The Truth, Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

Our business of professional sales coaching and training has brought us in front of a myriad of clients of all different industries, company sizes and experience levels. Yet, one thing we consistently see as a need among our clients is refinement in the area of communication. Before working with our techniques and training tools, many of our client companies would not have the proper communication guidelines to follow in leading a sales conversation in the direction – and at the pace – that is most effective for the customer to arrive at a purchase decision. We’ve seen a huge gap in communication! It doesn’t have to be that way. As I like to say, “Improve your communication skills improve your results.  A sale is that simple of a game.” One of the best ways to get those results is by working through an exercise that we call the Undeniable Truth Tree. Let me explain.

The Undeniable Truth Tree is a part of what we call Green Zone communication. It’s critical that in the process of company communication, sales representatives guide their conversation with the client/customer in a direction that adequately addresses all problems and objections that the client might have. Using Undeniable Truth Statements and Undeniable Truth Questions, your sales team should be engaging your prospective clients in conversation that makes it difficult for them to say “no” and opens up the conversation.

Without engaging the client in these questions, your sales team may have never gained an appropriate understanding of why the client might be hesitant to say “yes” to your product or service. Your chances of making the sale improve dramatically by exploring the undeniable truth tree with the prospect, simply because you are unearthing hidden problems that they are otherwise likely to be sorting through in their own head without inviting you in on that conversation.

Think about the questions you could be asking and statements that you could be making that would engage your prospects in an active conversation about the objections they may have against your product or service. Your mission is to ensure that you effectively communicate how your company will fulfill their goals and needs at a level that meets or exceeds the price that they will be paying to you. By going through the Undeniable Truth Problems and Questioning with your prospects, they will be open to discussing how you and your products can help them with their problems.  Of course if there is a fit! That, my friends, is a win-win!

Decisions

Lucky or Unlucky

#1 Sales Mistake!

The #1 sales mistake is getting too specific too fast!  We often get right to the product pitch.  Poor communication skills lead to poor results.  Let me share a story about what happened one evening in a Chicago restaurant. Would you agree that a waiter or a waitress is a salesperson?  Their tips are direct proportion to your bill total.  The more they get you to order the higher their tip.  My fiancée and I had finished our meal, and the server brought the check to the table and said, “Ya wouldn’t want anything else wouldya?”  What I’m referring to is a lack of communication skills in the sales environment.

This is why the word sales and sales people have become feared and loathed in some cases.  As salespeople we need to restore the word back to its Norwegian roots selje meaning to serve.  You need to better serve clients and stay in what I call the Green Zone.  Too often we just “pitch” features and benefits because we are excited about what our product does or excited about the meeting.  I believe solution based selling formats are also misunderstood and miss the mark.  I have always said to resist going to your bag pulling out marketing materials and resist going into the product pitch.

A better way to handle this would have been for the server to bring out a tray of desserts to get my mouth watering, then to explain in great detail which one is her favorite. Even if I am not planning to order dessert, this all-out assault on my senses may win me over, and if I get a whiff of chocolate, it’s a done deal. But in this case, the server’s poor sales techniques kept me from asking for more information. She lost out on the opportunity serve her customer while increasing the restaurant’s sales and her tip.

We use a model we designed called Green Zone Communication to effectively draw out your clients problems and illustrate where your solutions lay in the communication hierarchy.  We call the area of communication where the problem and solution lie in the Green Zone.  The product details, price and implementation lie in what’s called the Red Zone.  The Red Zone is where all objectionable material is communicated.

I have found that most salespeople do not have a clear message on the problems that their products solve.  They usually are well versed in the features, benefits and the solutions, but these are drastically different from drawing out the problems of your customer.  The main focus of prospect interactions has to be all about problems and goals.  We take people through an exercise called the Undeniable Truth Tree.   The tree has sales representatives outline features and benefits.  We then start coming up with undeniable truth questions or undeniable truth statements to engage prospects and customers.  Undeniable Truths are statements or questions relate to the problems that your customer or prospect has or is experiencing.  These statements and questions are hard for your prospect to say “no”.

The prospect/customer needs to talk about the problem statements and problem questions.  We cannot tell them what their problems are.  They need to get into the state of their problems and pass the words over their own lips.  The reason I point this out is it is easy to get someone to agree with a couple problem statements, but we need to get them to open up about their problem.  The customer needs to be engaged and fully associated into the problem.

For instance, I work with a lot of medical equipment companies. Due to decreased budgets over the past few years these sales have become tough for them.  We came up with Undeniable Truth statements around budget.  The premise is if you can show them how to save money with the implementation of your product how could they so “no”?  The sales rep would say, “So I am hearing budgets are tight. How has this affected you?”  After a detailed conversation about budget, then the sales representative could go into what are the specific goals the customer has in the fiscal year.  By understanding the problems and the goals you can begin to establish the true value of your product.

Once you have a good grasp on the specific problems and goals you can go into the “what if” state.  What if I could show how to save money…   This is the beginning of understanding Green Zone Communication.

You need to future address all objections before you ever get to the Red Zone conversation.  The Green Zone is also where you need to future address all objections.  You know the common ones that usually come up in your industry.  Never just let objections come up, you need to answer them or what we call future address every one before you bring up the objectionable material.

Let me share with you a couple great ways to overcome the price objection and a simple way to keep the energy flow on all other objections.  Now the funny thing is these ideas have been around for a long time, but I don’t hear many people using them.

The first is the contrast frame, value versus price.  The contrast of value versus price is used to future address the price objection.  In my personal coaching practice I draw out all the problems a person has and I draw out all the goals that a person has to establish value.  I ask, how much would it be worth to accomplish all those goals and overcome all those obstacles?  The response is always a resounding enthusiasm they cannot control.  I also guarantee my results, therefore my price is very palatable.  If somehow price comes up too soon, just take a step back and say, “I am not even sure we would be a fit.” Or use the agreement frame.

The agreement frame is saying, “I agree, and”.  Using the example above you would just say, “I agree with you, and our price would seem high if you have not seen that value.”  Now get back to the Green Zone Undeniable truths to start building the value and therefore the contrast to your price.

“Ya wouldn’t want anything else woudya”  Not only was this improper English, but it was also an extremely poor way to sell us on dessert, which would increase the size of my bill and thus the proportionate size of her tip.  Improve your communication skills improve your results.  A sale is that simple of a game.

Matthew Linklater is a motivational speaker, trainer, and personal coach.  Matt is a bestselling author.  He has written 2 books –Quick Witted and Counter Attack.  Mathew also is a  certified Master and Trainer of Neuron-Linguistic Programming, Time Line Therapy^TM, and hypnotist.  He is a former Vice-President of 3 fortune 100 companies.  Matt believes perfect communication has perfect results.

www.Thelinklater.com / matt@thelinklater.com / 773-355-0656