Hi all,
Dennis here from change it coaching, with the final day, day 5 of our 5-day challenge: how to become successful in any area of your life!
I am very excited that you made it all the way with me through this 5-day journey, and I hope that you have actively participated, because I want to ask you for a favor.
It would be awesome if you could let everybody know, what you thought of the challenge and if you have seen or felt any changes in your life.
I know, it is a bit early for that, but the more feedback I get, the better quality of coaching I can provide in the future. Also, if you did find it useful and you want to go into the full details, please feel free to send me an email: changeitcoaching@gmail.com
In the previous 4 days, we covered:
Day 1: Finding your Clarity;
Day 2: How is your Energy;
Day 3: What’s your Purpose;
Day 4: What are your deepest values and beliefs.
And here we are, day 5!
I said this a few times before, because the technique that I am sharing are so powerful, but today's subject can make or break if you will be successful with other people, or not.
Today I am going to talk to you about Influence.
This is probably hands down, one of the most critical qualities you need to possess in order to succeed with anything in your life!
As you can see from the image, this is not something I found out myself. All the great coaches, leaders, business people in the world have mastered the skill of Influence to the tiniest detail.
If you go through any of their courses, seminars or YouTube video's for example, guaranteed there are quite a few of them based on the principles of influence.
In general, influence has a bad taste in the mouth of many, because the majority of the people use it to sell in a forceful way. But what if we use influence in a more positive way, so that people understand that you can solve a problem for them, that in the end, there is a win-win situation?
When we talk about influence in this chapter, it can impossibly capture all related things to what it takes to become a master of influence, therefore I want to focus a little bit on the sales side and how to use influence to increase your sales.
If we touch a little bit on one of my other passions, NLP, which stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming, which is basically a communication approach, that focuses on adapting a person’s neurological processes and behavioral patterns to achieve specific goals. I can go a lot more in to detail on what the exact meaning is, but I think you can more or less understand what I mean with this. If you want to know more about NLP, have a look at the founders of NLP, John Grinder and Richard Bandler.
One of the techniques that we use, and what NLP is mostly based on is Modeling, and we don't talk about a model walking on the cat walk in a fashion show.
In NLP it means, that whatever quality, skill, success in life you want to achieve, you would need to find a model (a person who is the absolutely best at what they do, in your chosen topic), follow every single step that this person took to get 'there' and copy or model the exact ways, so you too can be successful.
Most of us are so focused on reinventing the wheel, while the road to success can be so much shorter than that we are thinking, just by modeling success from others. This doesn't mean you can automatically 'copy / paste' this person, you might get into some legal trouble possibly.
If I think of the most successful influencers of all time, it must be kids!
We all have seen the scenes in a mall, or maybe you, if you have kids, you are experiencing this daily, when a kid asks for an ice cream, and mom or dad says no?
How many ways do you think they WILL find before mom or dad says yes! They will keep trying everything, they ask not once, they ask a hundred times, if that doesn't work, they start to shout, if that doesn't work, they probably start to cry, and the embarrassment level of the parents goes up and up. If still the parents don't give in, it's time for the big one! they will throw themselves on the floor, shouting like there is a giant fire, kicking and screaming like there is no tomorrow until......HERE IS YOUR ICE CREAM!
That's what I call influence!
And it's a shame that, due to the environment around us, we tend to forget how we got what we wanted when we were kids.
As I mentioned earlier, I will make a little side step to some NLP techniques and exercises you can master and teach others if you feel like it.
In this example I am talking about selling gym memberships, but the principles in this example can be used in any sort of setting, even with your spouses or kids!
1. Building rapport
Probably the number one biggest mistake most of the sales people make, is they focus on what product they have and how great it is and most likely the best product you can ever buy, or the highest quality at the lowest price and all the usual USP’s, but what if your product doesn’t solve the clients pain point?
No matter what you will tell them or how much discount you will give them if they buy now, you will not sell any product!
People who want to buy a certain product and have come that far to come to your gym are basically ready to buy, but since they don’t see the right value for them, or if you can't help them remove their issues, they will easily walk out and reply to you with the most deadly words a sales person can hear: “I will think about it…”, because we all know that as soon as they close that door behind them, they have already forgotten about you and your product.
Now how are you going to minimize the risk of a prospect gym member, or perhaps a personal training client, saying those dreadful words and increasing your sales chances?
The first step towards success is building rapport with the prospect.
Building rapport can be achieved through several ways, and I am going to highlight a few in the next paragraphs.
Match & Mirror
Just go back in time and do you remember how as kids we used to annoy our parents or siblings by copying every single word they were saying, or making the exact same gestures as them?
This actually turns out to be the easiest way to get in touch with the other person’s subconscious mind.
Reaching the subconscious mind of another person is the best strategy for increasing your sales through establishing a relationship with the client without them even being consciously aware.
We can match how fast or slow they speak, we can match the key words that they are using frequently, mirroring how they stand or how they use their hands when they talk and even mirroring how they laugh.
Of course, all of the above techniques should be performed in a non-obtrusive way, as that will definitely will be noticed and actually have the opposite effect of what we want to achieve.
For example, if someone speaks with a certain accent, don’t try to literally copy and paste the accent as you might look like a fool and the receiving person will probably think that you are trying to make fun of them.
The same for voice tonality, another great way to deeply connect. If you are a male, you probably have a lower pitch than a female, in this case you will not exactly copy the same high pitch, you are however going to try to get as close as possible to that pitch without starting to sound funny and therefore not respecting the prospect. This will obviously have a negative effect on the outcome.
Another great way to reach the subconscious mind is to mimic the breathing pattern of the other person, are they breathing fast or slow? Are they breathing from their stomach or more through their nose?
These are all great ways of really starting to connect deeply with the other person and I can guarantee you that this doesn’t only work in a sales environment, this is also perfectly adaptable if you are meeting new people or when you start a new job or enter a new school.
As this skill is easy to learn, and we basically have done this for years, it is a skill that will help you to connect with others very easily, no matter at what age you are or in what business you participate.
You might be wondering now this sounds all good and well, but how do I actually do this?
Here is an exercise that you can start implementing for yourself, and for your team for that matter, to gain further experience and deeper understanding on how powerful this technique is and how this will increase your sales ultimately, but most importantly, building rapport with your clients.
The exercise:
Have a group of 3 people ready to perform this simple yet powerful exercise. Person A is the prospect, person B is the sales person and person 3 is the observer.
During the first interaction, let them perform the interaction as they would usually do.
Before moving on to the next step, the observer notes down any positive signals the prospect is giving of feeling connected with the sales person. For the 2nd interaction, the observer will instruct person B to match & mirror person A, in a non-obtrusive way.
After the 2nd interaction the observer shares the changes that are observed between the first and second interaction and also asks feedback from person A if they felt a deeper connection with person B than previously.
Repeat this exercise as many times as needed for the best results.
2. Understanding your client.
We communicate every single day with lots of people from all levels in our organization, with our friends and our families, but how sure are we that they really understand us, or more importantly when we talk about sales, do we really understand them? And what can we do to get in a better connection with them?
Sure, we can guess that if they come to your gym that they have a pain point when it comes to health or their levels of fitness. But do they really see that value of what you are offering?
In the previous chapter we spoke about how matching & mirroring is a great way to build rapport and get to know the client instantaneously, if we talk purely about communicating in terms of using words, this is another easy and yet powerful way of getting into that deeper connecting with your prospect buyer.
The more careful you listen to the client, the better you will become in identifying the key words that they are using.
Why is it important to identify which words or phrases they are using mostly? Remember, everybody has their own ‘model of the world’, this means THEIR world. Not your world, most of the time. And if you want to have a deeper connection, you have to learn how to enter their model of the world, and using the same language as them, is a very important step.
Besides moving into their world, you can also be assured, that if you haven’t built strong rapport yet (from step 1), this will definitely tick their boxes!
Obviously, you will not walk around with a notebook in your hand and write down every single word they use, this is why it’s extremely important to develop your active listening skills, your sensory acuity, how to read body language etc. All these techniques will assist you in making better judgements if the client will buy from you. In this age and time, we are all ‘very busy’ and time is precious, therefore, the quicker you identify the buying potential, the more time you have to find more clients!
I just highlighted a few very important techniques to create deeper understanding with your prospect, and I will quickly explain what they are and how they will benefit you.
Sensory acuity is they key attribute to connect all the dots between you and your client. In NLP we use sensory acuity to identify how the other person is feeling, or how they react to certain external events and also how we feel and react to what happens to us. When you use sensory acuity, you look for the small details like how is the client breathing, do they move their hands in certain ways, is the color of their skin changing? You might think, how will this help? The deepest connections we can make are by connecting to the other person's subconscious mind, and this is what sensory acuity is best for.
Combine your sensory acuity skills with matching & mirroring, and you have a recipe for success just right there!
At the same time, while you are connecting with the client, you ask focused questions.
These questions should be open ended questions, as you want to trigger their brain to answer your question with more than only Yes or No. The more the client talks, the more you will identify their favorite words thus the easier it will be to connect and to get that sale!
The exercise:
Talk to anyone around you, try to see if you can find out their language patterns and see if you can feel the changes in your conversation while you enter their ‘Model of the world’.
This was it! The 5-day challenge: how to become successful in any area of your life!
I hope you have found this useful, and if you want to know more about how to lead a successful, fulfilling life, do reach out to me, changeitcoaching@gmail.com
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