Cultivating Relationships Boosts Sales Effectiveness

Q: What is the most important step in your selling, influencing, or persuading process?

A: Great question! As a sales, influence, and persuasion trainer, I’ve often posed that question to varying groups of people. Typically, 7 out of 10 respond that “closing” is the most important step in the selling process. I respectfully submit to you that that belief is faulty. You see, my research shows that people buy, more so, because they like the seller, speaker, or candidate.

I’m curious. Have you liked a seller so much that you helped them close the deal? I have.

Now, I don’t want you to misunderstand me. Closing the deal is important! However, the relationship you establish with a client or customer is paramount. Think about it. The more deeply you bond with any client or customer, the more likely they will remain loyal and refer others to you. Make sense? In addition to that, you might receive some unexpected gifts.

For instance, a client and dear friend of mine actually purchased a car for me as a wedding gift. He was also the best man in my wedding. He was a client before he was a friend. I had earned his trust and respect which quickly segued into a friendship. You might be asking,”Can that happen to me?”. Yes it can! If you are capable of being empathetic and genuinely and sincerely caring about
your clients and customers, you might have a similar or better experience. However, the experience of receiving gifts is far less rewarding than knowing you’ve done right by the people you serve.

After reading that paragraph I imagine you might have had two questions come into your mind:

1) How do you become empathetic?

2) How do you become someone who genuinely and sincerely cares about people?

The answer is simple. Spend time with people who cause you to feel like you’re the most important person in the world. In time that person’s nature will rub off on you because we become like the people we spend the most time around. In the immortal words of the American hero, Forrest Gump,“That’s all I have to say about that.”

Are you ready to learn some proven methods for cultivating relationships to boost your sales effectiveness?

Let’s get started.

Over the years, I’ve discovered many ways to establish and maintain rapport with people. However, none have been more consistently effective than Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) rapport building strategies. In case you aren’t familiar with NLP, let me quickly give you a brief explanation. “NLP is the study of human excellence. By identifying in others the essential characteristics of exceptional talent, successful attitudes and empowering beliefs, you can learn them yourself.” (Source: NLP The New Technology of Achievement) Simply put, NLP enables anyone to learn what successful people do in any field to achieve success, then duplicate it.

The first step in the NLP success duplication process is uncovering and adopting the beliefs of successful people. One of the powerful beliefs they have in common is: You must stay intensely focused on keeping the prospects needs, goals, and desires of utmost importance. One of the results of that belief is high client satisfaction.

I’m curious. Do you think a person who is empathetic and genuinely and sincerely cares about his clients has that belief? Our nearly 20 years of research in this area has led us to believe the answer is, “Yes!”

That reminds me of something I read about Zig Ziglar, one of the nations most respected sales trainers. He says,“People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

What do you think happens when people feel like you care? They like you. Right? And, people like to do business with people they like. Another belief to adopt is: People like people who are like them.

Think about your last interaction with a prospective customer. After entering their office, did you quickly look around the room to find things that would indicate hobbies, passions, or interest?

As you recall that experience, did you focus on a hobby, passion, or interest that you had in common? Admit it. You did, didn’t you? That’s natural because we can easily be enthusiastic about something we enjoy doing. But what have you done in situations where you couldn’t find anything in common?

In the days and weeks ahead you can use the following process to quickly turn that uncomfortable situation around and establish rapport whether you see something in their environment that you have in common, or not. Ready? Here goes:

Let’s pretend for a moment that you are sitting across from a prospective customer who appears to be the complete opposite of you in every way. Look the prospective customer in the eye and say…

“You and I are going to be talking for next few minutes about ______. You will probably have questions along the way. You can feel assured that I will answer your questions. Okay? One more thing. Since we are going to be spending this time together I’m going to act as if you and I are old, close friends because it helps me feel at ease. Okay? I’m curious. Can you think of an old, close friend of yours… now? Great! Let’s begin.”

Don’t employ that process in every selling situation because you might quickly establish rapport with too many people and outsell your competition!

As this article reveals, the most important step in the selling, influencing, and persuading process is establishing rapport. It should find its place even higher on your list of priorities than “closing the deal.” Our research shows that those most successful at building the needed rapport are those who demonstrate empathy, sincere caring, and meaningful focus on the customers’ or clients’ best interests. Through the use of the brief and simple NLP technique I’ve written about you too can become someone your perspective customers/clients actually like and want to do business with. Read and re-read the technique and practice, practice, practice. Soon this trait that comes so naturally to the highly successful people among us will become second nature to you!

With your success in mind,

Ron

P.S. Be sure to listen-in to my BlogTalkRadio show Immediate Influence that airs on Monday nights at 6:30pm PST, 8:30pm CST, 9:30pm EST: www.immediateinfluence.com