This weeks Article....
Overcoming Risk
Aversion in Selling
Help
clients move forward in the selling
process
The deadline is approaching,
your month is ending and the prospects
that should be closing and going for it
are not!
What is a salesperson to do! We
done the discovery, asked the questions,
provided the solution, yet we seem to get
inaction from the client.
The issue might be RISK
ADVERSION and we may not have addressed
it effectively. As a matter of fact we
may have inadvertently reinforced our
customers Risk Aversion, thus creating
part of our challenge!
Here are some tools to help
address this issue that everyone has when
making choices and decisions.
To understand what is happening,
let us review the decision process
virtually everyone goes through in making
choices and evaluating risk.
1.
All choices and decisions are
filtered by our personal beliefs, no
matter the validity of those
beliefs.
2.
All choices require some type of
reference point for comparison. The more
recent the comparison the more relevant.
Ie. What is a good deal if I have nothing
to compare to.
3.
All choices are influenced by
our emotional state at any given time. If
we are highly emotionally engaged toward
a yes decision, we move faster. Highly
emotionally, fearful of potential risk,
we most likely say no or drag our
feet.
4.
The
logic of the choice; this will vary in
importance depending upon the behavior
profile of the person, more detail people
require more input.
Idea people tend to
require less logic
input.
As a salesperson we need to be
aware of all four aspects and how to
discover and influence these when working
with our clients in making
choices.
So how might we influence these
choices positively and move decision and
actions along! Some recent information
can give us insight.
The tool is called priming.
Priming in psychological terms is
starting or placing an idea or thought
into the communication or persuasion
prior to the actual communication or
choice. This
priming then influences or affects the
final choice.
This priming influence can be a
positive force or a negative force. It
can assist in overcoming risk aversion in
a decision or amplify the risk
aversion.
An example of priming, you hear
about someone being mugged in a parking
lot the night before, just prior to your
leaving some friends. As you walk through
the dark parking lot, you hear a noise
and react with thoughts of a mugger. If
you had not heard the story of the
mugger, you might have thought, those
darn alley cats are at it
again.
The mugger story has primed your
thinking and thus your
reaction.
The same happens to risk
aversion. A
recent test by Dr. Doran Klinger put
accountants and financial advisors to the
test. The short version is
this:
Two groups of professional
financial people were given stories. One
was of a high risk taker that was
successful and achieved high rewards. The
other of a person who refused to take
great risk and thus avoided large losses.
The participants were unaware of the
priming as the stories were given in the
context of a memory testing
exercise.
Next, both groups were given the
exact same financial information about an
unnamed investment to
evaluate. The
results showed the group primed with the
high-risk success story rated the stock
higher, while the group with the risk
adverse story rated it lower.
The test indicated the financial
advisors could be influenced and thus
their evaluation and choices could be
altered by priming with a risk success or
risk aversion story.
This same results has been shown
with countless other studies using
various situations. The outcomes show
very similar results.
So how does this work for you
and getting that client to say yes and
take action this month?
Here are some quick
tips.
1.
Always use examples or stories
that show risk takers winning. Be it
other clients or people in similar
situations as your client. This primes
them to winning because of risk
taking.
2.
Avoid examples or stories of
risk aversion and minimizing loss, as
this reinforces and primes them to avoid
risk taking at any
level.
3.
Watch your body language and
words. If the client is communicating, a
negative situation it is easy to be
nodding yes or agreeing, thus reinforcing
the risk aversion through our body
language without knowing it. Always take
a neutral yet listening stance in such
situations. This way you are not
reinforcing the risk adversity, yet you
are still attentive to the
client.
4.
Use positive winning language
such as, winning, being on top, success,
positive outcome or achieve. These prime
the client with positive outcomes from
risk.
5.
Ask open questions about times
when the client has won from taking
risks. Once more, this primes them with
positive images and emotions from
risk.
6.
Ask
what they use or could use as comparisons
for this choice or decision. Without
comparisons of some type, risk becomes
bigger and decisions are delayed. How
does your solution fit into the good,
better or best comparison? Better, you
create this now, as the client will
without you, once you are gone.
The challenge is every choice or
decision has some level of risk aversion
involved with it. We all naturally avoid
risk and move away from potential loss.
It is reducing the risk aversion as
quickly and early as one can that will
aid in moving the decision and action
along.
So rather, than being reactive,
top producers are proactive and apply the
idea of priming to move decisions along
faster. You can do the same.
Till next time, Grow and
prosper!
Harlan Goerger
© Harlan Goerger
7-2009
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