Edward Kiledjian

November 30, 2010

State of my blog - 1 month in

I started this blog about a month ago as a personal pet project to share knowledge with the world. Notice that unlike other blogs, there are no ads or attempts to sell anything. I wanted this to be a two way communication between me and you.

I wanted to take a minute to say thank you to all my readers (new and old). When I started the blog a month ago, I wasn’t sure how it would be received. A month in and I am ecstatic about the positive comments, recommendations and words of encouragement.

In the last 30 days, I have had over 400 unique visitors from 34 countries (most of them returning every week).

My goal is to write about 1 new entry every week so I encourage you to check in once a week and see what’s new. If you have comments or question, use the feedback form to reach me.

A big heartfelt thank you

Edward N Kiledjian

November 24, 2010

Managing cultural differences

Note: My series on conversational hypnosis is not yet complete but I decided to change the topic a little to ensure I cater to my different readers.

I have spent the better part of the last 10 years managing larger organizations with international footprints. The allure of cheaper labour costs has been too strong to ignore for most organizations. For most, this is a new experience and most are ill-equipped to handle the cultural changes that come with this type of expansion.

In my previous article about Conversational Hypnosis, I emphasized the importance of belief. It colors your perception of the world and how you react to it. Culture is a key driver to belief. If culture defines part of your belief and belief defines your actions/reactions then it is safe to assume that it plays a key role in how employees manage their business dealings.

Understanding belief and culture
I won’t rehash my discussion about belief here (I strongly recommend you read my previous articles about Conversational Hypnosis). I do want to stress how important it is to understand different belief systems and to think about how they are impacted by culture. In its simplest form, culture is how a group of people socialises their citizens. It defines how members of this group interact with each other, how they interact with outsiders, how they handle challenges and what they hold dear.

Most organizations I join are not equipped to handle the challenges of international, differing cultures. Some simply don’t know how to handle it and others don’t realize its importance. Let me be crystal clear, if you want to run an efficient and optimized international operation, you must understand how to manage the different international cultures you are embedded with (in the countries you operate in).

An example to clearly illustrate cultural difference can be seen between the American work ethic and that of an area of France called Nice. I once managed a team split between both regions and the differences were striking. In North America, many of us define ourselves by our jobs, our corporate rank, our salary and the quality of work we produce. My team in Nice saw work as a necessary evil. They produced quality work but without the feeling of great urgency. Many Americans live to work whereas my Niceois employees worked to live. Take a minute to think about how these different mindsets created by culture affect their work? How would each of these groups handle work packages? How would you manage each of these different groups? How would you motivate them?

30,000-foot Overview
I do want to share with you some of the very high level issues to consider when thinking about international culture. These cultural particularities should be the basis of every international decision and plan. Think about them when planing meetings/trips, understanding the role of management, reception of corporate rules, the role of headquarters, etc.

The Rules of engagement
In North America, we run our organizations on rules and restrictions. We want rules to avoid creating dangerous precedents or allowing a person to make a decision that can jeopardize the business.

In many parts of the world, their first priority is the inter-personal relationship. Their decisions are always analysed to ensure it protects and nurtures these relationships [even if it means ignoring some of the rules.]

This is a situation when even a mid-level compromise approach may not be optimal. The ideal outcome is a synergistic approach which protects both beliefs.

I, the individual will be victorious
From my very first day at my very first job, I had an insatiable drive to outperform. Most North Americans see the business world as them against the machine. Everything is structured to measure the individual, coach the individual, reward the individual or punish the individual.

Imagine the shock when you realize not all cultures share this value. Whereas in North America we see policy and procedure as a mechanism to help the individual, some cultures believe the individual is there to help the group.

In recent years, we are starting to see a shift in the North American mentality. Walk into any bookstore and you will be overwhelmed by the number of books that offer advice on building efficient teams. We are moving to a team culture without necessarily giving up on the individual. We are naturally moving to a reconciliatory mindset where each individual contributes to the overall success of the team and at the same time the team contributes to the development of the individual.

As a manager, learn the techniques for building efficient teams. Identify the strengths of each of your team members and leverage these strengths to build the best team possible. Then, determine how the team can help the career development of its members (either internally or leveraging other teams in the organization).

Unemotional management
Does emotion have a place in business? My experience says no. For the longest time, I learned and believed that business is business. I was told not to take it personally and that business decisions should be made without emotion.

Some cultures privilege just the opposite. They believe that emotions have a place in business and actually encourage it.

Read my previous articles about “Conversational Hypnosis” and “How to build Rapport”. Of particular interest to this discussion are the mechanisms of non-verbal communication. I won’t discuss it here (since it was already covered in great length) but be cognisant that it plays a crucial role as most of the communication we do is non-verbal and this is how we share emotions.

I first fell victim to this when I was negotiating a billion dollar plus deal and realized my “opponents” had a different rule-book about emotions in the workplace. Whereas I had the proverbial poker face, they were freely expressing their inner most emotions and beliefs to me. At first I thought they were nuts. Why were they giving me this insight. Didn’t they know I would use it to crush them? Until I understood how to handle this, we were at a stalemate. Only when my local staff explained this cultural difference were we able to make real progress and close the deal.

There is no magic formula here. Know that this difference exists and think about how you will handle it in your particular situation.

Activity Management
Do you see time as a sequence of events where the previous action affects the next one in line? Or do you see the past and the future as as related and inextricably linked?

This may seem like a strange question but religious influence can be seen here. In Christian-influenced culture, we often see the former. We break down our calendar years as Before Christ and After Christ. Cause and effect. A series of actions which influence each other in a series leading to a given endpoint.

Other cultures see the past and the present as inextricably linked. Think of Buddhism. Everything simultaneously impacts each other. The past impacts the future and the future impacts the past (one way to make sense of this is to liken it to the concept of reincarnation or continuous flow of energy). They do not see the past as affecting the future but as everything affecting everything else at the same time, which inevitably molds their present.

Esoteric theory aside, this cultural facet influences how people see and execute work tasks. The former prefer to do work linearly (one at a time) while the later take a more multi-task (simultaneous) approach.

Hierarchy or bust
I mentioned in one of the previous sections that the new North American management mantra is to flatten the organization as much as possible. Managers have an open door policy and every employee (regardless of position or rank) is encouraged to contribute and can talk to anyone else. In most organizations, the janitor can book a meeting with the CEO.

Conversely, many cultures have an absolute adherence to corporate rank. They see the chain of command as absolute and would never consider “breaching” this unwritten rule.

Understand how your target region reacts to hierarchy. If you are managing a group that adhered to the latter belief and you organize an all hands on deck town hall, what kind of interaction do you think you’ll get? In North America, it is now common for senior executives to meet the employees directly in town hall style meetings (where managers are specifically excluded). This is seen as a way to improve corporate communication. This would backfire in some regions of the world.

A customer called me in because they had transferred their help desk services to India and was disappointed with its performance. Management was “frustrated because the help desk seemed unable to perform some key functions which were appropriately performed when it was onshore.”

They knew little about Indian culture and unfortunately didn’t care to learn about it. In this particular case, the employees believed that hierarchical placement in the organization was important. They did not feel it was their place to challenge their management to let them know that they were missing “key tools to do their job”. They attempted to the the best they could with what they had, which obviously frustrated their management and lead to harsh actions (layoffs which lead to lower morale; a belief that the head office did not care about the group, etc). The solution was simple. I simply walked through the requirements and ensured the agents had the required tools. I spent time with them to fine-tune everything and in a matter of 3-4 months, the situation had become a polar opposite. They went from not performing to being the models of efficiency and dedication. The only tool I used was an awareness of the cultural difference.

Preparing your team for international assignments

If you have read this entry until here, you have some interest in the cultural differences and may be asking yourself how to properly prepare your team to tackle this challenge. There is no magic formula that works for everyone but some helpful ideas (that my international customers have used) include:

Cultural briefing: Have people familiar with the region conduct one-on-one workshops talking about everything from the geography and political reality to business etiquette. I believe a workshop format is best for this as interaction is key. If you do conduct this in groups, keep them small.
Study: There is no replacement for self-education. The person or group should be given books on the region, travel guides, etc. Time spent studying will yield incredible payback.
Language training: If the target region has a language that is easy to learn then having a basic ability to communicate should be the goal (example North American learning Spanish). If the person is headed to a region where the language is more difficult (e.g. Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindu, etc) then the goal of this training is to give them some very basic business setting sentences to “show good faith” People are much more open when they feel the other person made an effort.
Scenario: I find role playing to be an excellent exercise. I usually like to conduct this with managers from the target region and I make sure the scenarios are based on real-life past experiences. Making the person live through past issues is a great experience building technique. This also provides an opportunity to test the person’s grasp of local business etiquette and cultural-sensitivity.

Conversational Hypnosis #2

This is part 2 of my series on conversational hypnosis. Please read part 1 before continuing.

Let me start by thanking everyone that wrote in with positive comments about my blog and the content. One of the requests was to break the content into smaller nuggets, which I will be doing starting from this entry.

I have read lots of books and attended dozens of seminars... Dr Cialdini has really summarized the “Principles of Influence” very succinctly.

These are :

Reciprocation
Scarcity
Authority
Commitment
Liking
Consensus

Reciprocity
People give back to you the kind of treatment they have received from you. If you listen to talk radio, you will likely hear lots of ads from well known sales training experts. Their ads usually give away free knowledge for simply calling in with your name and email address. We said integrity is important so they are providing something of value. Why would they do this? It is to strengthen their position with this point. If I give you something of value, you then are more likely to get me something of value in return.

In all honesty, if you listen to their ads, you will notice that they hit each and every one of these points. Coincidence? I think not.

Scarcity
This is an instinctual truth. The more rare something is, the more valuable we believe it must be. Why is gold more valuable than tin? When something is rare, people want to make sure they “get a piece of it”. They don’t want to “miss the boat”. This isn't necessarily real scarcity, it can be perceived scarcity.

Authority
People are more likely to be persuaded by you if they see you as having specific knowledge and credibility.

Commitment
People are much more likely accept your proposal or see things “your way” if it is consistent with their public position. This goes back to the discussion about belief.

Liking
People are more likely to agree or say yes to you if you are like them.

Consensus
In most sales training programs, they refer to this point as “Social Proof”. It is the activity of showing the other person that others have already done what you are proposing or bought what you are selling That it has worked out for them. That it is positive and worthwhile. This gives them the piece of mind that they are not the proverbial “Guinea pigs”.

Criteria
In part 1 of this series, we spent all of the time talking about rapport and its importance. Rapport is king when it comes to persuasion. In close second is criteria.

Belief is based on a person’s internal criteria. And the easiest way to get someone’s criteria is to simply ask the right question. You need to ask the question in a way that feels natural and normal. You have to steer the conversation towards the direction of your question. It should feel like your question is a natural continuation of the discussion.

Let’s assume John (an insurance advisor) is trying to sell his product to Robert. After John lays the groundwork, you can expect something like this:

John: Robert, what’s important to you about life insurance?
Robert: I want a good price on a good policy
John: A good price for good coverage is important. What else is important to you?
Robert: The financial stability of the insurer. I want to make sure they are around if my family needs them.
John: You definitely want to make sure you are working with a AAA rated top insurer. What is most important about financial stability?
Robert: I want to make sure my family is taken care of if something happens to me. I don’t want them to worry about the money.
John: Nothing is more rewarding than the piece of mind of knowing your loved ones are taken care of.

Remember the magic criteria formula is “What’s important to you about...” I recommend you go around asking this question to friends and family. Practice asking, getting a response, pause, use and/because, find points to agree with them. Then ask what is important about (the thing they just said). Use slight variations also like “what’s most important about..” Keep going until you get to something less tangible. A feeling. The non tangible is the most important and worth reinforcing.

Listen and keep asking questions. You will eventually get to what is truly important to the other person. Generally a feeling or emotion. When you hit the intangible, you hit gold.

To be continued...
I will likely have to write 4-5 entries to completely talk about covert hypnosis so stay tuned and check back often. If you have questions or want additional details, please post them below in the comments section.

November 15, 2010

Conversational Hypnosis (part 1)

After writing my entry about selling encyclopedias, many readers wrote in asking for more details. I had an internal debate and wasn't sure whether I should write a detailed article about covert hypnosis.... I have spent the better part of my carreer learning the techniques of covert hypnosis. When people read the word hypnosis, they think of a guy with a pendulum trying to get you to do things you normally wouldn't. They think of negative manipulation.

Whatever your job or position, you spend your day convincing people to see situations your way. Whether you are convincing your boss to approve your project, selling your services to a prospective customer or convincing your wife that a particular movie is worth seeing. Parents can use these techniques with their children.

The purpose of the next couple of entries will be to discuss the subtle use of the English language to more easily convince the other party.

Have a definite outcome
Every encounter you have should have a pre-determined outcome. What is the goal of the encounter and what is the best possible outcome? Make sure you have a clear intent that you are committed to achieving. What is your purpose? What is your intent?

The purpose of clearly understanding and believing in your outcome will not only help you decide how to achieve your goal but will make sure your actions are congruent. Remember that I also ask you to act with integrity and conviction. This will ensure that your subconscious goes along with the plan and that everything you do is congruent and mutually supportive to your goal. Trust me, omitting this step will sabotage your efforts.

Intro
Over the next couple of articles, we are going to cover the covert art of persuasion or hypnosis (some call it conversational hypnosis). The steps will be:

- Building rapport with the other person
- How to find out their true criteria (what matters to them)
- How to take what they want and link it to you, your product, your offer

Automatic Influence
Take a couple of minutes and think about all of the situations where people influence you in your daily life. This may be a teacher, parent, boss, colleague, TV commercial, politician, etc.

Sometimes these are positive influences but other times they are negative ones. Learning these techniques may help you overcome these negative attempts to control you. The media sometimes uses these techniques to program some of your beliefs.

Beliefs
Most people will live their life, make judgements and decide on their actions based completely on their beliefs. Your reality is filtered by your beliefs. Why do some people see their life as bad while someone in the same situation will see it as positive?

Belief is not in-born. It is learned from family, friends and society. Belief is programmed into us. Simple thoughts reinforced by repetition become beliefs.

Take a minute and ask yourself about your beliefs? What are your beliefs related to abortion, socialism, the government, your company. How do you feel about each of these items? How do those feelings make you feel? Some people will answer in the positive with happiness, curiosity, wonder while others may feel disgust, fear, pain and hatred. Regardless of what YOU feel, make sure you allow yourself to dig deep and uncover your true feelings about these items. Make sure you notice the emotions they evoke and ask yourself which one of your beliefs is directing that feeling towards that particular subject.

The reason I want you to do this exercise is that it will start opening your conscious mind to the power of belief. Marketers, salespeople, politicians and others will use techniques to change your thoughts then your beliefs and finally your actions/reactions. They will make you act or react in their desired way. You too will learn these techniques but you must first do the introspection to truly understand the power of belief.

Building trust and rapport
Go back to my previous entry about rapport and read it. It will supplement what we will talk about here. If you want to persuade, influence or just get along with someone with whom you need to build rapport. People naturally follow people they trust or like. You don’t consciously decide to like or trust someone. This decision is made unconsciously.

You must learn to build rapport unconsciously. They must trust and like you. There are two main techniques to building rapport:
- Verbal
- Non Verbal

Verbal rapport building is using particular language techniques. People naturally like themselves and people like them. You need to be like them as much as possible. Match the speed of their language. Individuals generally tend to speak at the rate similar to which they absorb information (or think). If someone is kinesthetic they tend to speak more slowly and rhythmically. If you speed at warp speed then you will lose them, break rapport and they will not like or trust you. Conversely, if you speak slowly to someone who speak very quickly (hyper type A) then you will lose their interest and their mind will start to wander.

What about groups? If you speak to groups then usually I recommend speaking slightly faster than the average person but periodically slowing down. In group settings it is important to vary your speed.

The second thing you need to match is the tonality of the other persons voice. Tonality will include things like pitch and tempo.

The third layer is the non-verbal or physical techniques. You should have read my other entry where I discuss mirroring. Dress like the other person, if your customer wears jeans and a polo, don’t show up in a 3 piece suit. In order to convey unconscious superiority, make sure your attire is just slightly better than the other person’s (15% better, no more or you’ll defy the purpose). Then match their physical position and posture. This is called mirroring and matching.

Smiling is also a very powerful tool. Look at the person. Lock eye contact then let a smile come on your face. This is a delayed smile. If you walk in smiling, they may see it as disingenuous. Smile after you have make first contact with the person in a natural way.

What about the handshake. The old business adage is that “a firm handshake is a sign of confidence”. Firm is good but this is not a strongman contest. Maintain eye contact when shaking someone’s hand. Extend your arm out with your shoulders back. Keep you arms and body posture open. It shows openness.

The fourth layer is to get the other person to talk. You have to find ways to naturally get them to talk. The more they hear their own voice, the more they will feel comfortable. They will then link this feeling of comfort and trust with you. Ask open ended questions (questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no). :

- Where do you come from?
- What do you like about ...
- How do you feel about ...

Find points that you can agree on with that person (always ensuring these points are congruent with your desired end results). Small points of agreement build an additional layer of rapport.

A business environment discussion may go something like this:
- How did you get into the gravestone business (replace this with the target’s business)?
Get them talking... Show interest and agreement. then encourage them to continue talking even more by asking:
- How long have you been in the gravestone business?
- What made you get into the gravestone business?

When the person stops talking, you can get them to continue by simply using the words: “and” or “because”.

Wait for a couple of seconds after they stop talking. Remember my recommendation about eye contact. Keep using the words and/because. Or say because and ask them a question.

If they make a statement of belief that is not congruent with your goals, do not ask ‘because’. Never get them to reinforce these undesirable beliefs. Push neutral statements or those that help you.

In the next series of articles, we will spend a lot of time talking about the intricacies of hypnotic language such as embedded commands. You will have to maintain congruence between your body language and your words.

Trust must be established before they will believe you. You must have industry credibility. Do you want a certified dentist fixing one of your cavities or a person who read a book on dentistry? Someone needs to have the credibility but also the intent. Two different doctors may have the capacity to undertake an operation for you but you will likely choose the one that seems to have the best intent. The one that seems to care the most. Both are required. You need to be the person who can provide both.

Trust means that you can give the other person what they need but you must also show sincerity, be caring and honest. These cannot be faked.

Building Trust and Credibility
We mentioned above that you must get the other person talking. Everything I mentioned above will help you build the trust that is required. Remember that these techniques are not only useful in a business setting but will often yield incredible results in your personal life (with family and friends). BE prepared with conversation starters. If the “and” and “because” technique is not working, you need to be able to steer the conversation quickly towards something positive and non-threatening. These topics may be related to family, business, hobbies, etc.

Oftentimes, when I walk into a customer’s office, I see a picture of their family. I can make a comment on how great that picture looks. Ask about how old the kids are, what they do, what they like. Stir up a conversation about their last family vacation and so on...

I once met a technical team leader who did not like the team I was working for and refused to co-operate. I went to his cubicle to pick him up for our meeting and noticed he had a picture of him scuba diving. I too am a diver and used this to talk about our love for the sport and asked questions about where he had gone diving, who he dove with and where he would like to dive. After 15 minutes, we agreed that we would organize a company diving team and head out next summer. He went from stonewalling me to being one of my biggest supporters in about 20 minutes. I also used the non-verbal techniques.

Don’t pry into their personal life. Ask general questions to get them to talk. I avoid topics such as business, ethnicity, money, religion and politics since these are very divisive. It is difficult getting agreement or building trust on this.

Be genuine. The other person will see if you are genuine.You have to be truly curious and interested in the discussion. Show empathy and genuine interest. If you don’t understand what the other person said, you can ask for clarification. You can use “I want to be sure I understand, what you mean is ...”. This shows you are listening and are interested.

Remember that the goal here is to persuade and build rapport. Do not use overly complex words. Remember to keep your language simple. This is not jeopardy.

Don’t use weak words like I, me, myself, later, maybe. Use power words that show both of you together. In covert hypnosis, this is called the premature we. It gets the person thinking about both of you together. In a personal setting (on a date), you may want to say something like “we should really go see that art exhibit” (assuming the person likes art).

In line with the above, try to prove detail and guidance on when and where. Instead of saying “let’s meet sometime this week” why not say “Let’s meet Friday at noon for lunch”. It is easy for the other person to say yes to the second statement than it is for the first one.

To be continued...
I will likely have to write 4-5 entries to completely talk about covert hypnosis so stay tuned and check back often. If you have questions or want additional details, please post them below in the comments section.

At the end of the series, I may write an article about how marketers and cult leaders use these techniques to implant false memories in people. I am not yet sure if that is something I want to share in this open forum so we’ll see.

November 12, 2010

Build Rapport in 30 seconds or less

In my previous entry (What I Learned Selling Encyclopedias), I talked about overcoming objection. Quite a few of the readers of this blog wrote to me asking what techniques I use. The techniques of persuasion and overcoming objection cannot be explained in one entry and takes years to master. I have spent a lot of time and money learning various techniques and practicing them over and over to get them just right.

I will share with you some of those techniques in upcoming entries. This particular one will discuss how to create a rapport with anybody.

Rapport is actually the key building block of persuasion. You cannot persuade or convince anybody if you do not first establish rapport with that person.

WHAT IS RAPPORT
Have you ever met somebody that you liked immediately? Someone that you immediately got along with? Truth be told, you can establish rapport with anybody, even people you don't get along with immediately.

LET'S BEGIN
"People like People Who Are like Themselves." Please reread that sentence a couple times. Let it sink in! That my friends, is the secret of rapport.

Let's say you're a big fan of a particular hockey team, and you meet somebody who is also a huge fan of the same team. Chances are you'll quickly get along and start talking about the thing you love, hockey. The same thing can be said for culture, education, political or religious persuasion, etc.

So let's start talking about techniques.

MIRRORING
You've probably heard that the majority of communication is done non-verbally. Each of us have non-verbal cues, mannerisms and we are drawn to people who have similar body language. Similarly, we are repulsed by people who exhibit polar opposite non-verbal cues.

Knowing the above, you need to carefully mirror the other person. Mirroring is self-explanatory. If you're sitting across from somebody and they crossed her left leg then you cross your right leg. If the person is leaning forward in their chair, then you lean forward slightly.

When you meet somebody for the first time, wait 15 to 30 seconds before you start mirroring them. Start the process of mirroring gradually so that the other person doesn't consciously realize it.

When mirroring somebody, don't copy them exactly. This may give them the creeps. As an example, if somebody crosses their arms at chest level, you may want to cross your arms laying on your lap.

Now you don't have to keep mirroring the person during your entire conversation. Generally, you only need to mirror for a very short window until the other person starts to feel comfortable. At that point you can then start leading.

COMMUNICATION STYLE
There are three major categories of communication style: auditory, visual and kinesthetic. Although people are usually a combination of the three, one is more dominant.

Effective negotiators always take the time to study their opponents beforehand. One of the things that they're trying to determine is the opponent's communication style.

Auditory
As the word implies, auditory people tend to think in sounds. This type of person prefers verbal instructions to written ones. Generally, auditory people speak and even form with a rhythmic tempo and a little bit of a melody.

Visual
These are people who prefer seeing things. These people like diagrams, charts, pictures, written instructions, etc. Sometimes you can identify a visual person by their selection of words. It is not uncommon for visual people to use sentences like "let me explain it to you and I'm sure you'll see it my way", "I see what you mean", "I can see that", "It looks good", etc.

Kinesthetic
kinesthetic individuals are usually defined as touchy-feely. Most children are born kinesthetic and learn a great deal about the world around them by touching and moving things around. Kinesthetic people are usually in touch with their emotions so be on the lookout for emotional words such as "I feel like", "I feel where you're coming from", etc.

Generally, it is believed that by second or third grade, some students migrate from kinesthetic to visual. During late elementary, another group will migrate from visual to auditory. Statistically speaking, females are more likely to become auditory than males.

Matching the other person's communication style is also an extremely powerful tool. If the other person is auditory and you start communicating visually, you will break rapport and lose the other person's interest. This is a mistake I see people make very often. Adapt your presentation or communication style to the other person.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Let's put some of things we learned together and see how they could be used. The first step in the process would be matching.

MATCHING
It's important to try and find something in common with the other person. As we mentioned above, this can be cultural, ethnic, sports related, etc. know the other person and find something in common.

PACING
Pacing encompasses what we spoke about above: mirroring and communication style. Listen for the words the other person is using, the tone of their voice, their body language, their speech mannerisms, etc.

Without looking like a psycho stalker, use the above techniques to build trust and rapport.

LEADING
if you have successfully completed the above two steps, then you can now take the role of leader. When you are leading, after being in good rapport with the other person, you can actually change the pace of the interaction and the other person will follow your lead.

Generally, during a persuasion match, you will fluctuate between pacing and leading until you achieve your goal.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
This is of course only a partial discussion of persuasion. There are many other skills that you must learn to achieve maximum efficiency.

PEOPLE LOVE THEMSELVES
People absolutely love themselves. This is why the above techniques work. Another tool in your arsenal is to get the person to talk about themselves. No subject is more important to them than themselves. Ask them questions that encourage them to talk about themselves. Try to use open-ended questions when possible (questions that can't be answered with a simple yes or no). As you start learning about the person, their style and preferences, you can start narrowing down your questions.

Remember that you must be honest and lead with integrity. Honesty and integrity cannot be faked and if you try, the other person will know and you will immediately break rapport.

I would love to give more concrete examples but it is not practical to write a rapport building scenario since most of the work is non verbal.

November 8, 2010

What I learned selling encyclopedias

In my youth, I was full of spunk and illusions of grandeur. While my friends were working at the local theater for minimum wage, I was scoping out more lucrative opportunities.

One such opportunity was the sale of encyclopedias. For my younger readers, there was a time when most homes did not have the internet or a computer. During these “dark ages” the only way to find information was to go to a library or buy a set of encyclopedias. The job was simple; we were expected to sell kits door to door. It wasn’t the easiest job I ever had but it sure was lucrative and it taught me some very valuable lessons about sales.

Preparation

As a young know-it-all, I believed I could “sell ice to an Eskimo”. I wanted to hit the road and start making money. Since our remuneration was commission-based, we only made money when we sold. Imagine my surprise when I was asked to spend the first 3 weeks in the office “learning how to sell the encyclopedias”. After being challenged by a cocky kid, the manager took me to a street, gave me the tools of the trade and told me to try my luck. After having 30-40 doors slammed in my face, I got the message loud and clear. I needed a game plan.

We then spent 3 weeks learning about our product, its particular sales model, our target customer, our elevator pitch, etc. And we practiced…. Oh boy did we practice. I was paired with another salesman and we worked on every conceivable scenario. At the end, we were machines. We could handle anything thrown at us and it showed. Most salesmen quit very early because it isn’t an easy job. But it sure was profitable for those who learned how to do it properly. In one summer, I made more money working part-time than some adults working full-time.

Too often in today’s busy world, people mistakenly believe that they don’t need to prepare or don’t allow for enough preparation time. This will lead to failure or at least a less than optimal outcome.

Perseverance

If someone came knocking on your door and offered to sell you a brand new set of encyclopedias, how would you react? How many doors do you think slammed in my face?

In the encyclopedia example, I did not try to sell the same house multiple times but I had to accept 40-50 rejections until someone finally gave me a chance to make my pitch and then only a small percentage of those actually became buyers. I learned that success came to those who were willing to accept rejection and push back.

In our instant gratification society, many people don’t want to work too hard at achieving their goal. They want quick and instant gratification. Unfortunately that is not how the world works. In most cases, you will have to touch a contact 7-10 times before they remember you and at this point they may give you an opportunity to meet them. Most salespeople give up after the first couple of attempts and move on to other prospects.

A friend of mine is a real estate agent for a middle class neighborhood. He kept changing his sales approach every couple of months. He mailed postcards one month, then when he did not get a “good enough response” would try door to door then a billboard, etc. He was frustrated that with all his hard work, he wasn’t getting the results he wanted. I worked with him to target his ideal customer (we will talk about this later on) and then I asked him to mail postcards to the target houses every month until I told him to stop. Over the next 6-8 months, he started to get more and more customers. As people needed his services, they kept receiving his postcard and so they called him. He eventually became one of the best selling real estate agents in that neighborhood. Find a strategy that works and keep doing it. Don’t expect instant rewards. I guarantee your perseverance will pay off.

Elevator pitch

As soon as the door opened, I had 30 seconds to convince the homeowner to continue listening to me. This is called the elevator pitch and every salesman needs to know this perfectly. Think of it this way, if you had 30 seconds in an elevator with your ideal customer (between floors), how would you convince him to continue listening to you once he got to his floor?

This is not an easy feat. It is very difficult to get your point across efficiently in such a short period of time but it is an absolute requirement. Even when you manage to book a meeting with your ideal customer, he will decide your future in the first minute or so of your presentation. The key here is preparation and hard work. Take the time to prepare and practice your elevator pitch. Use friends, family or colleagues as test subjects and be open to constructive criticism.

Find unique ways to captivate your customer and get them asking for more. Sometimes this can be through carefully crafted questions “Would you like to learn the 5 biggest mistakes parents make which doom their kids to mediocrity and failure?”

Benefits

Most salesmen forget that a customer is not sold on the features but on the benefits of a product or service. In the sales process of my encyclopedias, I wasn’t talking about the number of books, number of pages or material used for binding. Instead I use to sell the advantage of having reference material quickly available. How this information can help their children get a competitive edge and how these were of superior quality and would last generations.

A good example of this today is the smartphone market. Check out the sales page for most Android-powered devices and you will very quickly see technical specifications about memory, processor, expandability, etc. Apple takes a completely different approach and sells the user experience. They don’t talk about bits and bytes. They talk about how sleek their new device is, how easy it is to use and how there is an entire ecosystem of applications that will allow them to do almost anything.

How will your product benefit the customer? What unique benefits do you bring?

Call to action

If I had done everything right, I had a potential customer that was ready to buy but I still had to close the deal. It is actually more difficult than it sounds and requires planning and practice. How do you get your customer from “I am interested” to “where do I sign”?

In the case of encyclopedias, it was a combination of a last minute one-time only special deal and the fact we were only passing each area once (you could only buy them from the mobile sales team). My closing was carefully crafted to methodically walk a customer to agreeing to buy my offering.

As part of your planning, walk through the entire presentation in your mind and determine how to close the deal. For some, closing the deal means booking another meeting while for others it may mean getting the customer to sign on the dotted line. Think about how you can logically guide your customer to the desired outcome.

As stupid as it sounds, I have been in sales presentations where the rep did an amazing job until the end when he fell short on the closing. What was the next step? What was the expectation? Don’t leave this critical decision to your customer. The entire process was to bring your customer to this point. Have a strategy and follow through with it.

Conclusion

The above concepts are not earth shattering revelations but real world practical guidelines. Whether I was selling encyclopedias or helping a customer streamline their operations, everything I did required some level of salesmanship. Sometimes, it was straightforward sales of a product or service. Other times I had to sell an idea to executives to secure funding or approval.

To succeed, we must all sell. Learn these skills and thrive.

November 3, 2010