Selling 102 using your senses

Hey, here is a picture that says it all.  Now if you are paying attention and want to find out why this picture is  worth a thousand words, then you must think about what is the  important parts in this picture.

It doesn’t matter that you know this young lady or you do not know who the lucky guy is.  You do not know her name or his name.  What is important about this picture is that it got your attention and it had a little bit of tantalization that let your mind focus on the “what if”. This picture is using the essence of selling.

The what if is the essence of selling.  What if you were the guy in the picture.  What if you were the girl in the picture.  You might remember a scene like this in your past.  Sure, maybe this is more tantalizing for men than women, but the point is it uses our senses to paint a picture.

The important thing about this picture is that it appeals to the true visual and imaginary senses that we all have.  If you can use the 5 senses God gave us to picture a situation, then you can design your presentation around the essence of the “what if” that will help you present your product so your prospect can visualize the future tense of when that product or service is sold.

Sometimes it is only an attention getter that will help you to get to the next step.  As long as you are in the stage of getting the prospect listening and liking you, use the 5 senses.  Any of them can work or all of them can work.  When you paint a picture that includes the senses it is a picture that will be more compelling than plain white toast.  Here is an example:

It is time for breakfast.  You wake up to the smell of robust fresh ground coffee that reaches your nose and lets you remember a time you spent the night in your grandmothers home during the winter.  It was cold on that morning and you had warm covers on you.  You didn’t want to get out of the feather bed but the coffee smell had you.  When you get to the kitchen  you can see the amazing stuff going on.  On the stove is a hot pot of fresh grits slowly boiling, and you can hear the  sizzle of a pan full of bacon slowly turning brown, and just as you sit down, your grandmother gets your little glass of fresh orange juice and asks how do you want your eggs.  Now these are not just any old eggs.  They were gathered from the hen house this very morning.  They are organic eggs that are produced by chickens from my grandmothers hen house.  The bacon and ham came from the same farm.  By the time breakfast is ready there are two big biscuits with fresh butter melting on the inside on a separate bread plate. The coffee is ready and what a great breakfast to start the day.  (If you don’t understand the grits part I will guess you live somewhere north of here.)

Have you got this picture? Can you visualize it?  Are you hungry now? If you are or can see this picture, then this is all that you need to present your products and make a sale.  I think I am going to take a break and eat some breakfast.  I will finish this segment after that.

Well I am back to the keyboard. What I have been talking about is your ability to analyse your product and find the true benefits for using your product and design a presentation that appeals to the senses. If you don’t appeal to your prospect’s senses then you are just an order taker, instead of a professional.

Let’s say that you are selling a product that is a time saving device.  If your presentation can include a question to your prospect that finds out what he or she would do with a few extra hours in a week then you may find a hook that you can design your presentation around.  If saving time is not a goal, you must find out more information about your prospect.  Sometimes visual clues help.  What does the prospects office convey? How is the prospect dressed?  You must become like a well trained 007 to pay attention to every last detail.  They will tell you more about your prospect and give you information to construct your presentation.

It is easy and quick to find out a lot of basic information about a prospect or the company before you make a call.  Google is your friend.

In review you should be able to think about what the selling process is.  It starts out with an introduction and first impression then attention and information gathering.  I define the process as follows:

1-Introduction

2-Truth finding facts

3-Presentation

4-confirmation

5-desire and commitment

6-Da Close

7-Implementation

In future post I will cover the next step.  “The Presentation”