Here are 10 tips that will help you connect with prospects and customers:
- Think about the best possible result for both parties. Consciously build your reputation in every meeting with prospects and customers. Think about the impact that everything you say or do might have on your reputation.
- Listen past your blind spot. Try not to assume you are always correct. Listen to prospects and customers with a willingness to change your mind. Take on other people’s perspectives so you can really understand what they’re saying. Ask questions to be sure you comprehend fully what they’re trying to tell you. Devote your full focus on prospects and customers, and they may do that same for you. Be open to influence and you may gain influence.
- Engage them. Show prospects and customers that you identify with them by demonstrating that you know their issues, objectives, vulnerabilities and worries. This level of empathy may win their trust. Absorbing someone else’s perspective may also help you develop “solution awareness” so you can offer to help people achieve their goals because you have learned what they need.
- Remember that every demand a prospect makes is not necessarily critical. Prospects don’t expect to get everything they ask for, so you should not automatically concede every demand for fear of losing the sale. Often it pays to take the time to mutually explore alternative trade-off opportunities.
- Create a value dimension. Try to develop a compelling narrative of your vales. Prospects connect with salespeople who share their values. They want to feel good about the answers they get to questions about the salespeople they deal with. “Do these salespeople understand me?” “Can they do something for me?” “Can I trust them?” “Will they deliver on their promises?”
- Discover what prospects need and want. Be proactive in looking for problems. Ask questions to find out where prospects may need help. Then plan to do everything you can to find solutions.
- Be aware of what makes your product or service different. You have to find a way to differentiate your product or service from your competitors’, and make your prospects aware of the differences.
- Allow prospects to discover the depth of your experience and extent of your knowledge. This is the added value you bring that can make a significant difference.
- Set goals and focus on what you want to achieve. Establish priorities and know what you have to do in order to keep moving forward.
- Never stop looking for potential new customers. While it’s often difficult to get in front of customers as much as we might like, try to stay in front of them as much as possible.
Adapted from: Real Influence, by Mark Goulston and John Ullmen. Goulston is a consultant, columnist, coach and FBI hostage negotiator. Lumen is an executive coach and lectures on leadership at UCLA
