Or how about this one, you’re being sold something (and we all know where we are) you are offered the trial close, then the salesman goes into objection handling mode until you’ve got no more excuses, and then wait for it… Wait for it… Here comes the final “close”!

Now of course we need to work to a system when we have a client with us, we need to explain features and benefits of our product or service in a way that the other person understands. We need to build rapport with our client and understand what their problem is, however the classic SPIN selling model is based on the concept of increasing pain. The SPIN model works to understand why the client wants to solve the problem, what their pain is and then increase the pain until they either commit suicide or hand over their credit card details!

If you want to find out more about the SPIN selling technique, here was a website I found. (I do not endorse this technique or this website, this resource is simply provided to you to find out more).

The SPIN model clearly works as it has been used around the world for many years now, however I believe there is a more elegant and eloquent way of engaging and allowing your customers to buy from you, rather than using techniques in order to sell to them.

One of the other problems I encounter with this type of sales technique is the insistence that the transaction or ‘close’  happens there and then. Either signing a contract, or agreeing to whatever is being sold. The principle is that you should never allow the other person to go away and think about your offering, as it gives them time to talk themselves out of it. This may or may not be true, however insisting that someone signs there and then misses an absolutely fundamental principle of how we think and convince ourselves of the right decisions.

We all run what is known as a ” Convincer Demonstration Filter” which in NLP is known as a ‘meta program’- if you do not understand your client’s convincer  demonstration filter and you attempt to close the sale using the wrong strategy for that client  then you will almost certainly lose the sale.

This is how the convincer a demonstration filter works.

When we are required to be convinced about something, that could be another person’s performance such as in a work setting, or it could be we are required to be convinced about a product or service before we purchase it – when we are in this situation we will have a little program that we run in our mind which allows us to become convinced, or not convinced as the case may be.

There are four types of strategy that people use to convince themselves:

1. Automatic.
2. Number of times.
3. Period of time.
4. Consistent.

Automatic Convincers

These are the type of people who have done the research, worked out what they want & made the decision ready to go. There are already convinced before you get to the ‘close’ part of the sales process and if you stick rigidly to asking lots of questions about whether they are ready to buy or  not, can become rather frustrated.

These people may have the pain in their hand ready to sign, and you don’t need to use any other technique on them other than to get them to book their appointment or sign a contract. In fact using any other technique on them may put them off as they might think you aren’t listening to what they say.

If you have an automatic convincer in front of you, just get on with it and stop faffing!

Number of Times Convincers

These people need to be convinced you are the right provider of your product and service a number of times. They may need to see proof over and over you are genuinely good and true to your word. If you say that you genuinely care about them, they might want to see this represented on your website, when they phone you, when they come in to visit you, during the consultation and finally during the decision-making process.

A number of times convincer will have a specific number of times they need to be convinced – the clues in the title! If you have a three times convincer in front of you then you’re going to have to convince them three times that you are the best person to provide your product or service. If you are smart with your marketing you will allow them to do this during the marketing process, as mentioned above on the website and phone calls etc.

If you have a number of times convincer in front of you, allow enough time and give them enough information to be convinced however many times is right for them.

Length of Time Convincers

These people need to be convinced over a period of time. They want to hear the information that you have to provide, wait a period of time, and then become convinced.

A length of time convincer will have a specific amount of time they need to be convinced over. If you have a length of time convincer and their length of time is one month then you are not going to get them to sign up or agree there and then. You need to make a note in your diary to contact them after one month, when they will be happy to go ahead.

If you have a length of time convincer in front of you do not push for the close of the sale there and then give them the amount of time they need to become convinced themselves.

Consistent Convincers

These people can be the bane of your life. They will never be convinced, they will come back over and over and over again always wanting more information and prove that you are the right person to deliver your product or service. If you have a consistent convincer in front of you and decide to do business together you had better be prepared to demonstrate every single time you interact with them that you are the best person. You cannot rest on your laurels and you can never stop allowing them to be convinced.

So how can you tell what type of convincer a person is?

As with much of NLP you ask a simple question, shut up and listen.

Ideally the question you need to ask these people is “How often does someone have to demonstrate competence before you are convinced?” If they say for a week etc, then they are a length of time convincer, if they say three times etc then they are a number of times convincer, if they respond saying they are never convinced them they are a consistent convincer and if they respond saying they don’t need to convince they just trust then they are an automatic convincer.

The ideal time to ask this type of question is during your rapport building process at the beginning drop, it into the conversation – however it could be difficult to ask this question exactly so you could say, “I’m interested… to make sure that we give you the best service  can you tell me about the last time that you bought the product similar to this” – and then listen for their response.

They may talk and mention things like “Well, I popped in to see what they were like, then I looked at their website, then I gave them a call, then I went in to see them directly and then I realised they were the right people” What type of convincer do you think this person would be?

Yep, they are a number of times convincer.

What about if they said this “Well, I popped in to see what they were like had a good look around and chatted to the people there, then I went back again a month later and booked my appointment” – what type of convincer are they?

They are a length of time convincer… do you see the pattern?

Summary

Using questioning and listening for specific words and phrases that people use to understand how they construct the world around them is a far more elegant and eloquent way of building rapport and closing a sale. It means you are totally customising your technique for the other person, this helps them to relax, trust you and know that you understand how to solve their problem.

If if you want to find out more about practising these techniques, and indeed building them into a complete process with many other similar techniques then please do take a look at our NLP Communication & Metasales Workshops where you will have plenty of time to learn, practice and perfect your listening skills!

NLP Communication

There was a recent report by the government department responsible for statistics which highlighted that many people in the UK at the moment do not feel happy.

They went on to look at the ways in which people found it easiest to find happiness in their lives, looking at money relationships and suchlike. The report was a detailed analysis of both what made people happy and ways in which people felt anxious. Indeed one of the questions asked was do you feel more less anxious today than you did yesterday.

I’m not entirely sure what the purpose of the report was, why would a government want to highlight how unhappy people are?

The real issue for me is that this statistical analysis did not seek to find out, nor help people to be happier. All it did was highlight the reasons people are unhappy-and that’s a wholly different thing.

You see, happiness is a state, much like motivation, excitement or being relaxed.

So, why is this important?

This is hugely important as states can be accessed at any time, and are not dependent upon external influences if one so chooses.

Neuro linguistic programming or NLP is a way that we can control our state to access motivation, excitement, relaxation  or indeed happiness. Try this:

Think about a time, a specific time when you felt truly motivated in the context of your business. As you think about that specific time float down into your body looking through your own eyes and see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel those emotions of feeling truly and utterly and totally motivated. Did you do that exactly as I said? Okay, let’s do it again.

Think about a specific time when you felt truly motivated in the context of your business. As you think about that specific time float down into your body looking through your own eyes and see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel those emotions of feeling truly and utterly and totally motivated.

Now notice your increased heart rate and breathing! Perhaps you even feel motivated or exhilarated? You see with the right NLP motivation techniques it is possible to access any state at will. And this includes happiness.

Nothing your business in Rickmansworth or Watford makes you unhappy or demotivated or sad. All that happens is an external event is taken in through your senses, the NLP communication model then explains that this external event is converted into your own internal representation, based upon past experience memories and suchlike. This then affects your physiology and state. A behaviour in response to that external event then happens, in other words you feel sad, motivated or unhappy.

The thing to remember, is that you can control this process. You can decide how to represent that external events internally in your own mind. And if you so choose, using the power of NLP for your mind and business you can decide that you are happy now.

Only when we take full responsibility for everything that happens in our life, can we make changes. And that taking responsibility starts with how you respond to external events.

So, how are you going to choose to make a happy internal representation next time something happens? Can you choose now to be happy knowing that happiness is a state that can be accessed at any time.

Mark Oborn runs a successful business consultancy in Rickmansworth, Watford and Chorleywood in Hertfordshire. With his unique blend of MBA skills and neurolinguistic programming (NLP) mixed with hypnosis and timeline therapy he is able to get real change in each business by dealing with the mind and heart of the business owner.

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I just wanted to give my thoughts on the concept of using a coach. As you may know I’ve run my own dental laboratory for 16 years using the best Dental Office Space for Lease for this, I now run a marketing company helping dentists with online marketing plus I have an MBA… I guess I’m pretty qualified to run a decent business…

However I have a business coach (and am a coach myself) – this is where my coach helps me:

1) To remove negative emotions. Anger, Fear and Guilt can be BIG hurdles and restrictions in business – think back to things you’ve done in the past… often anger is there, fear and other negative emotions. Most people then self sabotage their current and future successes by not removing these old negative emotions, being fearful of mistakes, angry at situations or guilty about what might happen .

2) To remove limiting beliefs. Typically people have restrictive beliefs about themselves – things like ‘I’m not worth it’ ‘I don’t deserve success’ ‘I’ll always be a failure’. If a person holds these beliefs to be true.. then they are true and that person will NEVER achieve what they want. Once again a suitably trained coach can help you remove these limiting beliefs.

3) Conflicting personality parts. Many people have internal conflicts that they are not at first aware of. e.g. “part of me wants security and part of me wants freedom” or “Part of me wants to be a business owner and do what I want and part of me wants the security of an employer” this type of conflict will again prevent a business owner from achieving and a coach can help that person overcome this.

This type of coach works with business owners but most often does not get involved with the day to day business activities… this is where the wonderful Chris Barrow (CB) and Kevin Rose (KR) some in to play (These are top UK coaches for dentists).

This coaching style (and indeed why I have my own coach) is to ensure that my head is in the right place, with no unconscious sabotage, with every part of my personality aligned to reach my business goal free of negative emotions and limiting self belief. In my opinion there’d be a whole load more successful businesses if more business owners sorted out the negative and limiting ‘shit’ going on in their head!

You can then work on your business, either on your own or with the likes of CB, KR or other ‘implementation business coach’ to ensure that the business itself is working efficiently and effectively.

Does that help answer the question “why do you need a business coach?”

How much business are you missing out on by not using the Best sales funnel builder or by not following up your potential prospects? If you don’t track it I propose that it’s quite a lot!

Recently while reading about B2C CRM software on the Salesforce site, I found that if you don’t follow up on leads with a robust system you are sure to be wasting a large part of your marketing spend, this means you’re wasting money and working too many hours to catch up – so this blog post could save you a great deal of money and time – wow – better read on then!

Following up on leads is obvious really, but so many people fail to do it so I’d like to give you a little idea for how to do this that’s really simple that you can start today:

1. Create a ‘prospect form’ in a word processor

Include:

• Name
• Business
• Phone
• Email
• What prompted the call today
• When you will follow them up again
• THE ESTIMATED VALUE OF BUSINESS if you can convert that lead

2. Create a spreadsheet

Include the prospects name, business and estimated business value. Then have the spreadsheet total the value for all leads to date.

3. File the prospect forms

File these forms by month. Put all forms for one month in a binder and label them with the current month.

4. Follow up

Set a time aside each month to follow up these leads. Take all the forms out from the previous month and follow them all up. If they convert remove them from the folder and the spreadsheet. Replace them in the folder if they do not convert. The data would accumulate and you’d find it increasingly difficult to collate it, and would sooner or later would feel the need for tech like Elastic Stack.

5 . Repeat

Repeat this process 3 times. If the prospect still does not convert file the folder away and dig out again in 6 months and repeat the process.

Following this process means you will have a system whereby you can follow up your leads AND a value for your ‘sales funnel’ or non’converted leads.

Over time this WILL amaze you as to how the value of that spreadsheet grows, and its a great way to focus your marketing efforts on converting those clients that didn’t convert first time round.

Automate the Process

So, do I do this myself? Nope, I automate the process using Sage Act – but the principle remains the same. Sage ACT reminds me to call the prospect and manages my sales funnel for me providing me  useful metrics of where people are in my conversion process and what the overall value of the funnel is. Sage ACT calls this an ‘opportunity’ and I can view the value of all my opportunities at varying stages of the process.

I’ve done this a few times in different businesses and the average amount of business sitting in the funnel like this is about 1.5-2 times annual turnover! WOW – serious bucks sitting there huh?

So, what are you going to do right now to stop procrastinating and start following up prospects to grow your business?

Business starts to pick up, it’s looking really good, because you’ve discovered that TheMarketingHeaven.com is the difference between having and not having youtube likes.

But soon you start to find that your time is getting harder and harder to share between the clients, so  you cut back on the little extra time you gave to each client and decide to cut it back to what they are actually paying you for.  OOOPS big mistake.

You see, your business has grown due to the care and attention that you have given to each client, it grew BECAUSE you were giving that little extra time, now all of a sudden, you’ve stopped doing the very thing that was the cause of your success… and there’s only one place for you to go now!

I’ve seen this happen in a range of industries, from marketing consultants, to coaches, to dog trainers to dentists.

So here’s what you need to do.

Start your business and act grown up from the start. Plan what your business model will be when you are at full capacity, work out what you want to earn, work out the hours you can spend with each client. calculate how many clients you can service and then DO ALL THIS FROM THE START.

This means at the beginning you are going to have gaps between clients, and quiet client times.. so use this time to plan, use this time to develop your business, use this time to market your new business, but do not use this time to give extra time to clients that is not sustainable in the long run.