I’m trying to practice what I’ve been learning from the Sandler Sales classes, but I find it’s hard to break your pattern of speaking with people in order to learn a new way of communicating. I think I need to practice and role play until it comes naturally. Until then I will recount what I learned from last week’s class.

When you meet someone you have a 1% chance to getting an appointment with them. If someone you know say, “use my name,” your chances rise to 40-45%. But if you can have someone make the call for you, meaning the person who knows the one you want to mee, your chances of getting an appointment goes to abot 80%. Food for thought when you ask around for contacts.

In negotiations, when you know someone, you have to get them to trust you, you do this through asking questions, and by mirroring the way they talk to you. When you are ready to talk about budget you need to find out what they’ve been spending. In the world of negotiating the rule is the first person who says a fee loses. Giving the number anchors that number and becomes the centerpoint of all further negotiations. Therefore, don’t go first. Think of it this way: “Tell me what you think you want to spend to take care of (the pain) what you just told me.”

If you don’t do all of your prep work before you get to talking about the budget—meaning asking questions of your potential client to understand where they are at, and to establish trust, and you give them a number, you are being very self-centered and not customizing—you are talking at them, not with them. Don’t give a price until you can customize to them.

Three questions to ask your potential client:
1) What are you comfortable investing to achieve what you want (or to fix the problem)?
People will ususally say they don’t know. That leads to….
2) “In my experience, typically this would be somewhere between X and Y. Are you comfortable in that range?” If they say no, push back: “If that’s the case, I guess we won’t be doing business, because I can’t do it for less.” Then throw the curve: “Can I ask you one more question? What were you hoping I would say?” If it’s too low, it’s up to you. If it’s in your range, say, “I think we can do that.”

If your client is getting pushy, trying to get you to say the fee (“what are you charging?”), tell them the price and say, “Are we still talking?” Say it with confidence almost as a challenge. Implied in all of this is that you’re not going forward unless you know their budget.

Bob Heiss talked to us about “the flinch.” People will flinch when you name a price, so you need to flinch back—“I really can’t do that.” It’s a test of conviction. Always flinch, and get them to break first.

In the Post-Sell you need to talk to your client about buyer’s remorse. After you leave they may have a crisis of confidence in what they just agreed to—after all, it’s a lot of money. Let them know you understand this.

The concept of the Upfront Contract is this: You begin by thanking the potential client for talking with you, ask them how much time they have, and what their agenda is (“What do you want from this meeting?”), and say: “I am going to ask you some questions to know exactly what you want. When we’re done, we’ll know wether we’re ready to take the next step. Are you OK with that?” At the end of this meeting, if you’re going to meet again, set the time and place and what the agenda will be (“Anything you’d like to add?”), you have an upfront contract.

For the cold call, start it this way: “It’s (whatever yur name is)—don’t worry, we’ve never met (that confuses them—the pattern interrupt that gets them out of their regular way of thinking), perhaps if I took 30 sec. to tell you why I called you can decide if we should keep talking or not. Are you OK with that?” People will usually say, OK. Then tell them what you do, and give your 30 sec. commercial (“The people I usually work with feel________because of_________which leads to _________” (remember this is from the last class). “I don’t know if this is happening to you, maybe we should talk.” If they say “Yes,” ask the questions to find out their pain and say: “What you just told me is what I do. I don’t know if what I’ve done for others will work for you, I won’t know until we sit down and go over specifics. How does that sound.”

What you’ve done with this cold call it to allow them to make the decision to go further with you. You’ve asked the right questions to understand them. You've caught them off guard by telling them it might not be right for them. And you've ended up with exactly what you wanted, a face-to-face meeting.

Clever, yes?