A new way to look at questions and engagement: emotionally

When you’re asking an existing or prospective customer a question, the object is to get them to think and respond emotionally.

To most salespeople this strategy sounds like a foreign language.

START YOUR THINKING HERE: The sale is made emotionally and justified logically. Once you understand that fact, it makes perfect sense to engage the customer emotionally to set the tone for them to decide to buy.

Most salespeople are taught the difference between open-ended and closed-ended questions. A closed-ended question is one that results in a yes or no answer. An open-ended question is one that begins to create dialogue from the customer. Open-ended questions are good, but they don’t necessarily breed emotion. This process is necessary to understand, but at its core is passé.

Here’s a new way of thinking about your questioning strategy: logic-based questions vs. emotion-based questions.

This thought process and strategy will give you a new awakening about how customers think and decide. And by using emotion-based questions, you can get them to decide on you.

CAUTION and CHALLENGE: This is insight to a new questioning process that will help you formulate emotionally engaging questions. I’ll give you phrases to use, and a few sample questions. Your job is to understand the process and create your own questions based on your product, service, customer needs, and customer’s desired outcome. Questions that draw out their emotion, and keep focus away from logic – AKA price.

Logic-based questions center around the old-world ‘qualifying’ questions. These are questions that both annoy and aggravate the customer. Logic-based questions basically ask for money information so the salesperson can begin to salivate. “What’s your present payment?” or “What have you paid in the past?” or “What’s your budget?” or “Do you want to lease or buy?” These are questions fall under the category of ‘none of your business.’

KEY CONCEPT: Do not qualify the buyer, let them qualify themselves because you’re so friendly, engaging, and genuinely interested.

The late, great Dale Carnegie said, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people, than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

Emotion-based questions ask about their life and use, not their money. Prior to beginning your ‘presentation,’ ask the customer emotion-based questions that begin with the words, “How long have you been thinking about…” or “What were you hoping for…”

Get the customer to paint their vision of outcome.
Get the customer to paint their picture of ‘after they buy.’

During the purchase, ask emotion-based questions such as, “Is this what you had in mind?” or “How do you see this serving your purpose?” or “How do you see your family enjoying this?” Or take it even deeper with, “What do you think Bobby will say when he sees this?”

Emotion-based questions draw out feelings – feelings that will lead to true engagement and honest answers about how your product or service will affect their expected outcome.

When you can get the customer to visualize outcome, you also have them visualizing ownership – otherwise known to you as ‘purchase.’

MAJOR POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: People don’t actually come to purchase. They come to purchase because they want to USE. What happens AFTER the purchase is way more important to the customer than the actual purchasing process. Drawing out their emotion during the process is the key to getting them to take ownership.

So, during the sales presentation you might want to ask questions that begin with phrases like, “What are you hoping to achieve?” or “How will you use this in your business?” or “How do you envision this will add to your productivity?” or “How do you believe this will affect your profit?”

Whether you are selling to a consumer or a business, whether you are selling on the phone or face-to-face, the process and the emotional involvement are the same. Someone wants to take ownership, and your job is to get them to visualize it, be engaged by you, agree with you, believe you, have confidence in you, trust you, accept your price, and pull the trigger.

The key to this is emotional involvement. No manipulation, no pressure, no old world sales techniques, no NLP, just friendly and genuine emotional engagement that touches the heart and the mind simultaneously.

“Jeffrey, I’ve been taught to ‘find the pain.’ Is that emotional?” Yes, but in a negative way. A very negative way. Pain is a negative emotion – or as I call it, a ‘none-of-your-business emotion.’ Dumb questions like, “What keeps you up at night?” create an uneasy, uncomfortable atmosphere between you and the customer. And most of the time, if you’re asking a negative-based question the customer will not give you a real answer.

AHA! Don’t find the pain. Find the pleasure.

Pleasure evokes positive emotion. “Tell me about your vacation.” “How is Morgan following your passion for fashion?” “How is Henry following your passion for golf?” “Where was your biking trip this year?”

Find their pleasure, find their purpose, find their expected outcome, uncover their true emotional motives – and you will find their wallet.

Now that’s pleasure.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.


About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Recommended Resources – AMA Business Boot Camp

AMA Business Boot Camp book reviewAMA Business Boot Camp: Management and Leadership Fundamentals That Will See You Successfully Through Your Career
edited by Edward T. Reilly

About the Book

AMA Business Boot Camp edited by American Management Association (AMA) International CEO Edward T. Reilly is a reader’s digest of fundamental management and leadership skills. Within this book, Edward compiles leading practices garnered from AMA’s ninety years of research and observation of the world’s top performing managers. This book contains essential insights for newly promoted and aspiring managers to:

  • Define their role as a manager; creating a healthy and productive workplace environment
  • Identify employee motivators; delegating for development and coaching for superior performance
  • Adapt to a changing organization; recruiting, interviewing, and selecting the right person for the job and the organization
  • Manage projects; from setting scope and selecting a team to delivering on-time, on-budget results
  • Develop a personal leadership style; building power and influence and motivating ‘difficult’ people while avoiding the pitfalls of office politics

Benefits of Using this Book

StrategyDriven Contributors like AMA Business Book Camp for its solid focus on management fundamentals. Edward thoroughly covers the foundational principles and practices every manager must embody in order to be successful. Additionally, the book contains many useful templates that newly promoted managers can add to their personal ‘tool kit’ so to further accelerate their growth into well performing leaders.

While thorough in its discussion of management basics, we found AMA Business Boot Camp to lack the vivid real-world examples that would have brought the application of its concepts to life. This lack of examples diminished the book’s actionable nature; challenging less experienced managers to determine for themselves what the recommended implementation would look like in the workplace environment.

AMA Business Boot Camp contains the complete set of solid management principles and practices every aspiring and newly promoted manager should embody. As such, we believe this book would serve these individuals well as they start their management journey; making AMA Business Boot Camp a StrategyDriven recommended read.

StrategyDriven Leadership Conversation Episode 7 – Sixteen Sources of Leadership

StrategyDriven Leadership ConversationStrategyDriven Leadership Conversations focus on the values and behaviors characteristic of highly effective leaders. Complimenting the StrategyDriven Management & Leadership articles, these conversations examine the real world challenges managers face every day that are not easily solved with a new or redesigned process and instead demand the application of soft leadership skills to achieve a positive outcome.

Episode 7 – Sixteen Sources of Leadership examines the sixteen leadership practices and how these help individuals at all levels become more effective leaders.

Additional Information

The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge FableComplimenting the tremendous insights Robert shares in The Offsite and this leadership conversation podcast, are the additional Leadership Challenge materials and resources found on his website, Leader Inside Out.

Robert has generously made available a document listing the sixteen sources of leadership that can be downloaded by clicking here.
 
 
Final Request…

The strength in our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider rating us and sharing your perspectives regarding the StrategyDriven Leadership Conversation podcast on iTunes by clicking here. Sharing your thoughts improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community.

Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Leadership Conversation!


About the Author

Robert Thompson, author of The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge Fable, is the founder of Applied Performance, a leadership and personal communications services company for entry-level through chief executive officers. For the past 25 years, he has worked with a distinguished group of clients that include AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, Sony, and Sun Microsystems. To read Robert’s full biography, click here.

 

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal, and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

The Secret of Lousy Service and How to Fix It

Last week I promised the answers to why lousy service occurs and how to fix it. If you didn’t read part one, stop now, and go here.

The answer revolves around four words you already know: positive attitude and personal pride.

Let’s start with a little background…

Here are the reasons or feelings that negatively affect your attitude, and reduce or eliminate the power of your ability to serve at a superior level:

  • My boss is a jerk.
  • I hate my job.
  • I hate my coworkers.
  • I’m too good for this.
  • They don’t pay me enough.
  • They don’t understand me.
  • Benefits suck here.
  • I have my resume in five other places.
  • I can’t wait to get out of here.

ANSWER ONE: There’s a two-word secret to service response: positive attitude.

  • Positive attitude, defined as the way you dedicated yourself to the way you think, is the beginning point of service.
  • Positive attitude is not what happens to you. It’s what you do, and how you respond to what happens to you. That is the essence of service.
  • Positive attitude must be the first part of any training program, or the rest of training will fall on deaf ears – or worse – existing negative attitudes.

ANSWER TWO: There’s a two-word secret to the service process: personal pride.

  • It’s not how you feel about the customer, it’s not how do you feel about the circumstance. It’s all about how you feel about yourself. Your personal pride.
  • Personal pride should give you the incentive to be at your best, respond at your best, and serve at your best at all times.
  • You’re not doing this for other people, you’re doing it for yourself. Once you understand that, great service not only becomes easy, it actually becomes fun.

Here are a few guidelines to make personal pride more easily understood:

  • Personal pride must be more powerful than feelings about boss or company
  • Personal pride must be more powerful than pay
  • Personal pride must be more powerful than existing job

REALITY: If positive attitude and personal pride are present, then service, even great service, is possible. And vice versa.

MAJOR POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: It’s not a job, it’s an opportunity. And your attitude, combined with your personal pride, will determine your short-term and long-term fate.

Yes, I realize there may be extenuating, outside circumstances that affect attitude, pride, and even performance. There are too many possible issues to deal with in this short piece, but I do want to acknowledge it’s not always work related.

KEY POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: It’s likely that most people reading this will not be in the same job five years from today. But between now and then, the thoughts you have, the personal pride you build and display, and your level of performance will dictate the quality of job, or advancement, you’re likely to secure.

Why would you risk lousy performance at your present job, thinking you’re going to get a better job based on resume or desire? It doesn’t make sense. And it’s a fantasy with an unhappy ending.

KEY POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: Once you understand that you’re serving for yourself, once you understand that your attitude will determine your communication excellence, and once you understand your personal pride will dictate your actions – at once you see your possibilities, and will have the ability to better improve your performance.

Don’t be mad at the world, don’t be mad at your customers, don’t be mad at your boss, don’t be mad at your coworkers – be happy about yourself.

NOTE WELL: If you’re the boss, or you’re in HR, or you’re the trainer, stop training a bunch a crap about your company and how to fill out the silly papers, stop telling me all about how great the company is, how you have a great reputation, and that I should be happy to work here. That’s a bunch of baloney! You can email me that.

START YOUR TRAINING SESSIONS LIKE THIS: Here are two things most people don’t know about themselves AND their success.

HR REALITY: Train me about me. My attitude, my personal pride, my happiness, my opportunity. Information I can use NOW and LATER. Information that applies to ME.
BIGGER HR REALITY: Most employees disdain training, they just want a paycheck.
BIGGEST HR REALITY: The more you help the employee succeed, the more they will set the standard you’re hoping for. They will have a better attitude and serve with pride because you helped them.

That’s not just a challenge, HR – that’s YOUR opportunity.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.


About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

StrategyDriven Professional Podcast Episode 2 – Standing Out Among Professional Peers, part 2 of 3

StrategyDriven Professional PodcastStrategyDriven Professional Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques business professionals can use to accelerate their careers and personal goals achievement. These podcasts elaborate on the principle, best practice, and warning flag articles found on the StrategyDriven Professional website.

Episode 2 – Standing Out Among Professional Peers, part 2 of 3 focuses on the need to stand out among professional peers and challengers both within your organization and when applying for external positions. During our discussion, Wendy Powell, author of Management Experience Acquired: Necessary Skills for Successfully Managing Any Employee, shares with us her insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • six of twelve steps to standing out among professional peers
  • what professionals should do to ‘get to know themselves again’
  • importance of performing a personal SWOT analysis for each position being applied for
  • why professionals should submit letters of reference with their resume for both internal and external positions being applied for

Management Experience Acquired by Wendy PowellAdditional Information

In addition to the incredible insights Wendy shares in Management Experience Acquired and this podcast are the resources accessible from her website, www.ManagementExperienceAcquired.com.   Wendy’s book, Management Experience Acquired, can be purchased by clicking here.


About the Author

Wendy PowellWendy Powell is the author of Management Experience Acquired. With more than twenty-five years of human resource and management consulting experience, Wendy has spent most of her career at the University of Michigan. She is currently on the business faculty at both Palm Beach State College and the University of Phoenix. A member of the Society of Human Resource Management, she received a leadership award in 2002 from the Midwest College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. She is routinely featured on The Huffington Post and has appeared on Fox Business’s The Strategy Room. Wendy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business management and a Master of Arts degree in organizational management.

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal, and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.