How to Stifle Your Prospect's Inner Critics

Critical judgment. . . it's an obstacle for us as sales professionals and persuaders. Our main goal is shutting down the inner critics of the people we're selling our products or services to. This can be accomplished by getting them out of their lives and showing them what could be, something bigger and better.

Fortunately for us, as sales people, everybody that we have ever talked to has something spectacular going on in their minds. They have an image of utopia. And as they talk with you, they have an image of themselves with your product or service and of having it do the very things that they would like it to do for them.

When your prospect is talking to you about what you do, your products, your services, they have already created an imagine in their mind of what you have to offer and how they might interact with it and benefit by it.

The majority of sales people out there take them away from that image. This is good for us, maybe not so good for our competitors.

What we need to do as persuaders is connect the dots. . . help our affluent prospects and clients connect their Utopian images which they've conjured in their minds to our product or service, by encouraging them to hold these images and eliminating critical judgment. As we do this, we easily insert ourselves into the Utopian picture.

Try this. You're going to have more sales than you know what to do with.

My first big job, at age eighteen, was as a sales representative for a health club. My manager was an amazing sales person and I would watch as he pushed the hot buttons of the potential clients over and over and over until they became paying clients.

This can be done systematically, every single time, without wavering. This is probably one of the greatest tools of persuasion that has ever been created. In fact, this is what was responsible for me starting to earn a ton of money when I first started doing this.

I learned these skills in a therapeutic setting at first. It was really the only way they were available. But I saw the value in using them in a sales context. I proceeded to find out from my clients what was 'wrong' with their situation and then would fix the problem as much as I could. Inevitably, they would buy from me.

Another name for 'finding out what's wrong with somebody' is: criteria. Eliciting their values. Creating a rapport.

I didn't understand all that at the time, I just knew that I was making sales and it was making me money and this was good. But I finally figured out why. I was actually getting their hot buttons just sort of in a little different context, like what was wrong with them. In doing this, I realized I could also get their criteria about what was right with them and what they needed from me and I could get it really fast. I also realized I didn't have to fix them, I could just help them solve their problem with my product and service.

Here's the key: rapport, criteria elicitation, values elicitation, and an understanding of base human drives. Combine all this with our product and present it to the client and prospect in light of their base drives and criteria. This is the goal. Can you see instances in your life right now where rapport is in action? Think about your relationship with your significant other. Can you see it there?

About the Author

Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of wealthy clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques. You can get a unique content version of this article.

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