This is the final installment in a week on selling and communication.  Five days, five tips.  Put all of these to work and I guarantee you improved results for virtually any kind of selling. 

Involve your customer with small steps to get them comfortable to take the bigger ones. 

It’s imperative that you don’t do all the work in the sales process.  If you keep your clients passive, don’t be surprised when it’s hard for them to suddenly get active and agree to close the sale.  Too many salespeople think that it’s all up to them.  But the real secret is to get the customer working on the deal too.  Begin with little steps, steps that don’t involve big commitments, and then work up from there. 

In the 1987 comedy Tin Men, 1960s-era aluminum siding salesman Richard Dreyfuss initiates a younger protégé into the magical world of sales.  In one call on a housewife, Dreyfuss drops a dollar bill on the floor, and allows the housewife to pick it up for him.  He explains to the initiate that he can tell whether or not he’s going to get a sale with this trick.  If the housewife picks up the bill, she’s a nice person and can be talked into aluminum siding.  If she doesn’t, she won’t be won over.

The psychology is right, but the execution is wrong.  Dreyfuss should have been seeking to create a real relationship with his customers, rather than just exploiting them.  And by getting them involved, not in sneaky tests of their malleability, but in genuine steps along the road to the sale, he would have increased the amount of aluminum siding gracing the houses of Baltimore. 

Take your clients from passive to active.  Involve them in the process.  Don’t do all the work. 

What are your communications sales secrets?  Let me know, and I’ll put the best ones in a follow up blog. 

Here are the 5 communications sales tips in an easy list:

1. It’s not about your product, it’s about listening to your customer’s need.  

2. It’s not about eye contact; it’s about personal space. 

3. To close a sale, you need to first establish two things with your customer:  credibility and trust. 

4. Closing a sale is all about understanding the customer’s decision-making process.

5. Involve your customer with small steps to get them comfortable to take the bigger ones. 

What would you add to the list?