In terms of your personal skills you must know how to create a rapport with your contacts. You must know what to say and when to say it and you must also learn to speak and simultaneously reinforce what you say with your own body language. I have already discussed building rapport earlier in the book and will thus not go through this again. Suffice it to say that you can turn back to that section in the book if you so wish.
Knowing what to say and when to say it is pretty much all about timing. We have all gone through the experience of blurting out something stupid and regretted it the moment our words echoed in our ears. The secret is to listen. If you listen more than you speak you allow your brain time to formulate an appropriate and timely response. Our thoughts occur at 400 words a minute and we speak at 100 -150 words per minute, so there is plenty of time to think.
If you find yourself finishing people's sentences for them and you are aware how much this habit annoys people, then why persist in doing it? If you do this and were previously unaware that this really annoys most people then could I ask politely that you trash this habit immediately. It's for your own good. You will thank me later! Seriously concentrate on listening properly to your contact and allow them to finish what they have to say before you open your mouth and kill the sale. Think carefully and anticipate your contacts response to your answer before you even speak it. That way you'll have more effective communications with your clients and there will be a lot less antagonism and a lot more successfully concluded and profitable sales.
Be mindful of the fact that most of what you say to your contact is actually conveyed non-verbally using body language. So when you greet your contact with a “nice to see you” make sure you tell your face to convey the same message otherwise your client is not going to believe you and your communication will get off to a confusing start. Whilst engaged in conversation with your client, focus on their face; refrain from eyeing out their attractive spouse or from allowing your eyes to wander about the room. Imagine the roles are reversed and you are explaining to me a real problem that you have and that you would like me to assist you with. How angry are you likely to become when you feel I am not paying you the appropriate amount of attention and in fact appear to be daydreaming out of the window?
In a meeting situation give your client your full attention. Wait until you are finished your appointment with your client before you begin to read and respond to your e-mails whenever a contact or client is visiting you in your offices. And, while I am talking about answering things, when someone has given up their time to see you, please show some respect for them and for their time by turning off your cellular phone. If you are scared to miss a call have your personal assistant take your calls for you during this time. Either hand your assistant your phone or activate call divert. There is nothing more disrespectful or that wastes your client’s time more than your taking call after call, interrupting their thought processes and possibly yours. When I have given up my time to hear the pitch of a salesperson and that salesperson continually answers their phone, I must assume that I'm not the number-one priority of that salesperson at that meeting - in fact that salesperson is clearly demonstrating to me that he thinks he is the number-one priority.
In fact I’ve made up a sign for this very problem.
Dear Cell-phone owner;
If you are concerned with missing an important call, please leave your cell phone with my assistant who will record your messages while you meet with me. Cell phones regrettably interfere with my genius.
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If any salesman puts his needs ahead of mine as his client I am out of there, both mentally and physically. You should be too. As a client you want your needs to be met by the salesperson and not the other way around. The needs of the salesperson from a financial point of view should be of little or no concern to you as a client. But I digress; let us go back to the discussion on body-language. You want to try and bring warm gestures to the table when you meet with a client or contact. A warm smile, open posture, warm handshake and friendly tone will send the appropriate message to your contact.
Having a positive attitude and a positive approach to life will usually encourage people to want to associate with you more. Inspirational and highly motivated people are successful because they draw people to themselves. And because the people they draw want to be around them and because they need to find a reason to be around them they will often wind up doing business together. It certainly pays to be positive. Yes, you must expect people to be disagreeable at times, and not everyone will like what you have to say all of the time. Concentrate on the ones who do appreciate you and the efforts you put in. Do not waste time on unappreciative clients or prospects. Life is too short to put up with this unnecessary stress, and besides, there are many more satisfying and rewarding experiences to be had by investing time with better quality, more grateful clients.
Stay positive. If every client said yes immediately to every salesperson that approached them with a service or product, it would not take long for clients to become bankrupt. Expect to be told NO before you get to a YES and you will find that life will then be much easier when you take some pressure of off yourself.
Always be willing to help where possible but avoid doing freebee’s when it comes to work that you would usually charge for. Never agree to discount initial work simply because your client is promising you potential additional work. Charge full price for the first contract and if you must, discount the additional work should that additional work ever materialize, which it often does not. It is best to treat the requested discount and offer of additional work as nothing more than a negotiating ploy to get you to drop your price. That is more often than not the sad truth of that promise.
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