Look for the Strategies
Here is a kaleidoscope of sales calls to illustrate the skills I’ll be presenting here. Different industries and quite different decision makers create the settings and the characters. Selling training has many similarities to selling insurance and investments because the product is intangible. You can’t see, hear, or touch it. Selling all products has certain dynamics that naturally occur, whatever the qualities of the individual products. These sales situations were quite different but I used the same or similar strategies in all of them. See if you can pick out the strategies I used.
Setting: IBM’s offices in upstate New York. It’s February and snow covers the ground.
The first sales call took place 16 years ago but it was so important to me that I can remember every detail. The client and decision maker was 6’6” and we were meeting in his office which has huge glass expanses overlooking the snow. Earlier he had sent a letter to each training department in his large corporation denouncing the discipline which is the core of my seminars and telling each manager to cancel any trainings based on this concept. I had to change his mind about the entire discipline before he’d buy my seminar. The discipline that underlies the skills we teach is so powerful that it has attracted people who misuse the skills. This executive had encountered some of these people and wanted nothing to do with it. He forgot skills are tools. The person decides how to use the hammer to kill or to build a house. It’s up to you.
I recognized drawings on his wall, mentioned the artist by name, said I admired his work and that Doubleday had hired him to illustrate my first book years ago. The executive had warmed up during this exchange then turned grim again.
His major sense was auditory. I am a visual/kinesthetic. We had nothing in common except our admiration for this artist. The snow outside seemed to have sneaked in and affected the temperature. His opening line felt icy as well.
Once we were seated (our CEO, our potential IBM trainer and I) he said, “I phoned each of those employees who you said attended your public seminar. Some of them did not remember what you taught in the seminar.” Pretty icy. I simply looked at him. I said nothing.
Some said they had not used the concepts you taught. They had not found they remembered to use them.” I looked away at this as I felt my disappointment seeping through my body. What’s to say? I remained silent.
He continued, “And some of them said,” he paused, “the things you taught in the seminars changed their lives.” He looked gravely at me then the corners of his mouth turned up and he asked the stock inquiry, “How do your trainings differ from others?
I replied, in his tone and tempo, “Our seminars focus on 1. improving the awareness and rapport skills of the salesperson, 2. finding the client’s need, 3. showing how your service or product fills the need and 4. closing if you have a win/win. We also stress moving on if there is not a match between product and need.”
“You know,” he said, “No, you probably don’t know, that I designed the first sales program that IBM distributed world wide. It’s still in use today. Yours would augment it. I do believe they are compatible. Yours adds information not known then.”
I let out my breath. Was he buying?
He did.
What were the steps I followed that day?
Strategies: Preparation. I knew the culture, the philosophy and the personnel of IBM. I’d been working with them in our public seminars for eight years. I had completed my outcome preparation and my guess about IBM’s outcome.
MYOUR.(Chapter 3) – My outcome was to train as many as were interested in my product.
Your outcome – IBM’s outcome was to have an effective sales force.
Our outcome – To work together to improve the bottom line of IBM by training their sales force in as many effective skills in as short a time as humanly possible.
Then he told me that the official IBM psychiatrist had approved my entire three-day course and IBM would lease my videos for five years for $20,000 (now $30,000). Then he invited us to lunch.
What was my key strategy? Convincing him that the Gestalt and Linguistic skills in our seminar were useful for IBM salespeople – more useful than their present trainings. Actually, the company psychiatrist’s opinion was a deciding factor here, but my entire personality, presence, and congruence supported the psychiatrist’s assessment.
We’ve had on-going trainings in IBM for eighteen years.
The next case was done over the phone and with emails.
Setting: Palo Alto and San Francisco.
Characters: Executive and Genie
The corporate executive had been seated next to an insurance salesman who had recently attended our seminar at a large dinner. She was complaining about non-cooperation and communication glitches among her project teams. The salesman said, “I just completed a three-day seminar that could solve those problems, in my opinion.” He gave me her card. When I phoned she was out.
The first email stated that she was not sure she was the person to buy training. It took a month to schedule the telephone call. The conversation went like this.
“Have you had a chance to look over our website?” I asked.
“Only for a moment.”
“Do you have time now to walk through the specific skills we teach?”
“Yes.”
“Our website is www.influence-integrity.com. Can you find it now?”
Pause.
“Yes, I have it.”
“Click on Influencing with Integrity.”
”I’m there.”
“Scroll down to Module 1.”
I use the printed words on the website to guide her through all twelve modules. At the end she says, “I want to do it for me personally and I may be able to get you in. I’ll talk to my boss about it. When is the next public seminar?”
“I’m just about to schedule six classes. Give me a date you can come in January and I’ll let you set the date.”
“I’m traveling in January but maybe February.”
“After January 3rd, I’ll phone you. I would like to send you a copy of my book to get you started.”
First I sent the book then a package of brochures.
Maybe we’ll be training for this giant international association soon. At least, we’ve established a need and interest.
Strategies: The strategy here was to explicitly state our skills in the belief that one would fit her need. It did.
Setting: Many stories up in a skyscraper on Wall Street.
The Chase Bank trainer, Carol Colone, had ordered 100 copies of Influencing with Integrity. I copied her name off the order, phoned for an appointment and flew to New York from California. She was interested but not ready to buy. She asked if I certified trainers to teach my material. I said “Yes’” and this was a key selling point for her. Her voice tone told me this. When I said we were producing training films to support the live training, she said to come back when they were completed.
Two months later we had a rough cut of the Module One video. I phoned the trainer on a Monday morning and she said she had to leave for Japan on Friday, could I come to New York in three days? My answer was “Yes.”
This time I flew to New York with our CEO and Sales Manager. Carol Colone had collected her boss and a co-trainer for this session.
I showed the rough-cut after explaining that it needed additional editing.
Everything was going along so smoothly that I forgot not everyone has a sense of humor. The questions and answers were the usual ones, no sweat, until Carol asked, “What do you teach in the Trainer’s Seminar?”
My imp took over, things were too smooth. I replied, “Oh, the Egyptian Burial Ritual.” It was meant to be a joke. No one laughed.
I actually did have a movement instructor who led a “Trust Exercise,” called the Egyptian Burial Ritual, but this was no time to bring this up. The temperature in the room was –20 degrees.
I avoided my two colleagues eyes as I tried to dig myself out of the deep hold I’d dug with my words.
After ten minutes of tap-dancing (as in Chicago – the movie) I was finally able to regain enough rapport to demonstrate a spider-fear cure on Carol. This brought the temperature in the room back to normal.
After checking out my “normalness” with a few more questions, we all signed a contract for $32,000. I received the entire check in two weeks.
Our courses were mandatory in Chase Auditing for several years and we conducted ongoing trainings for 12 years.
Strategy: Determine need/interest. Establish Rapport. Listen. Respond to Need.
After loss of Rapport: Rapport by Demonstrating unusual skills. Reverting to appropriate normal behavior.
Setting: IDEA’s office in Palo Alto. Steve has gone to the bank. Alice and others are at lunch and I’m answering the phone.
The phone rings and a woman’s voice orders one copy of Influencing with Integrity – soft cover. I explain we’re out of soft-cover but will sell her a hardback copy for the same price. She likes that. I ask her how she learned of the book. She laughs.
“I met a man on a plane from Chicago. He told me about NLP and piqued my interest. I bought a book he recommended and became even more interested. Then I phoned him and asked for more book titles. He gave me Influencing with Integrity. So I’m ordering it.”
As we talked, I discovered she taught Organizational Development and related subjects at Harvard University. I asked for feedback when she finished the book.
We began an email acquaintance. Here’s her last three emails:
Hi Genie,
Happy New Year!
Just a quick note to say how much I love your book. I’m reading it slowly
because there is so much to contemplate.
Mitzi
Hi Genie,
Good luck with this. It sounds great!
I would like to use your book in my course at Harvard this semester. Will it be
possible to get 35 copies of the paperback?
Mitzi
Hi Genie,
I don’t think that my last attempt to thank you was sent by my computer. So if
this is a repeat my apologies.
Thank you so much for making the hard cover copy available to my students. In my
courses I try to provide students with pragmatic and constructive approaches
that can help them lead more productive, successful, and fulfilling lives.
Students claim that my courses make them more successful in the workplace and
even change their lives which is my goal. Your book fits perfectly with my
philosophy. I can already see how it is changing how I do things.
Mitzi
Strategies: Rapport. Common interests. Listen. Client closes.
Setting: Columbus Georgia
Here’s an account of a true sales call made by Jon Hill, one of the authors, who also happens to be an insurance broker. He works in a medium sized town and works hard at maintaining cordial relationships with many people. One of his clients,Mike (fictitious name), had bought from Jon a policy 10 years before in case he hit a financial snag after mortgaging a new building. My trainer, Jon, had watched the annexes to the building and knew the building had increased in value a lot in 10 years.
So Jon called Mike who seemed slightly reluctant to set up an appointment to discuss new insurance. Jon reminded him his policy was 10 years old and Mike agreed to an appointment. When Jon arrived, Mike’s wife was present but Mike wasn’t. Jon kept her engaged in small-talk until Mike arrived. Nora, Mike’s wife, was an influencer but not a decision maker. After Mike was settled, Jon asked, “How much do you owe on your building now?”
Mike looked uncomfortable and Nora replied, “Almost a quarter of a million.”
“Would you like to share the risk with some new insurance?”
“Do I have to write the check today?” Nora asked with a frown.
“No.” Jon answered.
“Would you like a similar arrangement to the one we made 10 years ago?”
Mike answered, “Could we?”
”Yes, we can do that easily and you’ll be covered for the additional amount.”
Nora and Mike were smiling when Jon left.
Strategies: Jon used the exact same strategies for this insurance sale as I used for my seminar sales.
Setting: Telephone call from Austin, Texas. Not a good connection. The female voice said she’d found our ad in the ASTD Conference Magazine and what we did was just what she wanted. She said her name and corporation so fast I couldn’t compute what I’d heard.
“Do you really do what the ad says?” she asked.
“Yes, I wrote it.”
“And do you have research to back it up?’
“Yes, It’s compiled into a book called ‘Tooting Your Own Horn.’ 26 separate studies.”
“Would you do a pilot program for free?”
“No,” I replied. “We don’t do freebies.”
“If you can do what your ad says, we’ll be having you back – for your usual fees.”
“Well, we do what we say, but we don’t do freebies.”
She closed the conversation by saying, “I’ll get back to you.”
A week later, she called. We had essentially the same conversation. This time I understood her company name when she said, “Dell.”
“Dell Computers?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“We still don’t conduct free seminars.”
Another week passes. Ring. Same conversation until I ask, “Would you pay airfare?”
“No – it’s company policy. We can pay for materials.”
“How much can you pay per person?”
“$250.”
“Per person?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And how many people would be in this free class?”
“30.”
“In one class?”
“Yes.”
“So you would pay $7500 if I’d come?”
“Are your materials $250 per person?”
“Only for you. Ordinarily they’d be $500 per person.”
She didn’t know if I was joking – or not. Neither did I. I’d never done a freebie for $7500. Airfare was about $500, so $7,000 wasn’t my usual fee, but – for Dell as a client?
So I went to Dell, conducted the pilot, collected my check, and we conducted monthly seminars for 5 ½ years until a new set of decision makers came in and changed everything around.
Strategies: Rapport Setting. Sticking with the rules but exploring other options. Listening to the client. Being flexible. Gambling that filling a need by showing up would gain a contract. Letting the client close.
Genie Z. Laborde, Ph. D., is the author of “Influencing with Integrity” and CEO of I.D.E.A., inc., a seminar firm with clients from many industries, i.e., IBM, Chase Bank, SBC, Dell, Sprint, HP, Intel, Kodak, etc.
influence-integrity.com influence-integrity.com
She can be reached at 800-228-4069.
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