Probing?

Presenting?

Talking?

Assessing?

Closing?

Manipulating?

The key to selling is not manipulating, it’s harmonizing. But you’d never know that from most salespeople’s actions.  Selling is about understanding the other person and their needs. Prospects and customers have different motives to buy, and it’s a salesperson’s job to uncover them.   Rule of sales: No two sales or sales presentations are alike.

Any sales presentation must be adapted to uncover the motives and objectives of the buyer. A seller must also work to understand a buyer’s opportunities and barriers, his/her needs and desires, and generally harmonize with the person and that person’s personality. A seller must also satisfy or fit within the buyer’s financial parameters.

All my sales life, I’ve been exposed to and frustrated by systems of selling. And all my sales life I’ve fought them as being hokey, outdated, bogus and non-realistic processes that people learn but never really feel comfortable using. At the least, I’ve found them manipulative.

Not that these systems are totally wrong. The problem is that they don’t always fit the situation. Salespeople who use them tend to focus on the execution of the system to make the sale, rather than focusing on and harmonizing with the prospect to make the sale.

No one system will work all the time. That said, specific elements of any system might be applicable. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t learn some systems. To the contrary, all sales knowledge is valuable. I am saying that you should be yourself in the sale, don’t let the system overpower your personality.

Rule of sales: Prospects don’t always want to buy the way you have been taught to sell.

Here are some more clues:

*The more you believe in your company, your product, and yourself, the more you will sell.

*The more value you provide to others, the more people will come to know you, respect you, and buy from you.

* The more you follow up, the more sales you will make.

* The more you study sales, the more you will know how to react to any sales situation.

Here are some more clues:

You are a salesperson, and the prospect or customer is expecting you to ask for the sale. Don’t disappoint.  As a sales master, your job is to take a prospect’s characteristics and needs and blend them with your skills and understanding to determine the reasons why that prospect is buying. This will motivate and inspire the prospect to act.

Harmony means to understand. It’s sensing the tone of the situation and a prospect’s comfort level. It gives the prospect enough confidence to buy. It does not mean to manipulate.

Even though I don’t believe in or subscribe to any one system of selling, I am still searching for the best way to make the sale. What I have discovered along the way are elements, mostly personal, that when mastered will create an atmosphere where your customers and prospects will be compelled to buy.

Here are four of them in an acronym that ties the introduction to the point – AHHA. Attitude, Humor, Harmony, and Action. These elements, when mastered, are the surest and shortest sales formula to long-term success. They have nothing to do with systems, manipulation, or sales pressure.

Every salesperson I have ever come into contact with wants to build better customer relationships. The best way to do that is to never manipulate them. Manipulation makes people defensive, reluctant, and distrustful. Harmonize, baby.

Mastering these elements will make prospects attracted to you, like you, trust you, believe you, and have confidence in you. Then they’ll buy from you.

Free GitBit: Want a more defined AHHA? Go to www.gitomer.com, register if you’re a first time user, and enter the word AHHA in the GitBit box.     President of Charlotte, N.C.-based Buy Gitomer, Jeffrey Gitomer gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer service. He can be reached at (704) 333-1112 or by e-mail at salesman@gitomer.com.