SELLING, AN ESSENTIAL FOR ALL CAREERS

SHARED FROM:
MyStarjob.com, Saturday, 21 December 2013
LEARNING TO SELL: AN ESSENTIAL PART OF ALL CAREERS
By Prema Javabalan and Lily Cheah

credit: http://sayuko.deviantart.com

Most of us think that the art of sales resides in just a select few, but Daniel H Pink author of ‘To Sell Is Human’ chooses to think otherwise.  Data is showing that people are now spending a huge portion of their time persuading, influencing, and convincing others to make an exchange; ‘non-sales selling’.  Examples are:

·         Boss trying to get employees to do something different or do something in a different way

·         Employee trying to get  the boss to free up resources for a project

·         Trying to get someone to come and work for your company instead of a competitor

·         Trying to convince the student to pay attention in class

·         A nurse trying to get a patient to change his behaviour

·         An entrepreneur pitching an ideas to investors

Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity (ABC) are the 3 qualities that are the platform for effectiveness in a world where buyers and sellers are more evenly matched.

·         Attunement is perspective-taking, getting out of your own head and seeing things from someone else’s point of view

·         Buoyancy is staying afloat in an ocean of rejection

·         Clarity is moving from accessing information to curating it and from solving existing problems to identify problems customers and prospects don’t realise they have

credit: http://sayuko.deviantart.com

Nurturing the art of negotiation and persuasion:

·         Talk less and listen more

·         Look for ways to explain failure so that it has less personal, pervasive and permanent effects

·         Be a genuine expert in your area

·         Work to curate information ablut that area for followers, customers and prospects,

The 3 key lesson of improvisational

Hear offers

Say ‘yes and’

(Build on other ideas.  ‘Yes but’ is destructive.  ‘Yes and’ is constructive)

Make your partner look good

6 WAYS TO SELL MORE EFFECTIVELY

GET THEIR PERSPECTIVE Attune to the way the other person is thinking Take their perspective but bear in mind that this isn’t the same empathy Knowing what they are thinking and what their interest are Focus on what the other side is thinking rather than how they are feeling

REALLY LISTEN Understanding the perspective of the person you’re trying to persuade or convince We still make the mistake of focusing on what we’re going to say after they’ve finished speaking

INSTEAD OF PUMPING YOURSELG UP, ASK QUESTIONS Questions works better than statements Motivating yourself with questions

FIND PROBLEMS, CURATE SOLUTIONS Selling today is about advising We’ve moved from selling solutions to selling insights

TALK ABOUT POTENTIAL MORE THAN ACHIEVEMENT Studies shows that people are more attracted to potentials

‘YES AND’ VS ‘YES BUT’ The word ‘but’ highlights matters of disagreement The conjunction ‘and’ is more inclusive Instead of swirling downward into frustration, ‘yes and’ spirals upwards towards possibility

credit: http://sayuko.deviantart.com

EXAMPLE: LET’S HAVE OUR HIGH SCHOOL REUNION IN LAS VEGAS
‘YES BUT’	‘YES AND’
Yes, but that’s going to be too expensive for some people	Yes, and if it’s too expensive for some people, we can raise money or organize road trips
Yes, but that way only the people who really want to be there will attend	Yes, and if we start early, we could reserve a block of rooms at a hotel that offers volume discounts
Yes, but some of our classmates don’t gamble	Yes, and for families with kids and for people who don’t gamble, we could organize activities during the day