[758] Making The Customer The Hero

[00:00:00] Welcome to the authentic Persuasion show. On this episode I want to replay part of a previous show. Maybe you heard the original full length episode and this could be a great refresher and reminder. Or maybe this is your first time hearing this content and the timing could be just right to help you leverage authentic persuasion today in your role, no matter what. Here's to your success. [00:00:21] This is the authentic persuasion show. [00:00:26] Empathy. I call it empathy. Most people, it's, they would call it the discovery, probing, question asking step. Now here's why I call it empathy. And again, I did an episode on this. It was super important. If you didn't check that one out, make sure to check that one. Uh, watch that one. You can find it on again. All these are available on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, as well as the authentic Persuasion show podcast. So all the replays are there in audio form if you like to listen to them. They're also on the Cutter consulting group site. You can find them there under podcasts. You can find all the replays there. So the empathy step. The reason why I call it empathy is because when you're asking questions and you do it in a way where you actually want to know the answers and you want to find them out, what happens is you will hopefully lead you to listen more than you speak. Two ears, one mouth. Listen twice as much as you speak. Ask questions, listen to the answers. Don't worry about what you're going to say next. Just take in the info and then respond. And then keep digging, keep going deeper and deeper, as deep as they'll let you. As Lee, as deep as you can, as deep as you want to go to get the information that you need. And when you do that, and when you listen and when you make it all about them, that will feel like you care, that will feel like empathy. And fundamentally, when you do it in the way that I feel like it should be done, it's because you actually care about them, right? It's not just that you're pretending to care, but you actually care. This is where the authentic persuasion formula is so important in that order. Because hopefully you authentically actually care about helping people get to a better place. Hopefully you understand that sales is service and you're helping them. So anyway, that's the empathy step. Super important. If you have a limited amount of time, let's see, a 15 minutes, 30 minutes with a prospective client. [00:02:24] Feel free to spend 80 90% of that time on the empathy step. It's so important, asking questions, finding information, figuring out what it is that they want or need and how that fits in with what you have to offer. Spend all the time it takes there. Sometimes it might take a minute because it's so clear. And they give you the info, they give you the. They give you the golden ticket right away and then all of a sudden, you know, got it. I know how to help you. Cause I have what can get you to where you want to go. Sometimes it might take you 20 minutes or an hour or weeks, who knows? So empathy is super important. Next step after that is trust. So we got rapport, empathy, trust, trust. Again, you can't ask for it. A lot of people in sales hit trust in the beginning very hard. And they go after trust because they think their job is to just lecture and dump information and facts and figures and features and benefits and case studies and testimonials and white papers and social proof. And they think that's so important. If I just hit them with all of these things upfront, I will get them to trust me and then they will buy from me because I will convince them how amazing I am. Unfortunately, that's not what people want. I did a bunch of episodes on this. I put a lot of stuff out online about this recently. The biggest thing is they want a guide, not a hero. Classic sales mode is I'm going to show you how I am a hero. I'm going to give you all this information to show you how amazing I am. Right? Our certificates, our awards, our accolades, voted top, you know, 500 best places to work, top, top eight places in this corner of our state to have free lunches. I don't know, like there's so many awards and every company seems to have one. And when you lead with that, that makes you sound like you're trying to be the hero. Problem is, the prospect always thinks they're the hero. We all do. As humans, we always think we're the center of the universe. We think we're the hero. When we go out in the world and we drive around or we go to the store, we walk around, literally. Our perspective, which is just human nature, is that we're the center of everything. We're the hero of the story. And in reality, we're really a role player in the bigger scheme, the bigger game and the bigger world that's going on, in our perspective, we're the hero. So the problem is your prospect, your non client, your soon to be customer thinks they are the hero in their mind. When you come out of the gate with how amazing you are, then there's a battle and there can't be two heroes. In every story. There's either a sidekick or a villain. There's only one hero, and it has to be them, because they're always right. When they talk about the customer is always right. This part is 100% true, which is they think they're the hero and the center of the universe, and they are right. And when you violate that rule, you make it way harder for yourself to help somebody move forward in a transaction.