patiently while they talked about the dilemmas and problems and situations in their
families. The more that the employees felt that the boss liked them and respected
them, the more empowered and motivated they felt.
The flip side of this motivator is the demotivating feeling that the boss doesn’t care.
This is almost invariably expressed in a lack of recognition, a lack of approval, a lack of
appreciation and a general failure to pay attention to the employee over time.
Remember, the amount of time that you spend talking to and listening to an
employee is a signal to that employee that he or she is important to you and to the
company. This is why the very best bosses spend a lot of time walking around and
chatting with their employees. They sit with them for lunch and coffee. They invite
their comments and encourage open discussion and disagreements about work. They
create an environment where people feel that the work belongs to them as well as to
the company. In that environment, employees feel good about themselves and more
fully committed to doing the job and doing it well.
To empower and motivate the third group of people, the people around you, your
customers, your suppliers, your bankers and so on, you simply need to practice what
we’ve already talked about. The most important of all is that you be a genuine,
positive and cheerful person. You develop a positive mental attitude. You be the kind
of person from whom, “never is heard a discouraging word.” You are easygoing, genial,
friendly, patient, tolerant and open minded. You make people feel comfortable being
around you.
Remember, everyone is primarily emotional. Everything that people do, or refrain
from doing, is triggered by their deeper emotions. Your job is to connect with their
higher and more positive emotions so they feel so good about you they want to help
you and please you in some way.
For example, whenever you go into a crowded restaurant, or get on a busy plane,
or go up to a busy hotel desk, instead of becoming impatient with the slow rate of
service, you should put yourself in the other person’s place, practice the Golden Rule,
and ask them how they are doing.
Whenever I go into a busy restaurant, I always ask the waiter for his or her name.
Then I address them by name while observing sympathetically, “You seem to be
working hard today.”
From that moment on, the waiter always gives me special attention. Why?
Because I took the time to empathize with his or situation rather than looking for
sympathy for mine.
Try this approach with all the people at your workplace. Observe their situation and
empathize with how hard they are working, how many difficulties they have, how
overloaded they are, and so on. It is absolutely amazing how much better people feel
about you when you take a special interest in them, rather than just thinking about
yourself.
In life, you always have a choice. You can either do everything yourself or you can
get others to help you do some of the work. Our entire economic structure is built on
the principle of specialization. Specialization means that some people become very
good at doing certain tasks while other people become very good at doing other tasks.
For you to achieve your full potential, you must contribute the greatest amount of
value possible. You must concentrate all your energies on doing certain specialized
tasks in an excellent fashion so that you can be paid the amount you want to earn and
you can move ahead at the rate you want to move ahead. But in order for you to
specialize and do what you are best at, and more of it, you must delegate, relegate and
outsource virtually everything else.
Some non-managers feel that the subject of delegation does not apply to them.
But even when you ask your child to bring you the newspaper, you are delegating a
task. When you go out to lunch rather than making it yourself, you are delegating.
When you go into a full service gas station rather than filling your own tank, again, you
are delegating. You are in a process of continuous delegation from the time you get up
in the morning until the time you go to sleep at night. The only question is how you
are at it.
Your ability to delegate effectively, which requires that you inspire and empower others
to help you willingly, will determine how fast you move ahead. It will determine how
much you earn in your job. It will determine the quality and quantity of your
productivity. It will determine your ultimate financial success in life. And the key to all
of this is your ability to empower others.
Everyone’s A Salesperson
By: Brian Tracy
Sometimes I ask my seminar attendees, “How many people here are in sales?” It’s
interesting to watch how people respond to that question. There are always a few
people who will raise a hand at first, and then another hand goes up, and then
another, and soon perhaps half the people in the room have a hand up, even though
they may be in fields such as management, administration, finance and accounting.
I then smile and ask again, “Now, how many people here are really in sales?” At this
point, virtually every person in the room has raised a hand. We all smile at the
realization that each of us is in the business of selling every single day.
From the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to bed at night, you
are negotiating, communicating, persuading, and influencing — trying to get people
to cooperate with you to accomplish the things that you want them to accomplish. So
the pivotal question with regard to selling is not if you are doing it, but if you are
good at it.
All top executives are excellent salespeople. All effective parents are wonderful
salespeople. All effective employees use sales techniques to get their coworkers and
bosses to go along with them and to cooperate with them in getting the job done.
Everyone who is effective in virtually any are of life that involves other people is an
excellent salesperson of some kind.
Unfortunately, over the years, a stigma has grown up around the selling profession.
Many people feel that selling is a low-level type of activity and they don’t like to be
associated with it — even people who are in sales! Virtually no colleges or
universities have a “Department of Selling,” even though almost 15 million
Americans make their living by selling something to someone. It is the largest single,
identifiable occupational group in the United States.
Salespeople are the movers and shakers in every business and industry. They are
the key people who create the demand for all the products and services that keep
everyone employed at every other occupation.
The basis for all successful sales efforts is a discipline called gap analysis. Gap
analysis is clearly defining what your idea, product, or service can do for a person
and then deciding how to demonstrate that in a compelling way.
People tend to buy based on how they anticipate feeling as a result of owning and
enjoying a particular product or service. In fact, they make their decision based on
whether or not that feeling is more valuable to them than the money they will have
to part with.
In selling or persuading anyone to do anything, there is an “ABC theory of
motivation” that is very powerful. In it, “A” represents a state of “felt dissatisfaction.”
This means that the individual is not satisfied with his or her current situation or
condition.
The “C” represents a state of greater satisfaction. If the individual can get to this
state, the felt dissatisfaction in his or her current situation will be relieved.
The “B” in this ABC theory is the product, service, idea, action, or activity that you
are trying to persuade the person to acquire or to engage in.
So, to repeat, the “A” is the existing state of dissatisfaction. The “C” is the future
anticipated state of greater satisfaction or relieved dissatisfaction. The “B” is what
you are offering as a means to that relief.
According to this theory, getting people to do something that they would not have
done in the absence of your influence is possible only when a gap exists between
their current situation and the ideal situation that they would like to enjoy.
The very best persuaders, communicators, and salespeople are those who
concentrate their attention on identifying the exact gap that exists and determining
how big it is. They then focus on widening that gap in every possible way, until the
prospect begins to feel more and more dissatisfied with his or her current situation
and more and more desirous of enjoying the preferable situation that is achievable
by the use of the product, service, or idea.
Let me give you an example. I was quite happy with my car until recently. It was a
nice car, it was paid off, and it was running fine. Then I took it in to the dealership
for a regular checkup and service. The service manager did an excellent job of
analysis and came back to me with the sad fact that the car required not only new
tires all around, but also a complete new set of brakes, a wheel alignment, and a lot
of other things. The total cost would be about $3,000.
You can imagine my reaction. I was shocked. I had no idea that the car required that
much service. Well, I thought, what the heck, at least it’s cheaper than buying a new
car. Then a salesman at the dealership pointed out to me that the car would drop
another $2,000 in value at the turn of the model year, which was coming up in about
60 days. He told me that if I kept the car, and repaired it, I would lose $5,000 off the
total value of the car, which I could never recover.
Suddenly, I went from complacency about my car to dissatisfaction, and then to
great dissatisfaction and an intense desire to improve my condition in some way. The
salesman then went on to explain that he could take my car as a down payment on a
brand new luxury automobile, with no cash out of my pocket, and he could spread
the payments over three, four, or five years so that the cost to me would be very
reasonable. At that, all my resistance vanished. I started out satisfied with my car,
then became so dissatisfied with it that I bought a brand new, expensive luxury car
— and, surprisingly enough, I drove away happy.
Here are some of the key points in gap analysis that my salesman applied. You can
use these same techniques to persuade people to move from where they are to
where you want them to be.
Remember that people buy solutions to their problems, not products or services. In
fact, as a salesperson, you need to be more of a problem finder than a vendor. The
more you focus on the problem, or the gap that exists between the real and the ideal
in the customer situation, the faster you will find a place where your product or
service can plug the gap.
The bigger the problem that the customer or prospect has, the bigger the potential
sale. One of the most powerful questions you can ask a person is, “How much is that
problem costing you?” Help him to identify not only the obvious, direct costs, but
also the not-so-obvious, indirect costs.
Ask the prospect, “What are the implications? What is the meaning of that problem
to you? What other things does it affect in your work or personal life?”
The most astute salespeople are those who are capable of finding a small gap and
then expanding it into a wide gap. They are capable of discovering a small problem
or dissatisfaction in the mind of the prospect and then, by questioning and
commenting, increase it until the prospect develops an intense desire for the solution
they are offering.
If you are selling to companies, you have to ask what the decision makers in the
organization want to accomplish. What is the gap between where they are and where
they want to be? How is the decision maker rewarded, and for what? What does the
decision maker have to do to earn the respect, esteem, and support of this or her
superiors and coworkers?
One of the deepest subconscious needs of all people is the need for self-esteem, for
feeling valuable, important, and worthwhile. If you can ascertain what people need
to do to increase their self-esteem and their perceived value in their organization,
and then show them that by using your product or service, they can earn the
approval and appreciation of the people around them and above them, they will
often be very motivated to buy what you are selling.
When you meet prospects for the first time, you will find that they are usually
unaware that a gap exists between where they are and where they could be. They
will often say things like, “I’m not interested,” or “I can’t afford it,” or “We’re quite
happy with our current situation.” These are normal and natural responses. No one
likes to change. Your job is to describe a state of even greater satisfaction that they
could enjoy if they did something different. Virtually all advertising is aimed at
showing people how much better off they could be with a product or service that
they have not yet acquired.
Gap analysis is based on asking good questions — questions focused on discovering
problems that might be troubling the prospect. There is a direct correlation between
the use of good questioning techniques and sales success. The more and better
questions you ask aimed at finding a problem or uncovering a dissatisfaction, the
more interest the prospect will have and the more sales you will make. The person
who asks questions has control.
Good salespeople always plan the wording of their questions, rewriting them and
practicing them before they get face-to-face with a prospect. Poor salespeople, on
the other hand, make up their questions as they go along.
Here are some great questions for gap analysis.
The first question is an application of the “magic-want technique.” Imagine that you
have a magic wand that you can wave over the prospect’s situation and you ask this
question: “Mr. [or Ms.] Prospect, if this situation were absolutely perfect in every
respect, what would it look like? Then remain completely silent. When the prospect
