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Episode #015: Clarifying the Buyer’s Future State with Mark Hunter

In This Episode of The Buyer’s Mind with Jeff Shore:

Mark Hunter, the author of High Profit Prospecting, joins Jeff to discuss how sales professionals can bring clarity to their customers. With clarity of a purchase decision comes confidence for both you as the salesperson and your customer.

 

 

Topics we’re going to cover on today’s podcast:

[3:11] Quote of the Day

[6:37] Sales Tip of the Day

[10:25] The Importance of Clarity

[12:51] Setting Aside Ego

[15:46] Defining the Outcome

[19:46] Speaking Engagement Tips

[22:14] How Do You Remain Positive

[24:26] Advice to Top Level Performers

[30:38] Motivational Summary

More about our guest Mark Hunter:

The first 15+ years of Mark’s sales career was for several Fortune 200 companies in both sales leadership and marketing positions. During those 15 years, he rose through the organizations to command senior positions leading hundreds of salespeople. After 10+ years of working with companies and salespeople through his consulting work, he wrote his first book, High-Profit-Selling-Without-Compromising-Price, which released in 2012. Now his second book, High-Profit-Prospecting-Powerful-Strategies-Breakthrough, is available.

 

Links from today’s podcast:

Homestreet Bank

Mark’s website

Read Full Transcript

Jeff: How clear is your buyers’ picture of the future? The clarity of the customers’ future state will have a profound impact on their purchase decision. We’ll unpack that and more on this episode of “The Buyer’s Mind.”

Announcer: Welcome to “The Buyer’s Mind,” where we take a closer look deep inside your customer’s decision making mechanism to reverse engineer the perfect sales presentation. Now, please welcome your host, Jeff Shore.

Jeff: Welcome everyone, to “The Buyer’s Mind,” where we investigate just what in the world is going on in the minds of prospects who are considering a purchase decision. This podcast is all about taking a stroll through the buyer’s brain. It’s about knowing that customer so well that the sale begins to roll out right in front of you.

I’m your host Jeff Shore. I’m a 30-year sales veteran, the author of six books and generally, a sales geek. But can you can read the full bio in the show notes. You can also visit jeffshore.com and you can find out about how to sign up for our free Saturday morning video newsletter, a little Saturday morning inspiration to help you on your journey. Joined, as always, by our show producer Paul Murphy. Murph, how are you doing today?

Paul: Greetings from Colorado.

Jeff: Yeah, glad to have you with us, as always, Murph. Murph, you shop for tech stuff all the time, how clear are you about what you want before you begin to search for something? And how does that clarity affect your decisions?

Paul: So tech stuff usually depends on two things. One is the price, so if it’s something expensive like a TV or a computer, you can do a little more research than anything. But if it’s like a piece of software, say like Gmail, or I don’t know, any kind of Google thing that you’re looking for then, you know, they’re free, right? So the question now is what does it cost me in terms of time to try and learn and figure it out?

Jeff: Do you begin that search, though, with the idea of okay, here’s the problem I’m trying to solve, what’s the best solution to that? Because at any given time, if you’ve got a technical problem and you need a tech solution, and these days, how many tech solutions are out there for you to choose from?

Paul: Right. And so you’re gonna ask, you know, what are the features that I need? What are the things that I’m looking for to get out of this piece of technology to help me in my work, my play, my job, whatever it might be? And so when you answer those questions, you kind of narrow down the field based on the research that you do.

Jeff: It’s kind of interesting, I get this ongoing sense that customers have this future state but that it’s oftentimes not well defined, and oftentimes, when it is defined, it’s defined more by today’s problem than tomorrow’s future state. That is, I know the issue that I have right now, but I’m not entirely sure what it looks like when it’s accomplished. Now look, if you’re looking at something really simple of say, “I’m a hungry now, I know how I wanna feel when I’m no longer hungry.”

But when we’re talking about a big purchase decision, it’s a completely different thing. And that’s what we’re gonna get into today on this episode of “The Buyer’s Mind,” showing how that clarity of the future state will make a profound difference on the way that a customer makes a purchase decision.

Our quote of the day falls right in line with this. This is from the late great Zig Ziglar who says, “It is just as difficult to get to a place you don’t know, than it is to come from a place that you’ve never been.” It’s a kind of a weird concept, I think about it. Why do some goals succeed and some fail? And I would suggest that the number one reason comes down to this, goal clarity. I mean, take New Year’s resolutions right, 90% are gonna fail. Why? Because it’s more of a wish than a goal. And what is lacking in that? What’s lacking is goal clarity.

So when Zig Ziglar says it’s as difficult to get to a place that you don’t know than it is to come from a place as never been, I think that’s what we’re talking about. If you don’t have that vision of where you’re going, then how are you going to get there? It’s true for you, it’s true for your customer.

Think about building a house or planning a trip. The clarity of the end results guides our steps and informs our actions. Stephen Covey, in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” called this the first creation. There’s a mental creation that takes place in our mind before it actually comes about. And so I just wanna ask you, for you the listener, how clear are you on your own goals for your career, for your life? That high degree of goal clarity will give you something to see in your brain, and when you can see it in your brain, then you start to normalize it. It becomes what you expect.

So for example, I love keynote speaking. I really enjoy being in front of a room with a large audience. And one of the things that I do is when I’m preparing, I don’t just rehearse by repeating things over and over again, I rehearse in the mental state by putting myself on that stage, by looking at the audience and envisioning what that’s going to be like, and feeling that so that it becomes normal to me. Athletes do this all the time. They picture the future state. They picture, with a tremendous amount of goal clarity what the right result is. Far more effective than just going up and taking a swing and hoping for the best.

And then finally, how does this translate to your customer? Are you doing them a great service of helping to get a crystal clear picture of the desired future state? When you clarify their future, when it becomes very, very clear, it makes it so much easier for them to make a decision.

Well hey, we wanna let you know that this podcast is brought to you in part by our friends at Home Street Bank. They’re not just our show sponsor, they are my lender of choice, because I used Home Street Bank in my last home purchase and I have to tell you, smoothest transaction ever, and I’ve purchased quite a few homes in my day. But they were professional, they were dependable, great rates, great service. And if you’re a real estate professional, you’re just not gonna find better people to work with in taking care of your clients. And they could do it all, banking, home loans, credit lines, you name it. Go to homestreetbank.com to learn more. That’s homestreetbank.com.

Well, coming up in a few minutes, we’re gonna get deep into this conversation on goal clarity in an interview with the legendary Mark Hunter. Mark is one of the most powerful sales innovators in the world today. He is a very high demand keynote speaker. And he’s just a really, really good guy. If Mark has an enemy, I certainly wouldn’t know of it, but he’s got a lot of friends, I can tell you that. He’s just a really good human being. I think you’re gonna love the interview.

Before we get to that, I wanna bring you our tip of the day. And today’s tip is to stay in that theme about clarity and suggest that you consider asking a very future-based question of your customers, something like, what will your life be like when this problem is solved? Or, give me an idea of what your ideal situation would look like.

Now look, you’re gonna wanna tailor the question both to your own industry and to your own style, but get your customer future-focused. Get them thinking about how to clarify the future state, and most importantly, how they will feel in that future state. Because remember, and we were just talking about this, when your customer has a tremendous amount of goal clarity, when they have a clear picture in their mind of what their life will look like on the other side, then it becomes so much easier for them to take those steps and the path rolls out right in front of you. Get your customer thinking in the desired future state.

I wanna invite you to join us for the 2017 Jeff Shore Sales Leadership Summit and Expo. This is to help you become a better leader for your team, to grow your business in ways you never thought possible, and to take your career to the next level. This is the premier gathering for real estate executives, for real estate sales executives. Although I have to tell you, we’ve had people from all different industries and they’ve always gotten so much out of this. But the target lessons are for real estate executives. And you’re gonna learn from the best of the best about what it takes to make you a better leader, manager and coach, more insights, more strategies and more aha moments than ever before.

We’ve been doing these summits for years, and they just keep getting bigger and better. Hundreds of leaders from all around North America, and actually all around the world, descend on Coronado, that’s right, just outside of San Diego at the Loews Coronado Resort. Bring your significant other, stay for a few days. We meet on Thursday and Friday, but most people spend the weekend. And listen, there are worse places to be in August than Coronado Island in San Diego. It’s absolutely spectacular. Just go to jeffshore.com, you can find more information about the summit and other exclusive training events throughout the year for sales leaders and sales pros. Just go to jeffshore.com/events.

All right, well let’s get to our interview. You know, there are people that you meet that you are just immediately attracted to, because they have just so warm, a welcoming spirit. They just draw you in. You just feel like you’re a better person when you’re around them. And Mark Hunter is that guy. He also happens to be a sales genius, his books, “High Profit Selling, High Profit Prospecting,” legitimate bestsellers, he speaks to sales professionals all around the world. He’s a legend in the National Speakers Association. He’s also a good friend and a mentor of mine. Please welcome Mark Hunter. Mark, how are you doing?

Mark: Thank you. And hey, I would say the same for you, believe me.

Jeff: Oh, you’re too kind. When you walk down the halls of the National Speakers Association convention, there are always a group of people waiting to hear from Mark Hunter, because you just drop the knowledge bombs all over the place. Where are you calling in from today, Mark?

Mark: I am actually in Omaha, Nebraska, the mother country. I’m home today.

Jeff: How about that? Just down the street from your close friend, Warren Buffet, I would guess.

Mark: Well, he did. He borrowed the lawn mower this morning. But he left me a credit card, so…

Jeff: Oh, that’s good. That’s good, yeah. Yeah, I’d run that. I’d test that first. You never know.

Mark: Yeah.

Jeff: You know, Mark, we wanna talk today about something that I know that is really near and dear to your heart. We wanna talk about clarity and the importance of clarity, the gift of clarity that a sales professional would give to a customer. And I just wanna start there by asking, how much does that customer need a clear picture in order to make a purchase decision in the first place?

Mark: They absolutely have to have a clear… If we don’t talk clarity, if we don’t create that picture, and let me back up by saying this, you know, the reason we do what we do is not because of what we sell or how we sell, it’s why we sell. It’s really to help our customers. Help them see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible. In order to do that, we’ve got to really help them understand clarity in their own mind, that what they’re about to do is something they can do.

And, you know, you don’t get to that point ’til you’ve got a level of confidence. You have to have…confidence goes both ways. Confidence is between me, the salesperson, and you, the customer, and customer really having confidence with me. But without confidence, there’s no clarity. I mean, you really think about it. I mean, it’s kind of a stepping stone. You have to add one on top of the other.

Jeff: So there’s really that need for a sales professional to have enough confidence for both themselves and for their customers, right? Because confidence is one of those things that’s easily contagious.

Mark: Oh, it is easily contagious. You know, you and I are victims of this in a wonderful way, because what do you and I love to do? We love to hang out with really smart people, right?

Jeff: Mm-hmm, yeah, sure.

Mark: And when you hang out with smart people, you become smarter. So it does become contagious. This is where, you know, we as the salesperson, really help fill that role. Because when I’m around somebody who is a smart person, and oh, by the way, smart isn’t so much necessarily what you say, it’s really what you ask. And if you think about that, when I’m around smart people, it raises my game, it raises my thinking. It increases my clarity of thinking. You know, it’s amazing. I mean, a rising tide lifts all boats. Our job is to get that tide as high as we possibly can.

Jeff: Yeah. Well, let’s chat about that for a second. We’ll go back to the customer’s clarity in just a moment, but speaking on that issue or that idea of hanging around smart people, one of the things that I appreciate about you, Mark, and I try to do this myself, although I’m not blowing smoke, I think you’re a better at it than I am. But I try to set my own ego aside long enough to be able to ask really smart people for information that would help me to gain a little bit of insight. I think you do this really well. You’re not afraid of looking dumb. You’re not afraid of tipping your hand that you don’t already understand this. You’re pretty good about just asking questions. Is that something that you work on? Does it make you nervous to ask questions, or do you just look at you go, you know what, when you figure out that dignity is overrated, you can get away with a lot of things?

Mark: You know what, you and I both know the person I’m gonna mention here, Verne Harnish. Great individual.

Jeff: Yeah.

Mark: And a brilliant mind who everybody needs to follow. And he’s great about asking questions and getting other people on board. I’ll share with you something, just an hour from now I’m doing a live video with a pretty prominent person in the sales industry, Gerhard Dishwand. And we were having problems, technically, this morning, doing the test. I reached out to somebody who I said, “Hey, you know what, I’m having a hard time, can you help me through this?” and this person helped me through it. And, you know, I don’t hesitate to reach out, because believe me, I was gonna fall flat on my face.

Jeff: Right.

Mark: So it is. You have to be willing to be humble. Hey, can I give you a definition for ego? Because everybody needs a big ego. And every leader, every salesperson, needs a big ego, but it’s not what we think it is. It’s E-G-O, empowering greater outcomes. Think about that. What you wanna do with your customer is help them, empower, encourage, a greater outcome.

Jeff: Wow.

Mark: That’s cool.

Jeff: Love it. Love it. Well, that leads us back into the idea of the outcome and the clarity of the outcome. Because I guess we could start, Mark, by looking at it for ourselves as business people or with the sales professionals that we are so blessed to be able to work with day after day. When we’re setting goals, one of the things we know about goals is that the one thing that will make the most profound difference in goal achievement is goal clarity. When I’m foggy on what that goal looks like, then I really have a hard time planning the steps to get there. But when I have a very, very clear picture of what goal clarity looks like, of what that end result looks like, then the steps begin to roll out right in front of me.

So first of all, I’m assuming that that’s a philosophy that you share.

Mark: Oh yeah, yeah. That’s why that whole smart principle, you know, S-M-A-R-T, we’ve all heard that a thousand times is so critical. And doesn’t it get lost many times? I mean, it’s lost in the fog because we create these goals. Well, goal without a plan is a dream.

Jeff: Right. Yeah. But now we look at it and we translate that over to our customer, because if I’m a sales professional, I’m working with a customer. If my customer has a vague idea of how their life is going to, well let’s put it your way, empowering greater outcomes. If I have a only a vague idea of what that outcome looks like, it’s very difficult for me as a customer, to be able to move forward. But if I have a tremendous amount of clarity on the outcome, I can really sort of try the outcome on for size and get a sense of how it feels.

Mark: Oh, yeah. You know that person who says, “Oh yeah, you know, we’re looking for a place where we can have a big backyard.” Well, what does a backyard mean? What are you gonna use it for? Help me understand that. Or, “You know, we want that bonus room.” Many times people don’t understand what their needs are until, you know, an expression I like to use is, “I wanna give you, the customer, this canvas and I’m gonna give you some brushes and it’s my job to give you colors.”

Now, I can’t give you the full palette of color at one time, because I gotta give you one color at a time. But as I give you a color, you’re gonna begin creating your picture and the picture becomes clearer and clearer. And as you paint that picture more and more, then you begin to see yourself where the next color goes. You see, it’s really paint by numbers, but it’s paint by salesperson. That’s what I’m doing.

Jeff: But the customer can choose which colors to use, according to their own style, according to their own taste. They get to paint their own picture, by the time they’re done, which is a far cry from the salesperson who’s got to look at it and say, “Let me tell you why you’re gonna love this,” and, “Here is this feature and that add-on.” And by the time they’re done, you’re painting a picture in your mind that might be very clear, it’s just not clear to the customer.

Mark: Yeah, that’s selling the inventory. See, that’s back to what you’re selling, not why you’re selling. And it really come back to why you’re selling. It’s the customer. It’s a customer.

Jeff: Yeah, this takes on a degree of emotional intelligence on the behalf of the sales person to be able to even get out of their own way. You described ego as empowering greater outcomes, but when you look at the negative side of ego that we often see, I’m guessing that that’s probably the biggest culprit that would otherwise get in the way, that would mess things up, when in reality what we wanna do here is know ourselves well enough to know when to step back a little bit and just sort of let the customer explain what their own vision of goal achievement looks like.

Mark: Oh, yeah. Boy, doesn’t that happen when we’re right there trying to close that deal, when we’re right there, and you know, hey, relax, step back, step back, it will happen. If you’re confident enough in what you’ve done, it will close, the deal, and again, regardless of what it is that you’re selling.

I see so many salespeople in that traditional B2B arena, month-end, quarter end, they get into that panic. Hey, we see that in the automobile arena, you know, the end of the month, I mean, we all know when’s the best time to buy a car? The last couple days of the month, because that’s when the dealer is discounting the most to make their numbers.

Jeff: Right.

Mark: Ouch.

Jeff: Now, there’s an argument here that a salesperson in that arena, let’s just say car sales for example, is gonna look at it and go, “Yeah, but it benefits the customer because we really are doing better deals along those lines. And so I don’t mind being a little bit more desperate at the end of the month.” What do you think?

Mark: Well, yeah, you can argue that. And you can argue go and take the first three weeks of every month off, you know?

Jeff: Yeah, right. That’s fair.

Mark: If I’m having to discount, remember, price is purely a reflection of perceived value. And if we’re having a discount to close every deal, then we’re not doing a good enough job of demonstrating value. And so that’s really our own shortcoming. You know, we see this right now with department stores. I mean, boy, we see many segments of the retail industry, you know, you don’t buy anything unless it’s 80% off, 80% off, and today only, 50% off of 80%.

Jeff: Right, sure. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Mark, when you are…I wanna just change gears here for just a little bit. Oftentimes, sales professionals find themselves where they have to make a group presentation, it might be a small group, say where I’m dealing with six decision makers in a room at the same time, or it might be a presentation about my company, about my product, or whatever.

You give a lot of presentations. You’re one of the most in-demand public speakers in the sales world today. Do you have any, very simple tips for people who are quite used to one-on-one conversations but maybe a little bit out of their element when they’re giving a speech or making a presentation in front of a group of people?

Mark: You know, even when it’s a group, it’s still a one-to-one discussion. It’s you and one person. Zig Ziglar, you know, what a phenomenal… First time I heard him, I was in an auditorium, probably 15,000 people and I thought he was speaking to me. I thought he was just talking to me.

Jeff: Yeah.

Mark: That ability to create, and again, it’s that passion, it’s that emotion that comes through your connecting with one person. Don’t look at the audience as being 5 people, 10 people, 100 people, 1,000 people, it don’t matter. It’s one-to-one. What you’re having is you’re having a conversation. You’re having a dialogue. That’s really, to me that’s the core of any presentation.

Jeff: That is, it’s so powerful because, you know, we hear that stupid, stupid advice, “Picture people in underwear,” is there anything that would make you more uncomfortable than imagining everybody around you in their underwear? I mean, it’s just…

Mark: You know, I’ve heard that line so many times, you know, “Picture them in their underwear.” “Picture them…or just look over the top of their head.” Don’t give them eye contact.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, great.

Mark: Like, oh come on.

Jeff: Right, yeah.

Mark: It’s just one-to-one.

Jeff: Right. Right. It’s great advice, because even the idea of picture of them in their underwear, I think the origin of that advice is to say that will give you the advantage. Well, that would seem to indicate that this is all about you. And this isn’t about you, right? When you know full well when you walk on the stage, this isn’t them Mark Hunter show, you’re not the star of the show. You may have the microphone but I know you well enough to know your philosophy on this, Mark. This isn’t about you.

Mark: It can’t be about you. It’s about what are they going to do different as a result of what you had to share? And if you can’t look at it that way, you don’t deserve the microphone, you don’t deserve to be in that meeting, you don’t deserve to be in that presentation.

Jeff: Mark, I’m sure you have your down days. I’m sure if I talked to your bride of 37 years, congratulations, by the way.

Mark: Thank you.

Jeff: I’m sure that you’ve got your weak moments, but for the most part, you live your life as a fairly upbeat, positive-minded person. Is that a personality trait or do you just work on it or are you just faking it?

Mark: Well, it’s all three. A combination, and I take my meds every day.

Jeff: Yeah, right.

Mark: You really have to have an outlook on life that says my goal is, I’m looking to learn something new every day. And when you stay grounded…short term problems are always gonna occur. We’ve all gone through short term problems. Keep your focus long term. I have a deep faith and I just thoroughly believe that what I’m gonna do is hopefully gonna make an impact in somebody. You know, it’s easy to get in a funk. It’s very easy. And if you allow yourself to get in a funk, because you hang out with funky people. We become who we hang out with what… Tremendous Jones, he passed away…this is the second dead person I’ve mentioned today. But he has used the comment that five years from now you’ll be the same, with the exception of books you’ve read and the people you meet.

Jeff: Yeah, there’s no question about it. If we get outside of ourselves, it makes all the difference in the world, even if we are having a bad day. And I remember, years and years ago, I my dog passed away. I’m a huge dog lover. My dog passed away and the next day I had to give this presentation that I just did not want to give. And I made the conscious decision that I was gonna use the presentation as a sort of therapy to say, “I’m gonna so pour myself into these people that I won’t have time to think about my dog.” And as it turned out, it was one of the best presentations that I’ve ever had, not from my perspective, but because I think that I was so locked into the experience of the people in that room today and getting outside of ourselves. Not to be served, but to serve, I think is the best example we can think of.

Mark: Yeah.

Jeff: Mark, any advice for top level performers? I know we’re out of time here, but any advice for a top level performers? Or if you’re already a high flyer, and as you know, it’s grow or die, but if you think you’re gonna plateau and stay the same, the world’s gonna change around you and the net effect is you’re gonna digress, right? So what advice do you have for high flyers who really just wanna take their game to a new level?

Mark: Well, in the words of Willie Jolley, who is still alive, he says, “The best is yet to come.” And the high achiever can always achieve. But you know what, focus on why it is, why it is. You know, why are you in the business? Because you can help people. And when you truly do practice ego, empowering greater outcomes, I think without a doubt you can continue to take your game up. Low performers focus on the numbers, high performers focus on the numbers. And I think those are mistakes on both ends. Don’t focus on your numbers. Your numbers are the result of the people you’ve helped, and I don’t care what business you’re in, that’s really what it’s all about.

Jeff: Yeah, I love it. I love it. Impact, it’s just make the impact. Focus on the impact and everything else follows suit. Well, there you have it. You can understand, now, why I wanted to have Mark Hunter on the show and why I consider him a friend and mentor. I can talk to Mark all day long and I always feel better when I do. Mark, thanks for being on the show.

Mark: Thank you for having me.

Jeff: Well, I have to tell you, Murph, that was everything I expected from Mark Hunter. I know you’ve never met Mark Hunter, but you sort of get the sense that he might be the nicest guy on the planet.

Paul: I don’t know if he’s a nice guy on the planet, but he seems like a pretty good guy.

Jeff: Well, that might be you actually, come to think of it, Murph, so… You guys would get along just fine. I love…it just had so many little nuggets of wisdom right there. And I think it really started with the whole idea, along with our theme of goal clarity, help them to see and achievement what otherwise seems impossible.

And I think if you’re looking at a big purchase decision in your life, you know, it may not be impossible in your mind, but it’s not clear. And you sort of get the sense that if you’re in the…and the idea that you’re gonna purchase something, a sales professional who helps you to see and then believe that future, would make all the difference in the world, right?

Paul: I think when a salesperson helps clarify things for me, that I can see better what it is I’m doing, with what it is I’m purchasing. And it may even give me ideas that I hadn’t even thought of before.

Jeff: That’s a great point. I think great salespeople do a good job of solving problems that their customers do not yet know that they have. But I also think that that salesperson gives you confidence, yes?

Paul: Yeah. So when they know what they’re talking about and can tell me about the features of whatever it is I might be purchasing, then that’s just helpful for me, because it gives me confidence and that I’ve made the right decision.

Jeff: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Paul: So hey, Jeff, you know I’m not in the sales arena. That’s not where I’ve come from, so I’m learning. And as I was listening to Mark, he mentioned the term SMART. It’s an acronym for something and he says everybody knows what it is, but I don’t.

Jeff: Yeah, a lot of us in the sales world have followed this for a long time. And I have to confess to you, I’m not sure exactly where it originated, but the idea is when you’re setting goals you want them to the smart, and SMART is the acronym for five things, and they’re gonna spell the word smart: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound, okay? So you want goals that are specific, they’re simple, they’re sensible and you can look at it and say, “I know exactly what it is.”

You wanna make sure that it’s measurable, that you know exactly how you’re making progress. That it is achievable, it’s not something that’s pie in the sky that can’t actually be done. That it’s relevant. That it makes sense. That it’s reasonable for your life. And that it’s time bound so that you can measure it in time and how long it takes you to get there. So, there you have it, S-M-A-R-T. A good way to go about setting goals.

Paul: Great, thanks. Something new for my tool belt.

Jeff: There you go. There you go. I love Mark Hunter’s comments about the idea of the role, the partnership mentality between a seller and a buyer, and the idea that here’s a canvas, and here are some brushes. And you’re going to actually paint this picture, but I’m gonna give you some colors, and as I give you those colors in the form of questions, then what happens? That customer can paint that picture a little bit at a time.

And what I see over and over again in the sales environment, are salespeople, and I mentioned this with Mark, salespeople who just can’t wait to paint the picture. They want to paint this picture. And it’s almost like, if you’re not careful, it’s almost like describing your own dream. You can’t do that effectively. Oh, you know what, you’ve got to hear about this dream I had last night. And of course, that causes us to just roll our eyes. It’s like, “I don’t wanna hear about your dream, it was so boring even you slept through it.”

But when you look at it from that perspective, this is what salespeople do. Let me tell you my version of clarity here. The only version that matters is the customer’s version, so we have to tell it through their eyes and let them paint that picture. I also love little bonus there, if we have a presentation to make and I’ve talked to so many salespeople who the very thought of standing up in front of a group of people is exceedingly scary. And so the idea that you’re not talking to a group of people, you’re talking to one person, just look at one person and then look at another, but you’re just talking to one person.

And look, we can all talk to one person. If we couldn’t, we wouldn’t be in sales in the first place. But if we just extend that out and say, “You’re not talking to a huge group, you’re only talking to one,” that was fantastic.

Well, I got to tell you what, Mark Hunter not letting us down at all. And let’s let that lead us into our wrap up here. And I wanna just suggest to you here, and this is consistent with our theme of today’s podcast, that you must be a visionary for your customer. You’re not just an information source. You are an encourager. You are a Sherpa that leads them to their goal of life improvement. You give clarity, and with that clarity comes confidence. You are part instructor and part cheerleader and part encourager and part counselor and part advocate, and in the end you are a dealer in hope. Hope of a better future. Hope of a better life. Be that visionary for your customer.

All right. Hey, at the beginning of the show, I told you that we’re running an ongoing contest related to the launch of “The Buyer’s Mind” podcast. And I’m gonna I tell you, you have the chance to win Bose QuietComfort 25 acoustic noise-cancelling headphones. These things, if you’ve never heard it before, they’re absolutely amazing. I love these when I’m traveling, when I’m listening to a podcast or when I want great quality music that blocks out the noise around me.

And for the winner, you can take your choice of either the over the ear or the noise-canceling ear buds. Now, I listen to these and I love these so much that I actually own both. So when I’m working out, I listen to a podcast, I listen to music, whatever it is, and it’s a fantastic experience.

So we’re gonna give away a pair of Bose headphones, but I’m also giving away several Shore Consulting swag bags. That’s five of my books, a coffee mug, my motivational CD and a bag to carry it all in. And all you have to do is download all of “The Buyer’s Mind” episodes on iTunes and subscribe to the podcast and then leave a quick review. It’s not difficult. It will only take you about 30 seconds.

When you’ve done that, go over to jeffshore.com/podcast, and click on the contest link. It’ll just ask you for your email address and the name that you used when you wrote the review on iTunes so that we can pick the winners from there. And we’re gonna give away 10 of the Shore Consulting swag bags. And then remember that grand prize, your choice of either the Bose QuietComfort 25 acoustic, noise-cancelling headphones, or the QuietComfort 20 noise-cancelling ear buds.

All right, that’s a wrap for today’s episode of “The Buyers Mind,” I hope you enjoyed it. You can find everything you need at jeffshore.com. Until next time, go out there and change someone’s world.

 


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About the Author: Jeff Shore

Jeff Shore is the Founder and CEO of Shore Consulting, Inc. a company specializing in psychology-based sales training programs. Using these modern, game-changing techniques, Jeff Shore’s clients delivered over 145,000 new homes generating $54 billion in revenue last year.