In this short episode of In-Sights, Lance discusses the crucial value you bring to your meetings. One timeless piece of advice: "Always get their opinion before you give yours." During the evaluation phase of a sale, it's essential to dive deeper into meetings to foster an informal yet thorough understanding of the prospect. This approach helps us craft tailored solutions that resonate more effectively. By taking the time to truly understand our prospects, we move closer to building strong, successful relationships. Make sure to tune in to future episodes where Lance walks through deals and gives strategic and sound advice to get the best out of yourself and your prospects. In-Sights episodes are for leaders, entry-level salespeople, and everyone in between!
Lance is the bestselling author of Selling Is An Away Game and The Human Sales Factor.
You can purchase these books at: https://lancejtyson.com
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In-Sights: Seek First To Understand And Transform Your First Meeting Into A Lasting Impression
Progressive Building On Your Value
The Importance Of Strategic Questioning In Building Rapport And Credibility
If you’re thinking, you could almost come out of the first meeting and say, “Out of curiosity, everything we presented to you, what’s possible as one team that stuck out at you?” You could probably even ask that question at the end of the first meeting, if you’re thinking. I’m not saying that you both didn’t, but this is this progressive building of what you guys do. In an organization like yours or an agency or an elevator or legends, you have to do stuff like this because you bring so many variances to the table that if you’re not checking in, it gets lost. It’s not as simple as just going to the chargers and buying something from whoever. Ben, go.
A quick thought to build on Andy’s thought, the move oftentimes is good, as somebody was talking about it, too. It’s good for building rapport and establishing some credibility. A lot of times, for me, what I like to do in that move is rather asking, what is it that you like? What stuck out to you that you’re thinking about that you maybe like?
I would flip that and offer a suggestion on something that I don’t think would work and explain why. Based on our conversation, we talked about a lot of stuff. Here are a couple of things that I don’t think are a good fit for you. Here’s why. Is there anything else? Do you have any thoughts on that and see how that builds? Typically, that can build some rapport and credibility.
It does, too, because you’re taking some things off the table. I’m 100% in both your corners with this. The move right before that is based on everything we presented, all things we did, what made you uncomfortable and what did you like at all. What they’ll always come back and come back and say because you got to remember and think about this.
Most people will tell you your presentation is great but they won’t tell you what they didn’t like. You can come back then and say, “What do you like? What made you uncomfortable?” They would almost 99% of the time say, “It’s not what I didn’t like, but I like this better.” That’s why the strong question, emotional question, usually gets in the back off and it ricochets the other way. Even the boss talked about that and never spoke about the difference.
He talks about that. It’s a clinical psychologist thing. If I was talking to Randy or to Dico, what did you hate about your father? He would go, “It’s not that I hated this, but I didn’t think he was.” If I’m saying something, Dico, that is true in your life. I apologize. I know nothing. I’m just taking a stab at it here. That’s what a clinical psychologist would ask, What do you hate about your mother? What do you hate about your father? A counselor would say, what do you dislike about your spouse?
It’s not what I dislike or strongly dislike, but this makes me uncomfortable. That question off of what Ben’s saying. You can do it one of two ways. Now here is something I want to drill in all your heads, write this down. Get their opinion before you give your opinion. You’re going to be great at negotiating, great at objections, as a great leader, get their opinion before you give yours. Principle-wise, seek first to understand before you’re understood. I wish I made that up, but I didn’t. That’s spirit house, Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits Highly Effective People, but I put it since nobody’s talking about the book anymore, I’ll just redo it.
A great leader gets others' opinions before they give theirs.
Bobols used to say that all the time.
The Principle Of Seeking First To Understand
There are powerful principles. The other powerful principle we’re talking about, too, is to think about what we’re throwing out here. I’m not in disagreement with anything anybody’s saying. I do think there’s a sequence. First thing’s first, ask first their opinion, then give your opinion because you’ll know how to be agile with it. They’re important. Good example, folks. Who wants to go next?
Let’s get at least one more up there that we can talk about. I’m bringing up things that we’ve talked about in the past. I’m just showing you alternate moves to these things. Where does this fit? All this does, if you think about the evaluation part of a sale and the words are discovery, needs assessment, evaluation, and opportunity analysis.
All we’re doing here is we’re taking meetings once and things we learned. We established our credibility. Our task is to put something together for them. We’re just doing a little deeper dive that we’re making informal so we can find out where their heads are that get us closer. Hopefully, that connects. That informal connection puts us a little bit in pole position. That’s it.
We’ll test to see how much of a priority we are. The worst thing that happens out of this is, they can’t answer Dico’s questions. We found out that they’re entertaining multiple things because I would be nervous coming out. “I don’t know. Throw us your best thing. Whatever you got.” I would be more nervous with that. I would say that unqualifies it a little bit and makes a lot more work for you at the tail end. You got a lot of work to do. If they come back and answer any of these questions, you’re in play.