So, last night on ActiveRain...I commented on a really terrific blog posted by Greg Nino about a fictitious seller named "Skip", a tough old coot who wants to overprice his home and have it sell almost immediately. He's really rough on all agents...and his first question is what your marketing gameplan will be to sell his home. He's been interviewing tons of agents...and he's not much of a charmer.
Greg had asked agents to join in on a role-playing exercise...and I thought "Ohhhh, what fun!!"
Many of the responses were great...but some shifted into "sales-mode" immediately.
"I can do this for you...and that for you, and these things for you."
It reminded me of an old boss of mine who carried a piece of string with him wherever he went. Kinda weird I thought.
But that little piece of string taught me an incredibly valuable lesson one day over lunch.
I'll explain.
Steve (my boss) and I loved discussing sales strategies together. He was a consummate salesperson and I always enjoyed how he let me "steal the podium" whenever we had conversations like this. He seemed to listen to whatever I had to say before commenting with some magical words of wisdom.
Well, that afternoon, while sipping coffee after our meal....he pulls out a piece of string...and lays it on the table. One end near my side of the table...and one end near his side of the table.
He said to me, "Dave, let me see if I can illustrate the difference between a "pushy" salesperson...and a "pully" salesperson."
He continued.
"A pushy salesperson does this."
::: while talking, he begins to push his end of the string toward mine:::
"Pushy salespeople....in their attempt to get their points across, push their arguments, push their justifications, and push their "pitches" on us."
::: he keeps pushing his end the string toward mine and it's all beginning to bunch up on my side of the table :::
"But all that ever happens in the end is the customer winds up with a knotted, tangled piece of string sitting in front of them. That knotted up pile of string represents the pushy salesperson's sales pitch. Disorganized...and in a mess. And they'll fail every time if they do that."
He was right as far as the visual. Sitting before me, on my side of the table, WAS a knotted up, tangled mess of a string.
He then straightened the string back out, only this time he says
"Now, watch what a "pully" salesperson does." (I'm thinking to myself..."What the heck is a PULLY salesperson??")
He takes his end of the string...and starts pulling it around the table, effortlessly gliding it with only his fingertip. Over to the left....over to the right....all around the table. And I couldn't help but notice that everywhere he pulled his end of the string...my end followed.
All the while he's saying:
"A pully salesperson asks more questions than a pushy salesperson. And what happens is the customer's end of the string always follows. Effortlessly."
It was funny to watch MY end of the string following his end everywhere. He finally pointed to a spot on the table and said:
"If you want your client to wind up here (pointing at a spot on the table)...you have to guide them there by asking questions. They won't get there on their own."
I watched as my end of the string wound up dead center in the exact spot he was pointing to. He had guided my end of the string there perfectly.
He finished by suggesting that every time I found myself in any kind of sales situation....to simply
REMEMBER THE STRING!
And I have. And I probably always will. I'm 50 now...and that scenario happened in my early twenties. It's amazing how often I still "remember the string" and close sales by simply guiding my client's end of the string around to MY spot on the table.
I don't want to repeat Greg's entire post here...but it might be kind of fun for you to go have a read through the various comments. There are a lot of them....and I think mine's probably somewhere near the bottom still. But it'll definitely give you an idea of how that string changed my whole sales career!
You can read Greg's post and the comment I left by clicking here: http://activerain.com/blogsview/638539/Meet-Skeptical-Skip
Have fun!!
Dave
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