Category: Sales

Since most of us were small children we have been fascinated with stories.  From Dr. Suess to the brothers Grimm, we have all been captivated at one point or another by a great story.  We use stories on a daily basis.  Whether we are telling tall tales about our weekend to co-workers on Monday or embellishing on that last great fishing trip, we have all tell stories on a regular basis.  Think about the last great story you heard or told.  How did it make you feel?  Did you feel a connection with the story teller?  Did you get engaged and activate your imagination becoming part of the story?

Storytelling is a real art form and as it turns out it is one that we, as sales professionals, should work hard to master.  You see, researchers at Princeton University have found that stories can create a coupling of brain activity between the speaker and the listener.  They coined the term neuro-coupling to describe this.  They found that brain activity was mirrored between the speaker and the listener.

Uri Hasson, an assistant professor in Princeton’s Department of Psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, says “The stronger the coupling between the speaker and the listener’s brain responses, the better the understanding,” he said. “Sometimes when you speak with someone, you get the feeling that you cannot get through to them, and other times you know that you click. When you really understand each other, your brains become more similar in responses over time.”

This is important when trying to build a bond with our customers and gives us another mechanism to strengthen that bond using stories about our past customer experiences with our product or service.  As a sales professional it is important to have a repertoire of stories related to your product or service to draw from depending on what your customer interaction is at any given time.  For us as a mortgage broker this can mean finding stories to illustrate some of the product options available or finding stories to allay your prospects concerns over rate or lender selection.  Let me give you an example of a story that I have used for years to convey the options available with respect to the length of the mortgage term and fixed vs. variable rate.

Many years ago I sat with a couple at their kitchen table and talked mortgages.  We talked about options such as fixed rate , variable rate, open, closed, long-term or short term.  The couple was in their early fifties and buying their dream home that they fully expected to retire in.  After minimal explanation of the different options available the wife looks at me and says “What is your 25 year rate?”.  I responded with “Let me explain the difference between term and amortization…”.  She stopped me and said “No, I understand that.  What is your 25 year, fixed rate mortgage at?”.  Well, at that time we did have a lender that offered such a product.  I replied and told her that the current rate would was 6.75%.  She said “Perfect, what would our payment be at that rate?”.  I responded and told her what her payment would be and then went on to explain that a shorter term or even variable rate might be worth looking at as it could significantly reduce the interest rate.  She listened and politely replied “Mike, I understand all that.  No offense but, I never want to have to see you again.”  Well, I wasn’t quite sure how to take that but I understood what she was getting at.  For them it was a comfort level thing.  She went on to say that they knew they could afford that payment now and they could afford that payment when they retired.  “Make it happen” she says. So I did.  That was the only 25 year product I ever sold in my 20 years as a mortgage broker.  Now is that a strategy I would recommend for anyone?  Not likely, but the story illustrates the decision making process when looking at fixed vs. variable and longer term vs. shorter term.

Find stories from your personal experiences that relate to your sales process.  Keep them authentic but practice and refine them and build an inventory for all occasions.  We all know intuitively that stories make things more interesting but it is nice to know that there is science to back up the power of story in your client interactions.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/162010475″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”100″ iframe=”true” /]Many of the business lessons I’ve learned of late have come from my experience as an amateur triathlete.  It is interesting having conversations with individuals who have watched my journey from the beginning up to my Ironman experience to date.  For many who have an interest in fitness I listen as they talk about the potential of them looking at triathlon as a sport and listening to what holds them back.  For most that I talk to the answer is the same.  The dreaded swim.  Most talk about how they have done some running in the past so that doesn’t intimidate them and cycling, well, cycling is easy.  But that swim? Man, I don’t know if I can do that.

If you have heard me talk about my decision to do my first triathlon at the behest of my 12 year old son, you will know that I had the same trepidation.  I couldn’t swim.  Well, like most, I had splashed around in pools and lakes for years and had done some kind of swimming lessons over the years as a child.  I justified my decision to do my first tri in that it was only a 300 m swim, and really,  how hard could that be?  Well, I realized after I committed to the race and set myself off to the first visit to the pool where I would actually do some lap swimming just how difficult it was!!  I quickly discovered that while I theoretically knew how to do the front crawl, it was an entirely different thing actually doing it.  I could barely swim 25 meters!  I was scared.  300 meters was starting to look like 100 miles!  Imagine my deflation when I first got in and realized that even a measly 25 meters was a substantial effort.  I was horrified.

So like any good tech savvy individual, I knew the answer lay somewhere within Google.  So I started doing some research and finally found, with the aid of a friend, a program that I thought might work.  You see the premise was to stretch your breathing just a little bit each time and not worry about form or technique but to get your lungs conditioned to consume the oxygen you needed.  Basically, just get the distance in any way you can and keep the rests short enough that you were not quite entirely recovered before starting the next lap.  If you are interested you can see the program I followed here.

Eventually I became comfortable with the breathing aspect and could then focus on technique.  In the short amount of time I had to prepare for the race I could comfortably (not quickly) swim the 300 meters required to complete the race.  From there I went on to get proper coaching on form and technique and am now a fairly strong swimmer.  The point of the story is this:

No one is born good at something.  You have to suck at it first and practice to become proficient.

So how does this relate to sales and business?  Well it is often fear of failure, or fear of not being able to do something well that holds us back from trying.  If you accept the statement above as true, and granted we are all born with differing natural abilities, and you accept that as a mindset, you will not be afraid to do the things you know are necessary for you to become a success.  You know that sucking at it is just part of the process.  Just a milestone along the path that you need to pass before you get to your destination.

I want you to think about something that you know you should be doing in your business that you are not currently doing.  Take a minute right now and think of it.  Better yet write it down.  For me it was cold calling.  You know, just picking up the phone and talking to people who I knew I needed to talk to to reach my objectives.  I’ll tell you it certainly made things easier for me when I embraced this mindset.  When I accepted the fact that I was going to suck at the first few calls and that this was simply part of the road I was going to have to travel on to get to my destination.  It made it so much easier to make those calls.  The way I look at it now is that the only thing between me and accomplishing my goals are making those calls.  The sooner I suck at the task the sooner I get good at it.  The sooner I get good at it, the sooner I can achieve my goals.  When I change my perspective and look at it that way it makes those first times when I am terrible that much easier to bear.

Visualize with me your goals or objectives.  Think of the end result.  Paint a vivid picture in your mind of what your current destination looks like.  Paint a mental picture of the path that leads you there.  Imagine the things that are currently standing in your way.  The things you know you should be doing to get you there that you are currently not doing.  Picture them as a flaming wall of fire between you and your destination.  Now picture yourself as Evel Knievel boldly riding your motorcycle through to reach your destination.  How does it feel when you reach the other side?  How does it feel knowing that you’ve passed that brief moment of fear and reached your goal by doing what you need to do to get there?

Embrace the idea that you will likely have to do the things you know you need to do poorly before you can do them well.  When you start with this mindset, that it is OK to suck at something, it makes it so much easier to step off the edge and make that leap.  What is holding you back from doing those things that you know you need to do?

Many of us are familiar with visualization techniques in achieving goals.  Many of these techniques were popularized by the book “The Secret” published in 2006.  Dr. Maxwell Maltz wrote about the power of imagination in his book PsychoCybernetics first published in 1960.  Dr. Maltz explores the science of self image and has set many of the widely accepted self-help techniques in use to this day.  One of the quotes from his book is this:

Human beings always act and feel and perform in accordance with what they imagine to be true about themselves and their environment.

If we accept this fact to be true then let’s explore how we can use this to improve how we communicate with others and more importantly how we can use this principal to sell more effectively.  Let me start by sharing a story with you about an experience I recently had that outlined the power of this to me.

I was speaking at one of our industry conferences on the power of having a sales process.  During my presentation I went through the advantages of having a well defined sales process.  One of the advantages I highlighted was the ease of adding and testing new things within your sales cycle.  I went on to highlight something that my team had been doing for years, sending a box of cookies to the clients workplace at the time of approval, as a thank you.  Now this is something I have talked about with my team for many years and there were a few of them in the audience as I spoke.  I went on to explain why sending something edible to a workplace was far more effective than a simple thank you gift at closing.  I carefully took them through the scene using many descriptive terms.  “Imagine your client sitting at their desk receiving a gift wrapped box of cookies.  Picture the scene… What happens when someone gets a delivery at work?  That’s right, everyone gathers around to see what it is and who it came from.  Now imagine them opening the box of edibles.  What do you think they likely do with a dozen cookies?  That’s right.  They share! “Who are those cookies from?” “My mortgage broker” “Your mortgage broker?  Hmmmm… my mortgage is coming up for renewal soon…” ”  I painted a very vivid picture of the scene and walked them through a couple of potential scenarios to demonstrate the power of adding this one step to their sales process.

It was the week after that the power of this technique hit me.  I was out for a beer with one of our team recapping the conference experience and discussing what we had learned and the quality of the content from all the speakers.  She went on to comment that she thought the gift to the workplace was a brilliant idea and had never fully understood the power of that.  Now keep in mind that this is someone who has worked with me for several years and has heard me talk of this idea many times and has seen it implemented.  I was surprised that they had just opened up to the strength of this idea so I asked what it was that had made the difference.  What was it that I had said differently that caused that “light bulb” moment.  They went on to tell me that it was really when I had described the scene at the workplace and had them imagine what that would look like that really made the difference.  It was really interesting for me to watch a concept that I believe in, the power of imagination, shed light on a tool that I always took for granted and thought everyone saw the same way I did.  Again, this is someone who has been involved in my sales process for years that was just seeing things in a new light.  Very impactful.

So let’s talk about how we can use the power of imagination in our sales process with our clients.  Ultimately we want our prospective clients to imagine either how much better things might be if they take our product or service or we want them to imagine how much worse they will be if they don’t.  One of the most effective ways of doing this is to use questions during the sales process.  “What would things look like for you in 6 months if you did not use my services”.  “What would things look like for you if you DID use my services.”  Now, as mortgage brokers we may want to paint a little bit of a picture for them before we ask those questions.  If we are talking to a client we may want to have them imagine six months down the road when they have some questions about their mortgage and can’t get a hold of anyone at the branch.  We may want to describe the scene as they go to the lawyers office and we have already contacted to ensure instructions are there and accurate.

For our REALTOR referral sources we may want to have them picture driving a client around, showing them houses for 2 months, writing an offer then having the bank turn their client down because the pre-approval wasn’t done right.  There are dozens of scenarios that could both highlight why life would be better working with you and why it could be worse if they choose not to work with you.  Use descriptive words to paint the picture and ask questions to force them to mentally visualize the scenario in their head.  The more effective you can be in provoking them to use their imagination the more powerfully you can make your point.

In a world where we are constantly searching for answers, I was reminded last week at a conference I attended that often times the answer is to question.  Huh?!?  OK, I know It may sound like some goofy new age thought but often times you can get what you want by simply asking better questions.  Whether you want more out of yourself or more from others the key lies in the questions you ask.

Getting more out of your self

This one is important and something that fascinates me.  How do we continue to stay focused and on track toward achieving our goals?  In a perfect world we stay focused and motivated automatically.  Unfortunately the cold, hard reality is that this does not usually happen.  One of the things that I have found helps me is if I ask myself the following questions on a daily basis.  Now of course for this to be effective we need to have our objectives or goals very clearly outlined.  That is another topic of discussion but for now let’s assume that your vision of what you want and who you want to be is very clear.  Once you have clearly identified what you want to accomplish you need to measure and test your actions against that.  I do that with four daily questions.  One in the morning, and one at the end of my day and the other two are ongoing and usually help generate the answers to the first one.

Morning Question:  What will I do today to get me closer to my goal?

Daily Questions (I keep a watchful eye on this one):
What is in my way of accomplishing what I want?
How can I remove what is in my way?

Evening Question:  What have I done today to get me closer to my goal?

A very simple concept yet very powerful.  This helps me stay accountable to myself.  During the day I know what I have answered in the morning and I know I will have to answer my end of day question before I pack it in for the night.  For me this simple process helps me stay focused and on track.

You can extend this concept to just about anything.  The keynote speaker at our conference last week was a fellow by the name of Drew Dudley who I have had the privilege to get to know over the last few years after he spoke at the Axiom National conference in New Orleans.  Drew’s message is fairly simple.  He talks about creating a culture of leadership.  Showing leadership in everything you do.  You need to “Plan to matter”.

If you’ve heard Drew speak, you’ve probably heard him share the following six questions as a way to plan to matter each day:

1. What have I done today to recognize someone else’s leadership?
2. What have I done today to make it more likely I will learn something?
3. What have I done today to make it more likely someone else will learn something?
4. What positive thing have I said about someone to their face today?
5. What positive thing have I said about someone who wasn’t in the room today?
6. What have I done today to be good to myself?

Drew planned a workshop for us in New Orleans where we were lead to identify and define the values that we want to embody and designed questions similar to the above that will help us measure whether we are representing those values on a daily basis.

It was a fascinating excercise and one I suggest you try for yourself.  We often throw around terms like Integrity, Character, Hard working, Honest, Successful but how do we quantify that?  How do we define these terms?  Then most importantly what questions can we ask ourselves daily to ensure we are embodying the qualities that are important to us.

So my challenge to you is to take the following three steps:

1. Write down the top 3 words you want people to use to describe you
2. Define those words in plain language (not a dictionary definition, but what they mean to you)
3. Come up with a question or series of questions that you can ask yourself daily to ensure you are living these values.

Once you have done that I would encourage you to share at least one of your values, definitions and questions below.

If you want to be successful in any sales career there is simply no replacement for good old fashioned hard work.  The bottom line is you will need to get up off your comfy chair and hit the streets making connections.  It really isn’t rocket science but for some reason we tend to either forget that, or find excuses to not actually get out and hustle.  How many times have we heard the term “getting back to basics”.  It is something that we talk about often but don’t always do.

You can make sales or you can make excuses.  It’s hard to do both.

I had a meeting last week that reminded me of the importance of “doing the hustle”.  I get meeting requests all the time from a variety of suppliers, from private lenders looking to get in front of our team to marketing sales people with the next ‘big’ marketing thing they want to sell me.  I tend to guard my time closely so am cautious about who I schedule appointments with.  The request last week was from a private lender with commercial and investment connections.  My first reaction was to put them off until the next industry event and simply connect there.  I thought about the fact that he was obviously getting out and meeting brokers so decided if nothing else I could hear what his value proposition was and tell him a little of the Axiom story so if he ran across anyone in his travels that might be looking for a new home he would at least have some frame of reference to potentially refer individuals our way.

He went out of his way to accommodate my tight schedule and location.  The meeting was indeed much better than I had expected and it turns out there may be some substantial opportunity for both of us.  Time will tell.  One of the things that I asked during our meeting was about his background.  I also indicated that I was pleased that we had met and confessed to almost not taking the meeting.  He went on to tell me his background with one of the major FI’s and told a story of how when he first started he recognized immediately that a series of his predecessors who had failed had likely failed because they got comfortable behind the desk and did not actually get out in front of the customers.  He made a point to get out of the office and actually get face to face with his customers (as he had done with me).  The result was taking that branch from something like 163rd out of 168 nationally to being in the top 20 in the country.  Impressive results indeed!

It was a great reminder of the power of simply hustling and doing the extra little things right that not everyone is doing.  In this day and age of advanced technology it is so easy to take the easy way out and send a tweet or an email.  Why not pick up the phone?  Why not get face to face with your prospects?  It is usually “you” that they are buying and can you really convey who “you” are over an email?  In an overly high-tech world where most people will opt for the path of least resistance, it is even easier than ever for you to stand out.  Get in front of your prospects live and in real time.  Don’t take the comfort and simplicity of an email or an electronic message of some kind.  That is what your competition is doing.  By all means qualify your prospect first, but once you have get off your backside and go see them!  Assuming you are good at what you do you will leave an impression.

We have more methods than ever to make the initial connection or introduction.  What you do with that is up to you.  One of the things that I try and do with all of my relevant social media connections (FB, Twitter or LinkedIn) is to pick up the phone and extend that connection to a live, offline interaction.  What do you do to grow your base of connections?

OK, well they’re not really tailors.  More high end men’s clothing retailers but the alliteration in the title sounded better this way ;0).  I really enjoy wearing a nice suit.  As a businessman there is nothing more satisfying then getting all decked out in a new suit.  This is a story contrasting two different shopping experiences and the lessons that we can learn from others mistakes.

In early January this year I made a trip to Harry Rosen to purchase a few shirts and a new suit.  My regular sales person wasn’t in so I ended up with a young fellow who was eager to assist and for the most part did a great job in assisting me with some options of suit and shirt combinations.  One of the shirts that I absolutely loved was not available in stock in my size.  It was the exact same brand and cut as one of the other shirts I had chosen so he offered to order it for me knowing that the sizing and the fit would be perfect based on the other shirt I had tried on.  I have short arms so almost always need to have sleeves shortened.  My sales person measured me up and agreed to have the three shirts I purchased that were in stock and the one on order altered to fit my arm length.  Alterations are always a pain for me because the store is in West Edmonton Mall and I live in Sherwood Park, a good 30-35 minutes away depending on traffic.  I left the store pleased with my purchase, if not frustrated because after shelling out all that money the only thing I actually leave with is a pair of socks while the suit and shirts go to the tailors.  The sales person tells me he will call when the alterations are complete and ready for pick up.

Flash forward a week or ten days and I get the voicemail that tells me that the suit and shirts are ready for pickup.  Woohoo!  Have I mentioned that I love getting new suits?  Unfortunately it is probably another week or ten days before I can actually get out to the mall to pick up the items.  When I get there the sales fellow seems surprised to see me.  I reminded him that he left a message saying my items were ready for pickup.  He goes to the back and returns with my suit and shirts as well as the shirt he had ordered.  The one he ordered in is still in the original packaging UNALTERED!!  I am not happy as I now have to make a second trip out and am tempted to just take the shirt and have a local tailor fix it.  When I ask him why he would not have had the ordered shirt altered he stammered and attempted to defend himself saying some nonsense about wanting to wait to hear back from me before having it altered.  Now I am really annoyed.  Not only did he make a mistake not having the shirt altered but now he is going to defend his position rather than just own the mistake and find a solution.  I left the store without the shirt knowing I now had to return to pick it up.

Contrast that experience with an experience I had a few weeks ago at the same mall.  My kids decided they wanted to take some friends to the water park and Galaxyland for a Saturday afternoon.  Well they are old enough that they had no interest in having Dad hang around so I had a good 3 hours to wander the mall.  Let me make it clear… I had zero intention of shopping.  I enjoy wandering the mall, enjoying a coffee and people watching.  I wandered by Harry Rosen and thought about stepping in to window shop but decided against it.  I kept on wandering and passed by Hugo Boss.  At that point I realized I had a golf tournament to attend and currently had no golf shirts that actually fit me anymore.  I popped into Boss to have a look at their golf shirts.  I was not impressed with their selection of golf shirts but did end up wandering to the back of the store to the suit racks (have I mentioned that I love new suits?).

I started pawing at a suit that caught my eye and was immediately approached by a young woman who commented on how nice my choice was.  “Let me grab your size” she says.  “That’s OK, I’m just killing some time while the kids are at the waterpark” I reply.  “You’re a 38” she states as she holds up the jacket in a size 38 for me to try on.  “No I’m a 40 usually”.  “No, you’re a 38.  Try this.”.  I slip on the jacket and immediately feel that sense of power and success that a nice suit can provide.  She leads me to the mirror.  Damn, I look good!  Even in jeans that jacket would work well as a blazer.  “Let me grab you the pants she says”. Oh, alright I’m this far now and after all I do have 3 hours to kill.  She brings me the pants, I try them on and I am no longer in love with the suit.  A little too much pattern for my liking.  I tell her this and mentioned that I had liked the jacket as a potential blazer.  She also has another customer so leads me to the blazer rack and says I’ll be right back as she goes to assist the other customer.  I select a nice gray spring jacket with a hint of pink in it.  It fits well and looks great.  She returns and says “Nice choice.  That would look great with a nice crisp pink shirt.” I reply “Um, ya pink may be a little out of my comfort zone.”  She doesn’t contradict me but quickly brings me a couple of alternative colors, both of which look great.  She then brings me a pair of navy pants and says “Try these” which I do and while the color works the style and the fit doesn’t.  Angelena doesn’t miss a beat, she offers to bring me another pair in a dressier style.  These work!  “Um… about that pink shirt… Let’s give it a try” I say.  I love it!

Long story short (and there is more to the story. she was good!) I walked out of there after not planning on buying anything, with a sport coat, 3 shirts, a pair of pants and a pair of socks.  She measured me up and indicated that their tailor was a little backed up and that it would likely be at least 10 days.  Would that be OK?  Certainly that was fine, I was not in a rush for them.  I left the store after dropping a lot of money with my single little bag of socks.

A great sales experience so far.  But wait! There’s more! The following Friday, six days after my shopping trip, Brian from Boss calls and leaves me a message and asks me to call him.  I’m thinking “Oh great. Now what?”.  I call Brian back and he tells me that their tailor is a little backed up and asks if Tuesday pickup would be OK.  He quickly tells me that if it is not OK he can make alternate tailoring arrangements.  I told him I wasn’t expecting them to be ready until at least Wednesday anyhow so that was fine.  He seemed relieved and indicated that he had hoped to have them for Saturday or Sunday and asked if Wednesday would still be OK if I wasn’t in a rush.  I told him that would be fine and he thanked me for my patience.  The kicker?  It is now Thursday, 11 days after my shopping trip and I still have not picked up the clothes.  As I am writing this article my phone rings and guess who?  It is Angelena from Boss following up and letting me know that my clothes are ready.  She asks if I know when I will be in because she’d like to be there to make sure the alterations are correct!  Holy smokes! What a different sales experience this has been!!

So let’s do a little post game analysis on this one from a sales perspective.

This is more a story of what was done right but lets briefly talk about what the salesperson at Harry Rosen did wrong.

a) He made a mistake not ensuring that all my items were ready for pick up
b) When confronted with that mistake he defended it instead of owning it.

Had he simply apologized I likely would have been placated.  If he had in fact apologized, and promised to have it tailored ASAP and then have it couriered to me I probably would have been a customer for life.

People don’t often remember the mistakes you make but they do remember how you handle them.

What did Angelena at Hugo Boss do right?  There are so many things that she did that made this a fantastic experience for me.  Some of which I did not describe.  For example the way she handled having two clients at the same time was masterful.  I could likely write a whole article on that alone.

Some of the highlights from a sales perspective:

a) She engaged me immediately and made me feel welcome.
b) She paid me a sincere compliment by commending my choice of suit
c) She got me to “feel” the new suit experience by grabbing me my size, getting me in the jacket and then suggesting I try the pants once she saw that I liked the jacket.
d) Once I indicated I was not in love with the suit combo she did not push it on me but instead followed my cues and led me to the sport coats. (Are you really ‘listening’ to your clients?)
e) She added to her sales opportunity by assisting me with accessories for the jacket.  She didn’t “sell” me things I didn’t need.  She complimented what I was looking at and I was grateful for it. (Are there additional items you sell that might be of benefit to your clients?  Do you make sure they know that?)
f) Once the sales was complete she took the initiative to ask if I needed any other accessories.  I bought a pair of socks.
g) She set my expectations by giving me a worst case estimate on timing for alterations. (Setting expectations is an easy cure for potential future problems)
h) The store exceeded my expectations by calling to ensure the ten day alteration window was acceptable and offered a solution if it was not.
i) She took the initiative to call and confirm that the items were ready for pickup.
j) She showed she cared by asking if I could try and come at a time when she would be available so she could ensure a proper fit.

There were so many things about this transaction that we can learn from.  The reality is that if the first salesperson had owned his mistake and done what he could to right it, I probably never would have walked into Hugo Boss in the first place and likely would have made Harry Rosen my first stop.