By Mike Hirschfield, CEO, Assured Influence
The number one opportunity in your business right now lies in improving your communication. You don’t need the best price, or even the best product to win more sales, but you do need to create the best experience! It’s the way that you treat each customer and the way that you communicate your value which matters most.
No doubt, you have a great message, but if you never get your message through to others, it doesn’t matter. The business of our business is people, not products or services. Does what you have to offer have a deeper more personal impact on your customers’ lives than you learn, lead, and leverage right now?
When the focus shifts from products and services to people, everything changes!
ANSWER THE REAL QUESTIONS
The real questions have nothing to do with the features of your products or offerings. The real questions are much more personal, yet they are the same for every customer. They are: Why listen? Who cares? So What? and Why now? Just because your customers don’t come right out and ask you these questions, it doesn’t mean they’re not asking them. The best communicators see beyond the words, understanding that sometimes the words don’t even matter.
Why Listen?
The 1st Law of Influential Conversations is: Style trumps substance initially. Every customer wants to know why should they listen to you. You are the number one factor of why your customers buy, and you are also the factor of why your customers don’t buy. The harsh reality is: if a customer doesn’t like you, then your products and solutions are irrelevant!
Who Cares?
The 2nd Law of Influential Conversations is: Their feelings dominate your facts. Customers don’t care what you know, if you don’t know them! You will not be able to influence what your customers will do until you first understand how they feel. You may have all the facts, but if your customer does not feel that you are right, your opportunity with that customer is as good as dead.
So What?
The 3rd Law of Influential Conversations is: Their words matter more. Customers buy for their reasons- not ours! Certainly, you provide your customers with reasons to buy; However, in order to have an influential conversa tion, your customers have to personally own the reasons to move forward. Their words matter more, because when they say it, they own it!
Why Now?
The 4th Law of Influential Conversations is: Interaction fuels action. Customers will not take action until they want to take action! Urgency is not found in your customers watching or listening to someone or something, urgency is created by your customers interacting and experiencing something meaningful and exciting. Is your process fast, fun, and interactive?
ASK REALLY GOOD QUESTIONS
Sales often derive from the right opportunities. The right opportunities come from making the right connections, the right connections come from having the right conversations, and the right conversations come from asking the right questions. Make no mistake, asking good questions make all the difference!
Whether you are selling an appointment, service, a vehicle, or F&I products, it’s not what you know about your product or offering that matters most, it’s what you know about your customer. Too many professionals struggle to get through to their customers, and get them to want to buy. The best communicators use power questions to learn, lead, and leverage what already drives their customers to motivate them to take action, now.
There are four types of power questions. Relating questions, resonating questions, differentiating questions, and activating questions.
1: Relating questions help you position yourself and your offering to align with your customer, what they want, and what best serves them.
2: Resonating questions help you tailor your approach and your language so that your value message is fully received, and your customer ‘gets it.’
3: Differentiating questions help you stand out among the crowd and effectively gain priority over price and the competition.
4: Activating questions help you instill certainty and clearly communicate in a way that compels your customers to take action NOW.
There is no better tool in all communication than a proper, purposeful, and personal power question!
PERSONALIZE YOUR COMMUNICATION
The biggest communication mistake made in business is treating every customer the same. Your customers receive your communication through their own lenses. Their perception is conditioned greatly by the angle of your approach and the position of your delivery. In other words, the right message delivered in the wrong way will not yield the right result!
The best communicators understand that influence only begins when you align with the person that you are communicating with. Your customers all tend to prefer and gravitate towards people who are similar to them, or how they’d like to be. Customers also tend to resist and dislike people who are not like them or are not how they’d like to be.
Before you can take your customers to where you would like them to go, you first have to meet them where they are! This means aligning your style, your words, your voice, and your body language. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. Instead, you have to be yourself while communicating in someone else’s “language.” Personalizing your communication, not only greatly improves your communicative abilities, but it is also the only way to truly acknowledge, respect, and enjoy the differences in people.
Today, it takes more than great prices and products to win! It is the personal influence you earn and the experience you provide that determines your success. Communicating effectively with your customers creates better experiences, where they are more likely to buy from you, and refer business to you.
Learn more by attending Mike Hirschfield’s session, “Create Compelling Conversations,” at Digital Dealer 27 (August 19-21, 2019, Las Vegas, NV)
About the Author
Mike Hirschfield is on a mission to empower, equip, and exalt sales and finance teams everywhere! Mike has served in both franchise and independent dealer groups, leading teams as large as 80+ to reach new heights of achievement. He teaches how to build personal influence, become trusted advisors and leverage personal solutions that are aligned with a customers’ most powerful buying motives. Mike empowers teams by developing their ability to build connections and lead customers to take action and buy now! Email: [email protected]