Taneesa Williamson Much more than just product recommendations.
As a business owner, seeing your team reach their KPI goals is rewarding and of course, great for business. However, how do each of your team members feel when they hear the word ‘sale’, ‘recommend’, or ‘retail’? Do they get uncomfortable, anxious or excited?
From those starting out in the industry with an eagerness to learn, to those who have been on board for years with lots of experience with their set ways on how to do things, sales performance can differ regardless of experience. So, for those looking to improve the way their team feels about product recommendations, or change the perspective on interacting with their clientele in general – what training programs do you start with?
Sales is much more than just processing a payment in exchange for an item or service, it is about understanding the needs, wants and desires of your clientele to provide them with a solution.
Thinking that this sounds just like a marketing blurb? So did we at first… until we spoke with Grazina Fechner (more commonly known as Griz), director of Front + Centre Training Solutions.
Griz is a professional media-trained presenter and learning & development expert who focuses on the psychology behind sales and communicating with people. Here is what we discussed:
We would love for you to define how behaviour can be linked with selling, and if there is a name for it?
The four basic needs of your clients/patients/buyers are to feel understood, to feel welcome, to feel important and to feel comfortable. We can achieve all of this by the way we communicate to ourselves and others. It’s all about having the courage, care, and commitment to take the time to adapt your style, communication and ultimately your behaviour to suit the person in front of you while understanding exactly what excites, delights, motivates, and captivates the person you are having the interaction with.
The minute your client/patient walks in you need to differentiate yourself from everyone else by being unique. You need to have a fundamental belief that finding the right solution is the key to moving the hearts and minds of your clients, so they become loyal to your brand and repeatedly purchase your products and services. So how do we do this?
Let’s talk all things NLP (neuro-linguistic-programming), the term is thrown around a lot, to put it simply, it’s a self-development technique which helps you to manage your thoughts and emotions to enjoy better relationships, develop your leadership abilities, sell more effectively and deepen your own self-belief.
What are the steps you need to take to ensure you can use NLP to your advantage?
The most important thing to remember is taking the time to understand yourself, your behaviour and the impact it has on others so you can deliver an experience for your clients that has them wanting to continue to come back again and again.
This means knowing how to adapt your behaviour to suit the person in front of you and knowing how your behaviour affects them.
NLP in the sales space, as a concept, focuses on quickly building meaningful relationships with people and provide them the information they need to buy in a way that suits them. It leans on using specific words and actions to develop emotional connections with patients and clients.
The most important attributes in the NLP space that can increase your sales and you can do instantly are:
- Being aware of your body language and other’s body language
- Pay attention to your intonation and other’s vocal cues
- Focus on verbiage and grammar use
- Build rapport
- Pacing and leading
- Active Listening
Why is understanding neurolinguistics and personality types so beneficial when it comes to ’selling’?
Do you ever finish off people’s sentences? Tell someone how hot they look? Admire their shoes? Ask them to talk to the hand? Cook whatever anyone else wants to eat, even if you don’t like it? Talk too much? Not talk enough? Or not care what someone had for breakfast or did on the weekend?
All of these traits are driven by our behaviour styles. What makes us successful is understanding the way people behave and adapting our communication style to suit them.
So, who are your clients? How can we tailor our interaction to suit?
People are different, it’s all about why we click with some people and others drive us nuts. The people that get results have a different way of communication with themselves and with others. Below are some tips in this space:
- Modelling – Find a successful person, look at what they do and how they do it, and then take on those traits – Observe their body posture, to the way they think, what they do, how they communicate and how they make you feel?
- Find the difference that makes the difference – What are their behaviour patterns? How do they achieve results?
- Building Rapport – is a key principle and a key fundamental and something important when it comes to our client relationships. Building rapport enables people to develop bonds full of trust, affinity, connection, and friendship.
- Target your talk – how to get the message across thinking about the way people like to receive information. When selling to people, it’s important you use different mediums to get your message across, some people need visuals, some need auditory (discussion, some people need to touch and feel what you are selling to them, so if you can get the right medium and deliver the information using that you will have a much better outcome.)
- Be Positive – Talk to yourself with positive language, I will be able to do this, I will enjoy this client, It’s not I have to…… it’s I get to… I always say to people talk to yourself like you talk to someone you love. Always use positive language when talking to others.
- Set Positive Goals – Today I am going to achieve this and change my patients’ lives.
How can staff not be afraid of hearing the words “retail”, “sell”, “recommend”?
Persuasion and negotiation techniques are not something to be afraid of, as long as you communicate these techniques in the correct way. Cooperation is the goal here from persuasion. Persuasion seeks to enhance self-esteem and aims to serve by focusing on the right outcome for YOU.
For some of us, when you hear the words sales, retail, and recommend it may make you feel awkward and slightly uncomfortable. All you need to do is change the way you frame it in your brain to telling yourself you are helping the person in front of you.
You are the expert.
People don’t know what they don’t know and it’s part of your role to explain ALL of their options, if you don’t, they will go to someone else that will.
At every interaction and touch point learn about your client and identify with the way they view the world. For every client that walks into your clinic, start to communicate to them with the following in mind; what’s their lifestyle like? What are their aspirations, hopes, passions and dreams? What do they find beautiful? Building a picture of their world in your mind will help you better communicate with them, at their level.
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