Secrets Of Smooth, No Pressure Selling - Ss8Fos* - #3 & #4

We're back with Sam Shepard and we're going to go into number three. All right, let's take a look at rolling of the third of eight fundamentals. Sam, where are we?

Larry? Three and four kind of go together because number three is mastering presenting and number four is overcoming objections and closing, which is we know overcoming objections is handling areas of concern. We're going to master presenting and then of course, as we present, we've got to overcome any objections and we've got to close.

Okay.

When it comes to presenting, I always stress to people when I go to talk to somebody, I'm not trying to have a presentation, I'm trying to have a conversation. When people feel that somebody is presenting something to them, they know that you're trying to get a check from them and they're a little apprehensive. So I'm going to always try my best to make my presentation really more of a conversation. People don't fear conversations, but they do fear presentations. And so we're going to have a conversation about what my company does, what I do, the value that I bring, the value in it for them, and with the common ground that we can build upon to do something great together in business, it's just going to be very talking, very. I want them involved presentations. I don't want a one sided presentation where it's just me talking conversations two ways. That's another reason I want a conversation because I want to ask questions throughout while I'm talking. I want to get them involved. And first, when I present first I'm going back to those common grounds. When I get in a house or I'm sitting in my office with them, wherever the quote unquote presentation is, we're going to find out. We're going back to the common ground. Can go back to re establishing the relationship, the like factor. Make sure they know that I'm concerned about them. I'm gonna review any notes I have to remind me of the common ground so that they'll know that I remember their church, their city. Man, you grew up in Vegas. I always loved visiting Vegas again. Even if I don't know anything else about Vegas, as you said earlier, I'm just gonna let them know how much I love Vegas and love it. He still got family there, you know, just kind of finding out what they do on their current job. I want to find out what they like most about what they doing. What do they like least about it? Are they mar. Is this something you want to do the rest of your life? Are you Open to new ideas. Have you thought about owning your own business? So just a lot of conversations, a lot of questions, and after I get all the conversation in them, let them know what we do, how I think we can be impactful to them, and hopefully throughout the presentation, we have a lot of points of agreement that they can see the value in what I'm doing and the value and the services that I bring.

When you started selling, is this the way you started?

No, this is through trial and error. First I will go in and do the presentation. I will tell and get through and hope they were ready to buy. That didn't work too good. I think I got to get more into being. I was always a people person, that I've always liked people. So the more I got into not really worrying about my presentation. In other words, if I was in a house for an hour, the actual presentation, quote, unquote, the actual slides, charts, whatever it is you're showing, I think that should be a maximum of about 15 minutes. If you're spending more than about 15 minutes on that, I think you're losing it, because people's attention span isn't that deep for looking at that kind of stuff. So I believe that most of that time it's just gonna be me talking person. I'll go in the house and we talk and being friendly. It might be 20 minutes before I even get to my quote, unquote presentation, because I'm just talking to them about their life, about the family, about their home. Once I get to my part of wherever I'm covering the company, the services, that's gonna be 10 to 15 minutes real quick, real fast goes again, I think people buy you so they like you. Anytime I walk in the store, if I like the clerk, the salesperson, I try to do business with them. If I like the. I just like, I want to support them. And so when I come to house, I want them to say, man, we want to do business with this guy. I want them to like me. So again, we're still. That common ground is still carrying into, you know, fundamental three and four. And I think if you do a good job with that, you have very few. When we talk about overcoming objections and closing, you minimize that when they like you and you have a conversation. So I never had to know every time Hopkins closed because I knew that they liked me. And once I accepted that friendship, it made it much easier.

Would you say for every hour you're spending 15, 15 minutes selling the product or presenting the product, getting them to like the product, in the company. And you're spending 45 minutes getting them.

To absolutely building relationship. Because if they like me, they'll work with me. They like me, they'll, you know, they'll do business with me.

And was there a particular time where you made a big breakthrough on this, Sam?

I just over a period, I just know in early years, when I got started a business, I saw people that were, what I would hear about, were they really good salespeople? You know, their business was growing and I just focused on not as much sales. I just focused on the people aspects of the business. I felt that long range, if I put more time in with people that down the road I could compete with people that weren't good with people. But they were just great at the, the process, the sales process. And I just began to see. It took a little while, you got to plant seeds, but over a period of time, I saw that we would keep getting bigger and keep getting, keep growing. And I would keep people around for a long time because of relationship. I think if you don't have relationship, people, they just come in your business. They come and they go, they come and they go. And certainly we lose people too. But I keep around for a much longer time when people feel like, you know, there's. There is relationship and there is a bond and it doesn't have necessarily to do with their production. You know, I'll talk more about that as we get into some of the other.

And people resent high pressure, don't they?

Absolutely. I've been in, I've been in sales 30 some years. If I go somewhere and I feel pressure and say, man, I'm out, I can't, I can't wait to get away.

And the high pressure is really somebody who's not spending any time to get to know you, doesn't want, has no interest in you getting to know, know anything about them. You're just trying to ram that product down your throat. If they got an hour spending 16 minutes of hammering on you. Right?

Exactly.

And when you go in and you are spending most of the time on them and getting to know each other and rebuilding those common ground, building the relationship. You're setting the stage, you're preparing to win is the thing we hear all the time. Everybody wants to win, but they don't want to take the time to prepare to win. Well, when you take the time in the presentation, get to know them, let them know you. You get to know them. You're re establishing some of the stu you learned about them earlier and Maybe taking that a little further. And then as you build a relationship, you are preparing them to work with you. So once you get to this portion of the program, they're listening, their ears are open. They're in a cooperative frame of mind rather than an argumentative frame of mind. How does that affect you, Sam, when it comes into doing part four, which is the overcoming objections, when you move.

To four, really, it makes it a very easy transition. People think they realize you're the there for them. You're not coming across pushy, you know, you're just asking questions and it makes sense. See them and find out if it makes sense. Let's go forward right now with this. If it makes sense to you, can you see the value that I'm bringing? Can you see how this is good for you? Can you see. So just consistently asking questions and just not again, just being a friend, you know, not. I never see myself as a salesperson. I'm just coming in to make some friends. My goal if they don't do business with me is that we still establish a friendship, which I can follow back up at a later time. So one thing I always tell a person when I'm training them is that we're going to make friends. And I'll talk about that more in one other point.

And so it makes all the difference in the world. Regardless of what you're going to say to overcome the objection. They're going to be listening to what you're saying and they see you are on their side.

They're more absolutely.

They're more of a frame of mind to listen to actually what you're saying rather than trying to figure out what you're saying and why. That is a way to manipulate them. Like there's something evil or tricky behind what you're saying. They'll listen to a point blank and it's easier to unravel any legitimate concerns because legitimate concerns can be easily answered if you have a legitimate product. But if they're going to fight you, they're going to see evil behind everything you say and not really trust you. It doesn't matter what you say there. It doesn't matter if you're well versed on all of your nifty comebacks because they're not going to work with you anyway. It's the kind of thing of winning the argument and losing the war, isn't it? So, Sam, when they see you on their side and you have. They have a legitimate question. When you come back and you explain the legitimate answer to that, they're going to. They're going to go along with it. It's not. It's not going to be a big deal. Do you find when you take this approach, overcoming objections is just not a big thing that you have to worry about?

It's not a big deal. And I welcome questions because if they have a question, I want them to get the question out now while I'm here. Because I can ask you a question. I don't want you to hold it in and you had a question, but you didn't feel comfortable asking it. And then you go get the question answered by someone who doesn't know the right answer, some friend or outside person who gives you the wrong answer. So I welcome the question. I want to make sure and that I've covered everything. Do you have any questions about anything we've done? If you have any questions? Because right now I want to make certain you get all your questions out while I'm here, and I have no problem answering your question. So you want to make them feel like not a problem. You're not pissed off because they ask the question? No, I welcome your questions. Ask them now while I'm here to make sure you make this decision that you feel good about your decision. So I don't get the phone call back the next day, the dreaded call that says, ooh, we've been thinking. Okay. So that usually means know someone else has been thinking for them. So I want to make sure we get those questions out right now and so I can answer them. And I have no problems with that.

Yeah, you get those questions out when you have a relationship. Also, they're more likely to be honest with you and to ask those things so they'll trust you to give them the right answer. And you don't, you won't be getting as many of those. We've been syncing phone calls the next day, which always mean we're dropping the product.

Yes.

Good luck turning them around at that point. All right, thanks so much. Fantastic information. Let's go on to number five.

Sam.