May 15, 2006
By: Harlan Goerger, National Director of Training
Harlan@itstartswithyou.net

 

A newsletter designed to support our training participants with continuous development ideas and opportunities  

Selling Skills for the Month: 

<p>Once we’ve engaged the customer and have a dialog going, how do you get to the <b>Heart of the Sale </b>?  

<p>Now what is the <b>Heart of the Sale </b>? We call it Discovery; others call it the interview, the questioning phase or the interest step. The <b>Heart of the Sale</b> is gaining an understanding of the customer’s needs and wants, but also their motives, beliefs and values. It’s understanding how decisions are made and why the customer does things the way they do. It’s getting the big picture of their situation so we can find solutions, but also new opportunities for them!   

<p>Far too many salespeople are successful at engaging their customer and then hear one comment and out comes the product and it’s all about product from then on! 

<b>DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!</b> 

<p>In a recent training session the discussion covered how we tend to see any given situation. We talked about the dot inside the larger circle. Too many times we see only the dot and miss the big picture, the circle! Keep questioning and exploring until you have the big picture (circle)! 

<p>Ok, so now we ask 20 questions and interrogate the customer? Only if you want to irritate them! The questions we ask need to be open and ask broad opinions. Take the copier salesperson asking, <br><i>“What brand of copier are you currently using?”</i> <br>Let’s broaden this to, <br><i>“Tell me about your current copier systems?”</i> 

<p>What a difference the more open question makes! Not only do you find out about their machines, but you gain a much larger picture with one question instead of 5! 

<p>In our 40 hour <b>Sales Program</b> and <b>Influence & Persuasion Program</b>, we invest from 10-20 hours on questioning skills. The vast majority find this section very challenging and discover it forces them to think about the situation very differently then before.  

<p><b>DO THIS!</b> Write out the questions you ask, how narrow or broad are they? Are you asking about the dot or the circle? Are the answers giving you insight into the customers values, beliefs, motives and decision process?  

<p>Keep rewriting your questions until you have a dozen very powerful and broad questions. Do the questions possibly intimidate or challenge your comfort level? Good, then your on the right track! 

<p>Many training participants ask how I went about developing questioning skills. I tell them about the note books full of questions that I wrote in preparation for sales calls. How many note books do you have filled out?  

<p>We will continue on this concept of questioning and Discovery next time.  

<p>For more on building these skills and thinking patterns, check out the <b>Influence and Persuasion Program</b> at the end of the newsletter! 

<p>* <b>DISC Behavior Patterns</b>, ask us about how this can help you sell, manage and engage people.

Questions or comments:
Contact Harlan at Harlan@itstartswithyou.net cell phone 701-799-1972.  

Management Skills for the Month: 

We now have a focus the team can buy into, they see how what they do helps them belong and fills a sense of satisfaction, so how does the 4^th condition and question fit in?  

Continuous reinforcement of focus – This focus is every where, talked about daily, posted for everyone to see and reinforced by multiple means.  

If we look at many of our religious behaviors, I was raised Catholic, we can see how the “focus” is reinforced. Attending church every Sunday is an expectation; we hear from the Bible every service, attended Catechism every week and have special services during Lent and other Holy Holidays. All of this keeps us focused on the “Word” and the religious beliefs. After years of this behavior and focus one can see how the beliefs become very strong.  

The terrorist of today have had the same “hate America ” message put in front of them since birth, any wonder that their beliefs say to blow-up themselves! This continuous reinforcement of the “focus message” causes strong beliefs and thus strong behaviors.  

What is your corporate culture focusing on every day? What “focus message” is being reinforced each day? If you don’t know, then you should find out and make changes accordingly.  

Tools such as posters and banners are great as long as other tools support the message. Do your meetings, coaching sessions, procedures and policies support the same “focus message”? Are there other activities that you can be doing to keep the right message in front of your team? What are your own behaviors communicating?  

And the 4^th business question is?  

How do your people fit in? What skills, abilities and attitudes are needed to fit with the above questions? How do you determine which people fit best?  

I’ve seen organizations that have a great culture philosophy, are doing a great many things to reinforce the culture and yet have roadblocks with some people. Ever heard of, “having the right people on the right bus and in the right seats?”  

When developing a culture you will find not everyone fits or wants to fit. A small company I know started out with 3 employees that worked well and got things done. As the company grew the owners determined they wanted to direct the culture and made changes to direct the company in that direction. A year later they had all new employees, not because the past employees were bad, they just did not fit the new culture. Today they have 25 employees and they carefully look at any new hires to determine if they will fit the culture. If there are any concerns, they are not hired and termination is quick if they do not fit.  The hassle just is not worth it! 

This is why it is important for business leaders to understand people’s values, beliefs and motives; do they fit the companies’ culture? If not you are setting both up for problems and failure! 

So when you do emphasize your “cultural focus” and get great resistance from some team members, you might ask how they see the culture and if they fit in to it?  

Next time #5.  

For more on building these skills and thinking patterns, check out the Influence and Persuasion Program at the end of the newsletter! 

* DISC Behavior Patterns, ask us about how this can help you sell, manage and engage people.

Questions or comments:
Contact Harlan at Harlan@itstartswithyou.net cell phone 701-799-1972.  

Food for the Attitude 

On Friday morning I showed up at the Day Surgery section of the hospital. I was taken to a prep area and briefed on what was going to happen. An EMT trainee named David came in to insert my IV, he did a great job and I didn’t even feel it. Jean the nurse made sure I was comfortable and ready to go, the Anesthesiologist stopped by and talked a bit and finally the Doc stopped by.  

They were ready for me and into the operating room I went. They helped me onto the table, the Anesthesiologist said something and……… I woke up with an oxygen mask on in the recovery room just like they said I would.  

The minor surgery on my nose and sinus took less than an hour and my total time in the hospital was 5 hours. My side kick, the Red Headed Grandma, had asked the night before, “Are you at all nervous about this?” My comment was, “No, just the med head and the plugged nose afterwards.”  

For one hour I was totally incapacitate and trusting fully in a man I had less than 30 minutes worth of time to get to know. He had sharp scalpels and was working on my face and with in millimeters of my brain.  

Trust, without trust we would be unable to do anything. We trust doctors, plumbers, carpenters and mechanics to do things for us. We trust parents to take care of children and teachers to teach them.  

Do you trust yourself? I mean, do you trust in your judgment, your skills, your knowledge, your reasoning? If you answer no or hesitate on this, ask yourself why? If we can not trust ourselves, how can we move forward towards goals and a better life?  

As business people and sales people we build trust with others very quickly or we would be out of business. Our customers have a certain level of trust with us, some very quickly on very little information. So how do we build more trust with ourselves?  

First, be willing to make errors, or create learning opportunities as Sam and Scott would say. Trust starts with learning about ourselves.  

Second, look at our strengths and learn how to use them, trust comes with use.  

Third, try something new, this is how we create learning opportunities to test our level of skills.  

Fourth, never put yourself down, it erodes trust between people in seconds, and what does it do to you?  

By the way, I am breathing fine and better than ever 3 days later! Trust, what a great thing! 

For more on building these skills and thinking patterns, check out the Influence and Persuasion Program at the end of the newsletter! 

* DISC Behavior Patterns, ask us about how this can help you sell, manage and engage people.

Questions or comments:
Contact Harlan at Harlan@itstartswithyou.net cell phone 701-799-1972.  

Interesting Thoughts for You: 

The Living Will

While I was watching TV one weekend, my wife and I got into a conversation about life and death, and the need for living wills.

During the course of the conversation I told her that I never wanted to exist in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and taking fluids from a bottle.

She got up, unplugged the TV and threw out all my beer.

Sometimes it's tough being married to a brilliant woman. 

The Influence and Persuasion Program:  

Some of you have attended our Psychology of Persuasion program others have attended our Reverse Engineered Sales or the Zig Ziglar Sales program. These programs are still available to you and your teams.   

What we have done is combined the elements from the Persuasion and Sales programs that are the “meat” of the programs and applicable to all situations in business and personal life.  

After all, isn’t Sales all about Influence? Isn’t Management of people about Compliance? Aren’t personal relationships about Understanding?  

This public program is two initial full days. There will be 3 additional session days, two weeks apart for a total of 5 sessions or 40 hours. This gives you a chance to apply the ideas and get some additional coaching.  After all, developing the ability to apply the ideas is your real objective, isn’t it?  

A few of the concepts included are Outcome based thinking, the 11 Laws of Persuasion, DISC profile, Anticipated Regret, Overcoming Resistance, Mastering 5 Levels of Questioning, Conflict Resolution and Personal Dynamics just as a primer.  

Some comments from our previous programs:  

“Helps you understand yourself, reinforce your abilities, have control and enjoy your career.” Physician  

 “I think it was a perfect setting because of the personal attention.” Sales 

“Very well put together, leaned a bunch.” Sales 

“The interaction between everyone is great.” Sales 

“Motivating others will be more easily obtained.”  Sales Mgr 

“This is a new way of thinking” Director of Marketing 

“Material is sound and the exercises made the material adaptable to us.” VP 

“I thought it was immediately applicable, will generate results & will be used.” Mgr 

“Yes, very different than other programs.” Mgr 

“Yes, it presented a way of thinking that I’d never used.” CRS 

“The reverse engineering grid changed how I see selling.” Sales 

An email from one of our recent participants: I signed two new advertisers to annual contracts last week and have three prospect appointments scheduled for this week. The magic question was, "What is your vision for your business?" Then I tailored my recommendation around their answer.  And the conceptual close was SO AWESOME!!!!! I got chills as I was asking it, in anticipation for their collective, undisputable agreement that we should do business!! It was such a rush. Thanks for your guidance, Harlan.  Much appreciated....Lori Thompson  

Contact Harlan at Harlan@itstartswithyou.net cell phone 701-799-1972.   

Web Site: 

Don’t forget to check out our web site! Some colors and layouts have changed and we have some video clips. www.hgoergerassoc.com   or www.itstartswithyou.org  

We have several Corporate Programs scheduled for this First Quarter and Summer. If your company would like to see more performance from your team we can make it happen for you. Contact me at Harlan@itstartswithyou.net  

Till next month: You make it a great day as only you can!!! 

Harlan Goerger