When your wife is due and you need to schedule something, what’s the best day to schedule it? Her due date, naturally.
“Let’s make it for July 25th,” I told my operations manager, Shayna Roth. “That’s the due date, so it’s least likely to be the day anything happens.”
And so we scheduled a small, free, invitation-only tele-workshop for 8 of you loyal subscribers for July 25th.
Turns out I was correct – our new little girl arrived a day early – Tuesday, July 24th. But the workshop had to be postponed anyway.
Yehudit, not yet three days old as I write this, has two older brothers and three older sisters. There was a gaggle of Gordons who needed tending to while their mother and baby sister were in the hospital. And yesterday after everyone came home from camp, we took a trip to the hospital.
It was a magical thing to watch our almost two year old meet her new little sister for the first time. We’ve been telling her about it for months, but you can’t be sure just how much she really understands.
Well, it seems she understood pretty well because while she was excited, she took it pretty much in stride. Even offering to share her blanket with the baby.
But adaptation is never easy for the second youngest one real life returns. We’ll aim to make it as easy for her as we can.
Now, at times like this, work gets put aside. So I’m behind on preparations for the training program on “How to Master the Elegant Sales Conversation.”
So if you haven’t yet filled in the “Where do you get stuck in the sales conversation survey you still have a chance to fill it in and win a free scholarship.
You might be interested in what I’m seeing as I read through the answers I’ve gotten so far.
I’ve gotten responses from people frustrated because they find themselves talking to people who end up saying they have no need.
For example: “Most of my sales conversations end with prospects saying that they either don’t have a need for the product at the time or just don’t want to go through the trouble of learning a new solution.”
On the other hand, some of you are left scratching your heads because even though your prospect admits a need, they just won’t buy.
Take this one: “My frustration with recent sales conversations has been that they have not led to any immediate action. Despite the prospects clearly having problems, their confirmation that we can help solve the problem, they have not been prompted to act now.”
What do you make of this? I’ll tell you what I make of it: Both gentleman are winging it in different ways. They’re doing their best, but they were never taught how to get into the minds and hearts of the people they’re selling to.
You need to know how to hear not just what your prospects say, but what they mean. Yes, you need to listen for what they leave unsaid because usually, that’s the information that you need to close the deal.
Most sales training is all about scripts, clever questions, trial closes and closing. The training I’ll be offering you in a week or so – How to Master the Elegant Sales Conversation – will help you master fundamental thinking and language skills. Basic, universal, ways of thinking and listening that help you hear what’s really being said.
What do you do when your prospect admits they need your help but won’t buy? Is there a one liner that will turn them around and make them see the light? ‘Course not. But there is a way of thinking about it will help you – in the moment – to know exactly what to say. Exactly what to ask. So that you know exactly what to do to move one step closer to a closed deal.
Next week I’ll share some more observations from your responses to the survey.
SO, if you haven’t answered the survey yet, please do. And you may win a scholarship to the training.
AND if you’d like to reply to this email, please DON’T send me an email. My inbox is over 200 emails – and it’s usually at not more than 20.
Instead, please leave a comment here.
Dov Gordon
