The obvious key to sales success is closing the deal, getting the potential customer or client to “yes.” And the way you do that is through the art of compromise, never letting them see you sweat, and high-powered pitching until they sign on the dotted line. Right?
Not so much anymore. Sales tactics with today’s economically battle-weary clients and customers must be different, and veteran coach and author Jim Camp says he has the keys to sales success:
1. Start by giving the potential customer or client the option to say “no.”
2. Make sure you are offering something others can see the benefit of enough to say “yes.”
3. Have patience — lots of it.
“You have to give people time to see your vision and determine what they are really looking at,” says Camp, author of No: The Only Negotiating System You Need for Work and Home.
Camp believes that all negotiations, especially with big-money clients, need to begin with the opportunity to say “no.” This takes the sales pressure out of the picture and saves you valuable time if the potential client has already decided against your product or service.
“There is no question that the power closers who use strong-arm tactics get some deals, but the fear of getting a ‘no’ limits their earning potential,” Camp says. “You are not going to push Donald Trump or anyone like him into a sale. The guys who are making the giant deals don’t behave like the guys buying a gym membership.”
Just say ‘No’
What does it look like to put “no” on the negotiating table? Camp suggests that it goes like this: Let the other party know up front that if what you show them or tell them is of no interest, they can stop you right away or anytime during your presentation.
“For example, on a car lot, the buyer can walk up to the seller and start with, ‘I want to talk to you about purchasing a car, and you can say no if the deal I need is not acceptable to you. Is that fair?’ On the sales side, a seller might say, ‘I’d like to show you a car, but if it doesn’t fit your parameters, we’ll move on. Is that fair?’ This brings down the barriers, and they start exchanging information. Soon, they are likely to come up with an agreement. It’s the only thing that works every time, with both parties feeling like they shared in it. There is no need to force the issue.”
Follow the Golden Rule
In order to keep someone at the table after they’ve had the option to say “no,” you need to have something that will benefit them. It’s as simple as the Golden Rule, treating others the way that you would like to be treated. Camp believes that, too often, those in sales think of their business from a self-centered perspective rather than focusing their efforts on the customer.
“You need to figure out your own mission and purpose,” Camp says. “And the key is that it should always be to the other person’s benefit. If you’re out there trying to sell a product or service or anything, what is the benefit to the other party?”
In real estate, for example, Realtors need to view the current market as the perfect opportunity to help people see the vision of what a long-term investment in real estate could mean.
“If you’re in real estate, there’s a great opportunity out there if you think in terms of benefits to the buyer,” Camp says. “Your long-term aim in real estate maybe would be to help buyers discover the vast opportunities they have if they are willing to make the investment today and hold onto it.”
Be patient
The third key in getting to “yes” is patience, Camp says. It takes dialogue and relationship for the best business deals to form, rather than a rush to get signatures on a contract.
“If you make a proposal to someone and it’s really different or new, they are going to need time to process it and catch your vision,” Camp says. “It’s tough for people to see what you want them to see early on. When you are patient and willing to have conversation, people say things like, ‘I don’t see it like that. Here’s what it looks like to me.’ There becomes this back-and-forth sharing of vision. It doesn’t look like a ‘negotiation,’ but it should be our model.”
Jim Camp is a negotiation coach and trainer, developer of the Coach2100™ technology, and author of NO: The Only Negotiating Strategy You Need for Work and Home (Crown). As president and founder of The Jim Camp Group, a negotiation training and management firm, Camp has coached individuals, companies, and governments worldwide through hundreds of negotiations that total more than $100 billion per year. Visit www.startwithno.com.
Tags: Jim Camp, negotiation, start with no