Top salespeople are liked and trusted within the first few seconds a conversation. Here is their secret.
They make it all about the other person. Not just in the words they say but in the thoughts they think and the feelings they feel. It’s simple, and at the same time, so nuanced that it’s difficult to grasp.
Whether you are following up on leads from your website, calling people who you met at an open house or reaching out to people you know (aka past clients and people in your circles), your intention is to build trust and have them like you, quickly, so that you can have genuine conversations and establish if you can work together. Scripts attempt to help you do this and while scripts are better than untrained conversations, there is a far more effective method.
Make it all about them.
The discomfort and fear that we feel around sales calls puts us in a psychological space that is damaging to
our ability to establish trust. We fret and worry about our fears, our feelings, our reactions and all the possible negative outcomes for us. At this moment we are totally self-focused at the exact time that we need to be completely them focused.
Knowing this doesn’t help much – our fears are real and denying them only makes them grow more intrusive. The old adage, fake it till you make it will only carry us so far. To really master the sales conversation, we need to be able to set our fears aside, stop focusing on our inner world and start focusing on theirs.
The secret is curiosity. When we legitimately feel deeply curious about a person we are having a conversation with, the texture of that conversation changes dramatically. They feel heard, they feel understood and they feel like they matter to you. This builds trust. This leads to great relationships. This will increase your lead conversion rate dramatically.
Building this mindset of curiosity will have an enormous impact on your business. It takes time like any good habit but I’ve watched so many of our clients do this and achieve incredible success – both financial and personal.