Communication Styles: Selling With Science - Cold Calls

Communication Styles: Selling With Science - Cold Calls

The Four Styles of Speech

 

As I was talking about in my previous blog (The Science Behind Selling: The Cold Call), when your approaching an individual during a cold call, you will need the ability to take one short look at them, and assume how they would like to be treated.

 

Have you ever heard the saying "do unto others how you want to be done unto"? Let me explain something, in sales the golden rule is "do unto others how they want to be done unto". If you can treat someone exactly how they want to be treated, the chances of them purchasing whatever your trying to sell is significantly higher. In Communication Styles: Selling With Science - Cold Calls, I will explain to you the four personality styles, and how you can operate your way around them.

 

The Director

This is the "my way or the high way" style of communication, you will often find "directors" working in large corporations in charge of many employees. These individuals want to feel in charge, they do not want to be told what to do, or what to buy. They want to be the person who decides what they want to buy, under all circumstances. When you meet with a director face to face, you cannot be shy, you MUST be confident in everything you are saying. If you aren't, a director can pick up the fact that you are being wimpy, and immediately deny you based on that.

 

Tips on selling to directors:

- Be as confident as they are (if you can)

- Look them in the eyes (directors will find you shady if you don't)

- When attempting to close, make them want to feel like they want it, and they are in fact deciding to purchase

 

The Emotive

The emotive wants to be your friend, and desires acceptance from everyone. You can find emotive's  usually being the life of the party. These individuals can be easily persuaded with friendship. When you are selling to an emotive, keep in mind that you need to be the nicest, best guy they have met (be your "best self"). You need to be genuine, exciting, and truly determined to HELP them out.

 

Tips on selling to emotive's

- Be their friend before a sales person

- Be extremely friendly

- Your talking to an extravert, be an extravert (if you can)

 

The Supportive

These people are "too nice", sometimes so nice they cannot say no, and the product you think you have sold them has simply been put back on the shelves because they were afraid to deny you. These people are the hardest sell, mainly because you can never genuinely tell what the hell they are thinking; they will be smiling the whole time (whether they have no desire in buying what you are selling, or they are very intrigued). Try your best to sell to them, and the larger they are smiling, the less likely the sales going to happen (sad truth).

 

Tips on selling to supportive's

- Be just as nice as they are

- Look for closing cues throughout the sale, and try to capitalize on them

- DO NOT be aggressive with supportive's

 

The Reflective

The reflective doesn't want your friendship, they want FACTS. When you are talking to a reflective, you don't necessarily need to be as friendly as you would a supportive or an emotive (you should still be polite anyway though). When your selling to a reflective, focus on the features of whatever your selling and how they would benefit from it. For example, if you are selling lawn cutting services, you can't be selling them you (for terms sake), your selling them the benefits they will reek from the purchase.

 

Tips on selling to reflective's

- Be more informative then friendly

- Talk facts, not opinions

- Don't be discouraged by these people not caring about your acceptance

 

Study these communication styles, and try your hardest eliminate communication style biases (which means adjusting your style to speech to match theirs as much as you possibly can). Like I said before in Selling With Science: The Cold Call, reading this is only the 1%. When you go out and actually attempt to make sales and put money in your pocket, you will see that these communication styles are very accurate, and when you've learned that, you gained the 99%.