How to Master the Art of Selling Tom Hopkins How to Master the Art of Selling by Tom Hopkins, America’s #1 Sales Trainer FOR MAXIMUM RESULTS FROM THIS BOOK, PLEASE READ This book is written to show you how to make money in sales and to get more out of life. I encourage you to do more than just read this book. Take notes, use a high-lighter pen to mark the book in any manner you see fit or anything else that makes this book a more effective tool for increasing your income. AUDIO PROGRAMS It is imperative that you try as rapidly as possible to get my techniques into your subconscious mind so they become part of you and come out automatically in your own words. In today’s hectic world, many of us don’t have the time to read as often as we would like. Because of this, many of the top salespeople we train absorb the material easier by listening to audio recordings while doing other activities. If you have a challenge with making time to read, I heartily suggest you consider our audio training program, “How to Master the Art of Selling Anything.” It’s available in both compact disc and cassette from our home office in Scottsdale, Arizona or on our web site at http://tomhopkins.com/p/1032.html These programs were recorded in lecture format with a live studio audiences. They cover all the basics of the profession of selling. Topics covered are: 1. The Profession Called Selling 2. What is a Champion? 3. Control with Questions 4. Minor Reflexive Questions 5. Emotions, the Triggers of Selling 6. How to Handle Failure and Rejection I 7. How to Handle Failure and Rejection II 8. Referral Prospecting 9. Non-Referral Prospecting 10. Telephone Techniques 11. Pre-planning your Sales Presentation 12. Contact Copyright 2005 Tom Hopkins International, Inc. 1 How to Master the Art of Selling Tom Hopkins 13. Qualification 14. The Visual Aid Presentation 15. Presentation Demonstration Tactics 16. Objections—Premise 17. Objections—Solution 18. Test Closing 19. Anatomy of a Close 20. Power Closes of a Champion I 21. Power Closes of a Champion II 22. Turning Little $ into Big $ 23. Time Planning Organization 24. Goal-setting MOTIVE My primary concern in telling you about these audio programs is your success. I know personally how lonely and frustrating the life of a salesperson can be. When I started, I was as much as failure as anyone until I was able to get the proper training to insure my success. At that time, I swore if ever I could share my success with others, I would do it with high quality and at an investment that anyone could afford. You may feel that I am trying to sell you something and that is true. We are in the business of selling just like you. However, if you know something is good, you have an obligation to offer it to your client. You will make a small investment for these audios and that constitutes one sale for us. However, it may mean hundreds of sales in your career and thousands of dollars for you and your loved ones. In this way, I hope that my company can play some part in your continued success. Thank you. Copyright 2005 Tom Hopkins International, Inc. 2 How to Master the Art of Selling Tom Hopkins Chapter 4 CREATING THE SELLING CLIMATE A Champion only sells the benefits and features that the prospect he's working with wants to buy. For years, I've monitored this point, and I'm convinced that it's critical to success: don't sell what you want, sell what they want. It's astonishing how many salespeople only talk about, explain, and try to sell the features of their offering that they like.  "Oh, I just love the fact that it slices grapes," and the prospect doesn't give a hoot about what you love.  "You know, I've got this same policy in my own investment portfolio," and the prospects don't see what that has to do with their investment decision because your circumstances are different than theirs.  "When you step on the gas in this beast--look out. It's gonna ram you back in the seat. It's gonna peel rubber." And the prospect is a conservationist who worries about the high cost of fuel and wants an economy car. The Champion doesn't sell benefits before finding out what benefits the prospect wants. The average salesperson plunges into selling benefits from the start and, inevitably, he has the prospect sitting there thinking, "None of this stuff I'm hearing is important to me." Keep that up for a little while and the prospect leaves if he's on your premises, or you do if you're on his. I'd like to be sure that we're together in this area. Who pays for your product or service, you or the buyers? Of course the buyers do. Then we should give them what they want. Doesn't that make sense? We should sell them the features that will give them the benefits they want. How does this fit my teaching that you should make decisions for your clients? Neatly. People want more than they can get. Money is only one of the great limitations that we all have. Time is another. People want their cars to be larger on the inside and smaller on the outside, their meals to be more delicious and less fattening, their investments to have higher return and lower risk. They want it all but you know they can't have it all, so you have to decide, among your many products and services and their many desires, what specific item will work best for them. In most cases, you can't afford the time to show them everything, and lead them step by step over every square foot of your knowledge to the one item they'll buy. That's not efficient, not professional, not money-making. The purpose of your consultation interview (which might be a few quick questions on the phone to prospects, or a longer face-to-face interview in someone's office) is to diagnose their challenge, and determine what their opportunities are. Following that interview, you decide how to proceed. This process requires that you decide not Copyright 2005 Tom Hopkins International, Inc. 3 How to Master the Art of Selling Tom Hopkins to discuss a wide variety of possibilities with them that you have the professional expertise to know they won’t buy anyway. Part of your service is to save their time as well as your own. SELL THE PEOPLE WHO CAN BUY Many salespeople spend endless hours with people who can’t say yes. In commercial/industrial/government sales, this is an ever-present problem. Typically, you can’t walk in and talk to the person who is in charge. In many cases, you’ll be told that no one individual will make the decision you see, that all such decisions are the sole prerogative of the board of directors, trustees, a committee, or whatever. When you’re told that, you’ll almost always be given to understand that every member of the decision-making group is away and unavailable. In essence, they are unreachable. What you’re hearing is the truth—it’s just not all the truth. The committee exists. It meets regularly. It can make decisions. All important decisions are approved by it. And its members are, for all practical purposes, unavailable to you. Under the law, or in the by-laws, all the power in that organization is given to that group. However, such unreachable committees rarely exercise any power that’s important to you. They have it, but they don’t use it because there’s too much complexity and too little time. Willingly or not, the directors, trustees, and various boards of this and that have to rely on the nameless gnomes in the backrooms for recommendations that they will likely approve or disapprove. Of course, the gnomes are nameless only in the sense that they don’t sign annual reports or get mentioned on cornerstones. But their signatures activate purchase orders. There are few situations in sales that are more complex and easier to botch than the unreachable committee. In no other area will your sensitivity to small clues and the subtle nuances of power be better rewarded. Organizations have purchasing procedures that involve several people, much time, more paperwork, and they all move through clearly defined and tidy channels in complete conformity to law and the dictates of their governing bodies or owners. That’s the face the organization shows to the world, and it has the paperwork in its files to prove that everything has been done according to their book. In reality, though, very little is done according to their book, and the real decisions are made outside the tidy channels. The paperwork to justify those decisions is then created after the event. Flexibility is vital in these situations. Rigidity is dangerous to your success. Keep the ideas that follow in mind when you work with the unreachable committee situation and they’ll frequently help you find your way—follow them blindly and they’ll sometimes take you off the road and over the cliff.  The gnomes in the back room are insecure, and jealous of the power wielded by the whim of the committee. Make the gnomes feel important. Never let a gnome suspect that you’re Copyright 2005 Tom Hopkins International, Inc. 4 How to Master the Art of Selling Tom Hopkins anything but delighted that you can work with him instead of whoever has the title and the official authority.  Have faith in the value and importance of your offering to that organization. You need that faith, but don’t let it blind you to the fact that most of the unreachable committee will be too involved with their own pet projects to care very much about yours. Never hint that you’ll try and end run around the gnome to the committee unless you’re willing to accept the gnomes enmity. Unless you can somehow reach the unreachable committee and sell it on your proposition , you probably need the cooperation of the gnome to close that organization. Keep that in mind from the first moment you think about selling to them.  Make sure you’re working with the right gnome, not some chair-warmer whose main job is getting rid of the salespeople the right gnome thinks he doesn’t want to talk to.  There are two kinds of gnomes: those who relish displaying their power by committing themselves, and those who’ll never commit themselves. Never try to get an iron-clad commitment from a reluctant gnome—it can’t be done.  If you can’t sell the gnome within a reasonable time, and if you think that organization is worth more of your time, try the end run. If you can’t find a way to reach somebody on that unreachable committee through friends, political connections, or by direct and persistent pursuit, go over the gnome’s head to anyone strong enough to push your proposition past him. You risk making an enemy of the gnome, but what do you have to lose? You’ve already lost—or failed to gain—his support. Now you have no way to go but over his or her head. In Chapter 14, I’ll show you strategies to overcome the problem of discovering the right person to work with. Bear in mind that difficulties in choosing the right person to sell aren’t limited to organizational sales. The same challenge plagues retail and family sales. Let’s suppose that you’re working with married-couple buyers. You’re getting along great with one of them—you’re selling that person like crazy—but the reality is that the other half of the couple will give the real yes that makes the decision. Your job is to find out which one of the pair has the power to say yes on your particular sale and then to get that yes without inciting the second person to say no. In retails sales, you’ll frequently encounter three kinds of families: Single parent. Nuclear family (mother, father, and children). Extended family (nuclear family plus relatives). Copyright 2005 Tom Hopkins International, Inc. 5 How to Master the Art of Selling Tom Hopkins Unless you’re a member of an extended family or acquainted with one, you may not realize that their influence is still very much with us. The quiet oldster with the young couple may have the keys to the vault and be the real decision-maker. DON'T SELL LOGIC -AROUSE EMOTIONS Many of us try to sell our products through logic and only through logic. Highlight this: Seldom do people buy logically. People buy emotionally, then defend their decisions with logic. Some of us think that many things are bought and sold totally without emotion. For example, who gets excited about pork bellies, cocoa beans, and baled cotton? Speculators do; they're betting heavily that they can outguess the future. Producers do; they worry about oversupply and falling prices. Users do; they worry about under-supply and rising costs. Even in the most unglamorous products and services, fortunes and reputations are being made-and lost based on emotion. What about standard shelf items that meet established specifications? A lack of difference between competitive offers means that the emotional factors are very likely to be magnified, not diminished. When awarding orders, the buyer can indulge in favoritism, score-settling, or just plain whimsy without fear of creating problems for himself. The role of sales and service in these situations takes on a greater importance and a changed aspect. CATCH THE CHANGE ON THE MOVE What is the emotional process that leads to a purchase? It begins with a new development in the buyer's self-image. That is, the buyer sees herself or himself in a new way. If the projected purchase is small, that change need only be small, but if the purchase is a large one in relation to the buyer's income, the change in self-image that makes the purchase possible will be large. Such a change can come about very quickly. It can take place within a few minutes or even within a few seconds. Champions are adept at spotting these changes in self-image as they occur during sales interviews. They are quick to reinforce the buyer's new idea that he or she can have and enjoy, will look good in and be complimented on, deserves, needs, and is worthy of, the marvelous new goodie they like. When you see that hang back eagerness, reinforce their self- image. Do that and they won't just like your product, they'll want it, need it, realize they can't get along without it and then they'll buy it. A few words of caution are in order here because this is selling's most common and most abused technique. It's automatic in the oriental bazaar, overused in the boutique, and heard too soon almost everywhere that apparel and accessories are sold at retail. "It really looks good on you," they say -about everything you try on. Sometimes they'll say that without even glancing at you. Copyright 2005 Tom Hopkins International, Inc. 6 How to Master the Art of Selling Tom Hopkins It's sad when a fine technique is beaten into a total turnoff by total insincerity and carelessness. Yet, when used right, this is a powerful technique. It requires attention; it requires discipline but, given that, it delivers the results. Here's how to do it: First, be genuinely interested in doing your best for the client, and show this interest by asking questions that will tell you what they’re seeking to accomplish. Rise above the limitations of your own taste and preferences. Recognize that what's right for you isn’t right for everyone, and make an intense effort to see the world through your client’s eyes. Second, use your expertise to guide the client to the best solution for them that your inventory provides. Third, wait for positive stimulus from the client. When you get it, if you believe they've found something that helps them achieve whatever effect they want, reinforce their image about that purchase. Avoid the worn out phrases they've heard a thousand times; stay away from the words they stopped believing years ago. Concentrate on your customer. Say sincere and positive things that reflect your customer’s uniqueness, and you’ll not only make that sale, you'll create a client who’ll send you referrals and buy from you again in the future. The key is to discipline yourself to wait for the their positive input. Unless you do that, you’ll find yourself bragging about something they don't like and, before you know it, you’re caught in a web of obvious insincerity. I had retail sales in mind when I wrote that, but the principles carry over to every kind of sales work because the one constant is that you’re selling to people. Machines don't buy much. If you stick to the facts, if you constantly work on your buyers with logic and avoid arousing their emotions positively, what will happen? The mere fact that you're a salesperson will arouse their negative emotions and they'll start fighting you. Your prospects are either emotionally for you, or against you--and you can divide your chances of selling them by a hundred if they're against you. At my seminars I ask my audiences to give me emotional reasons that cause people to buy. Things like this will usually be suggested first: “They can afford it.” “It’s the right size.” “Prices are going up.” “It meets their needs.” Most audiences will give me several logical reasons why people should buy before they'll give me a single emotion that will make people buy. This makes me believe that salespeople in general put too much emphasis on fact and too little on emotion. If we weren't the jangling Copyright 2005 Tom Hopkins International, Inc. 7 How to Master the Art of Selling Tom Hopkins bundle of emotions that we all are, everybody would buy everything based solely on logic—and then wouldn't the world be a dull place. "They can afford it." They'll never think about whether they can afford it or not until you get them emotionally involved in wanting it. "It's the right size." What does it matter if they don’t want it? "Prices are going up." Yes, they are, and that’s a strong emotional reason for the buyer to hang onto his money and not buy anything he doesn't want. "It meets their needs." It may meet what you think they need, but fact remains that they're going to buy what they want. Emotion. That's where it's at. Unless you're arousing positive emotions, they're raising negative emotions--and you've lost the sale. Again, I ask, what are the positive buying emotions? At one of my seminars, a bright young woman who's going far as a salesperson said, "Style," and I jumped on it. "We all have to wear clothes in our society, don't you agree? That's the logical reason for spending money on clothes. But do any of us buy the cheapest stuff that'll keep us warm, dry, and covered? Certainly not. We buy the style our self-image tells us to buy. We buy emotionally." Another young lady said, "Color." "Certainly color is one of the buying emotions. In clothing and home furnishings, it's commonplace for people to want their choice of color more than they want a particular product, and that attitude carries over to some degree on most purchases of things that will be seen. Colors make statements about the people who wear them, drive around in them, and sit among them in their homes and offices. We all have feelings about colors, and we buy the ones we want." I asked for another buying emotion, and a man said, "Pride of ownership." "Of course," I answered. "Human beings love to own things. Pride of ownership is, in reality, pride in oneself. This is not only a potent buying emotion, it's also an easy one to arouse. That's what the salesperson does who says, 'Your friends will know you've really arrived when they see you drive up in this car, won't they?' Plain transportation is all that we really need on the surface. In the deeper senses, many of us need and want all the status that we can squeeze out of owning an automobile. And we buy what we want if we possibly can." To get a thorough education in the emotions that sell, sit down with your children some Saturday morning and study the commercials on the programs they watch. You'll see advertising that grabs right at the emotions. It goes something like this: Copyright 2005 Tom Hopkins International, Inc. 8 How to Master the Art of Selling Tom Hopkins Seven-year-old Stevie is sitting there when a commercial plays. On the tube, Johnny Powerful speaks directly to the boy. "You want to be like Johnny Powerful, don't you? Then have Mommy get Ookie-Gookies for you. You need Ookie-Gookies to be like Johnny Powerful," and he flexes his muscles. That happens over and over on every show. Now here's little Stevie walking along a supermarket's aisle with his mother, and Stevie is looking around for something interesting. Suddenly he sees Ookie-Gookies. Stevie doesn't say, "Let's look at the ingredients listed on the box before we decide to buy it. All right, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin--hey, it's loaded with exactly the stuff we need more of." Little Stevie doesn't do that, does he? He sees Ookie-Gookies and big Johnny Powerful flexing his muscles at the same time. So little Stevie yells, "Mom, I NEED OOKIE-GOOKIES!" Stevie was sold, not logically, but emotionally. Logic in sales is a gun without a trigger. You can twirl it all you care to but you can't fire it. Emotion is another gun in sales and this one has a trigger. You can hit the target with it. Every time you generate another positive emotion, you're pulling the trigger on another accurate shot at closing the sale. Let's list the most widespread, effective and powerful buying emotions. Color and style Pride of ownership Vanity Security Prestige and status Ambition Employment change Peer pressure (keeping up with the Joneses) Self-improvement Health Love of family Family getting larger Family getting smaller No skill that you can acquire in sales will enhance your earning power more than learning how to arouse these emotions in your buyers in ways that are positive to the sale you're seeking. The exact word that you use will depend on your offering, your personality, your buyers, and Copyright 2005 Tom Hopkins International, Inc. 9 How to Master the Art of Selling Tom Hopkins market conditions. Study each of the selling emotions given above and develop a list of emotion- evoking questions you can ask your buyers. If you’re selling luxury cars, you should be able to come up with several approaches for several of the buying emotions. But, if you sell plastic pipe to landscape contractors, you'll have difficulty coming up with useful emotion-evokers on anything except security. You see that new bauble, that new neatarooney. There’s no reason you to have it other than the fact that all of a sudden you want it. Then you emotionally come up with reasons, urgent reasons, for getting it. But do those reasons explain why you want it? Certainly not. Their function is to prove that you need it--to your own satisfaction, at least. And it’s amazing how fast you'll do this if the new goodie is good enough. Put this item among your key notes, an review it often: Positive emotions trigger sales; negative emotions destroy sales. As you work at developing the skill to evoke emotions in your customers, always keep that concept in your mind. You can destroy sales as rapidly as you can create them through the clumsy use of, or the lack of control over, the emotional setting. And also remember that your actions and manners, your words and how you say them, and your grooming and clothes are all things that trigger emotions in your prospects—whether you want them to or not. People will react emotionally to you. I’m not being facetious when I say that it's important not to have them react with fear, anger, or disgust. To see some salespeople approach prospects as through these potential buyers had just fallen off the turnip truck, you’d swear that they don’t realize that prospects have feelings too. Prospects suffer the effects of fear when a salesperson comes on too strong; prospects get angry when a salesperson patronizes them; prospects feel disgust when a salesperson is non-professional in any way. Let me give you an example. Picture yourself walking into a showroom with your spouse. The salesperson on duty meets you. “Hi, I’m Pat Swifty. Nice of you to come in, sir. Hello, nice of you to join in, ma’am. You are husband and wife? Good looking couple. How are you today?” If a stranger opened up on you like that, would you feel a touch of fear, anger, and disgust? “Oh, oh—this crocodile is out to get us. What business of his is it whether or not we’re married? And who needs his phony compliments?” Your sales interviews don’t need any more fear. Your chances of success won’t be improved by an injection of anger. Your prospects can’t be closed if they’re feeling contemptuous or disgusted. I’m leading you through dangerous territory right now. On the one hand, it’s vital that you be keenly aware of how easily negative feelings can be aroused, and of how hazardous they are to your sales hopes. On the other hand, it’s equally vital that you not become tense about it, or your tension will impact negatively on your prospects and destroy your chances of closing them. The solution to this is to understand it. With understanding, you can make the right moves, Copyright 2005 Tom Hopkins International, Inc. 10