Have you ever felt slammed by the ups and downs of sales? You’re trying your best, but these people are unreasonable. They bark at you to get to the point when you’re trying to be nice to them. Or they chat on and on when you’ve got six other appointments to get to and you just need them to sign on the dotted line already.
When you try to show them the big picture of how your product will transform their lives it seems like all they want is to grill you on endless, mind-numbing details. And then there are the times when you spend an hour with people who nod encouragingly at everything you say only to tell you they’re not interested when you go to make the sale.
Even when you’re on top of your game – presenting every fact, answering every objection, demonstrating the need – you just still can’t seem to close the deal sometimes. Some days your job feels like an endless cycle of annoyance and frustration. It doesn’t help that the colleague next to you connect with all kinds of different people easily and is making money left and right.
You love the high that comes with closing a deal, but the lows of the sales process take a huge toll on you. You’re tired of being stressed out all the time. You’re looking for the piece that will transform your career from a roller coaster into a year-round cruise.
You’re searching for a new way to navigate the sales process.
Selling the Way People Like to Buy
Success in sales revolves around one key thing: trust.
Trust is the honest emotional connection you make with your buyer – a connection that closes the sale. But what makes a buyer trust you enough to invest in what you’re selling? Why is it so easy for you connect with some people and not others?
The answer is actually simple: not everybody buys the way you like to sell.
The Extraordinary Mindset
The first key in becoming a successful navigator is developing an extraordinary mindset.
The difference between an extraordinary mindset and an ordinary mindset is the difference between being a peddler salesperson and a professional sales person who generally wants to serve others and has the prospects best interests at heart – in other words, a Navigator.
An ordinary mindset is self-serving an ego-driven. Many salespeople are wired this way. They communicate with others with the goal of serving themselves. Normally, they frame their words to make themselves look good or to protect themselves from appearing incompetent. They treat others the way they themselves want to be treated without realizing that assuming everyone else in the world wants to be treated the same way you do is a form of self-centeredness.
A salesperson with an ordinary mindset:
- Focuses on the sale and pressures people to buy
- Talks more than listens and presents solutions without understanding the prospect’s true needs
- Oversells, presenting every aspects of the product regardless of need
- Neglects to answer objections up front and drags out the sales process
- Closes weakly and fears losing the sale
- Lies or exaggerates the truth to get people to buy
- Hesitates to ask for referrals
- Takes shortcuts and tries to get rich quick
- Makes excuses and has a negative attitude
- Treats prospects the same, regardless of buying style
On the other hand, an extraordinary mindset is focused on serving others. When you have an extraordinary mindset, you take the time to ask questions of the people you talk to, and you care about the answers. You use the knowledge. You gain to connect with others in a meaningful way. When that happens, people want to do business with you, because they see that you’re genuinely concerned about their wants and needs.
A salesperson with an extraordinary mindset:
- Focuses on providing value and taking the pressure off the prospect
- Listens more than talks, asking great questions to uncover the prospect’s needs quickly
- Tailors the sales presentation to address the specific needs of the prospect
- Answers objections before they come up and sells real value
- Closes with the sincere goal in mind of helping the prospect get to where he or she wants to go faster
- Asks for referrals from a place of passion for helping more people
- Does what’s needed to get the desired results, even when he or she doesn’t feel like it
- Treats people the way they prefer to be treated by Navigating
With an extraordinary mindset, your focus is on serving, and the byproduct is selling. You close far more deals with an extraordinary Navigate mindset than you do with an ordinary one.
The Four Navigate Behavior Styles
Our years of research have found that people tend to fall into one of four dominant behavior styles: Fighters, Entertainers, Detectives, and Counselors.
Fighters are cut-to-the-chase, bottom-line drivers with little time and less patience. They are motivated by results, and it’s important to them to be in control.
Entertainers are social butterflies and enthusiastic extroverts. They love people, possibilities, and rapport – and they care more about emotions than facts.
Detectives are practical analysts. They are always on the hunt for details, and unlike Entertainers, they rank the value of facts over emotions every time.
Counselors are “steady eddies.” Laid-back diplomats, they have the interest of the team at heart. They love security and consistency, and they make decisions by consensus.
These people probably sound familiar. You’ve met them all before in some shape or form, and a few of them have most likely driven you up the wall in the past. But when you begin to sell to the four behavior styles the way they like to buy, that paradigm of frustration changes fast.
All you have to do is learn to Navigate.
Excerpt taken from Navigate: Selling the Way People Like to Buy, by Steve Reiner, © 2016 Southwestern Consulting.
