walk toward the door, your prospect says, “I’ve been waiting all day for you. I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say so that I can become one of your best clients!”

What would your expectations be of making a sale? That’s what I thought. Such a scene will probably never happen, but it must happen in your mind before every meeting with a potential client. Why? The attitude of your prospect will be in direct proportion to the attitude you bring in with you.

What if your prospect’s attitude is extremely negative when you arrive? The odds of your turning your prospect’s attitude around are much greater when you arrive with a positive attitude, rather than with a less positive one. I’ve always believed that I’d rather enter a sales presentation feeling I would succeed, than entering a sales presentation believing I would fail.

Use the following statements as you’re getting our of your vehicle and before you meet with your prospect:

1) I’m a great salesperson. No one has a greater right to talk to this person than I do. I’ve been sent to see this person by someone they respect. I use controlled attention, concentrated energy and sustained effort. I have empathy for them, compassion for them and I care for them as human beings. I can see through their eyes the benefits that I know they will receive from working with me. I’ll enter this sales situation without giving even considering defeat.

2) What’s behind this door I do not know. But this I know and know it well. The more I open the more I sell.

3) If I have everything to gain and nothing to lose by trying, I’ll by all means try.

Repeating these words guides your unconscious mind to focus on the business at hand, regardless of your attitude. Let’s say your day has not been going well, and you have a negative attitude. As you approach your prospect’s door, take out the imaginary plastic bag you carry with you for occasions such as these. Open the plastic bag and fill it with all of the negative thoughts you currently have in your head. Take the bag and hang it on the outside door handle before you walk in. You’re now entering your sales presentation with a 100% focus on your prospect, not yourself.

Your total concentration must go toward your prospect, nothing else. Once you meet your prospect, the outside world ends, nothing else is important. Your cell phone is turned off, your pager is off, and you concentrate on your prospect.

This is now the time to help your prospect begin to remove their “garbage can lid.” To begin your trust and relationship development, once you first meet your prospect, you’ll need to spend no less than five minutes breaking the ice. During this time, you’re asking questions about his/her office, how they know your referral or something about their business.

Not only is this designed to help get their “lid” down, but it’s also designed to make you more comfortable before you begin your formal selling process so that you can “see the whites of their eyes.” By spending this time with your new prospect, you’re beginning to trust each other because you’re getting to know each other. You’re also not ready to sell yet. You need to set the stage and the pace of the selling process. It’s your sale, not the prospect’s sale!

By the way, once you leave the prospect’s office, whether you’ve made the sale or not, forget that invisible plastic bag that’s holding all of your negative thoughts and emotions…you don’t need it anyway!

“Garbage can lid” statements from your prospect tell you that you still can’t “see the whites of their eyes.” As mentioned in Part I, the following are the verbal equivalents to the “garbage can lid:”

“Just give me your best price!”
“I only have ten minutes!”
“I can’t make any decisions without my partner/spouse!”
“I’m just looking!”

What happens if you agree with any of these statements? Your prospect will never become one of your clients because you’ve made the cardinal error in selling. The error is to let your prospect remain in control. The salesperson should always be in control, but the client must always feel like they’re in control!

How do you accomplish that? By asking questions or by answering a question with a question. You need to understand how to ask these questions with a little finesse and psychology.

In school, we focused on reading and writing. Some of us might have even had a little training in the art of speaking. But most of us had no training in how to listen.

As adults, the communication process is reversed. These days, we rarely read or write but spend most of our day speaking and listening. As a matter of fact, the majority of our day is spent listening rather than speaking. So, of all the communication skills we use, the one we use the most, the one that makes us the most money is the one that we were never taught to use.

We should use listening as a way to lead the prospect to what it is they’re looking for. And this is probably one of the most important keys. Prospects hate spending money and making decisions. But they enjoy buying items and having salespeople help them to make decisions.

“Closing is not the art of getting a person to make a decision. Closing is the art of making a decision with which your prospect will agree.” – Paul J. Meyer