Effective Communication
June is Effective Communication Month. Communication is an especially important topic for you to consider because effective communication is the cornerstone of effective sales conversations. If you want to be an extraordinary salesperson, you must become an extraordinary communicator!
What most people think of immediately when they think about communicating in sales conversations is talking. Many people believe that the most important skill you must develop to be extraordinary at selling is the ability to talk well. For years you’ve probably heard people say things like, “She has the gift of gab. She should be a salesperson!” or “He’s such a great talker! He could sell iceboxes to Eskimos.”
The truth is that it IS extremely important to be able to effectively explain what’s in it for your prospective practice members when they receive care from you. That’s why having an awesome, professionally written script, memorizing it, and practicing it over and over again until it’s second-nature is so very important. You can communicate information, ideas, strategies, feelings and emotions, and thoughts all you want to, and if those communications are not received, understood and acted upon, there’s not much value to be received from the effort to communicate.
So, learning to communicate effectively verbally is vital. It’s just not as important as developing your skill as a listener. In order to be a terrific salesperson, you have to listen to people with your ears, your mind and your heart. In my opinion, it’s the most important and valuable skill for a salesperson to learn.
When you learn to listen with your ears, your mind and your heart:
You’ll enable the other person or people in the conversation to feel valued, heard, understood and cared for. You’ll become known as a great conversationalist if you ask questions and listen. And that’s important because after all, Job One in your office is to make your practice members and prospects feel like the most important people in the world while they’re in your office. It’s the main component to developing a practice where your practice members love you, will never go to another health care practitioner, will be your practice member for all of their lives, and will go out and tell other people how great you are. The truth is that many people don’t receive the blessing of being heard, understood and cared for anyplace else except your office
You’ll find out what the people with whom you’re conversing think, feel, want and need. You’ll find out what in their lives is causing them pain and that they want gone. You’ll find out what they don’t have in their lives that they want to gain. And you’ll find out what they want to change and would make any investment necessary to achieve
You’ll decern the emotions behind the words your conversation companion is saying. A landmark test about conveying emotion and attitude in communicating was done at UCLA in 1964 by Professor Albert Mehrabian. What he discovered was that only 7% of the message was conveyed by the words that were being spoken, 38%, by the way, the words were said – tonality and voice inflection – and 55% by facial expression and body language. If you totally agree with something someone says, your response might be RIGHT! And if you totally disagree, your response might be RIGHT! You could use exactly the same word with two totally opposite messages
You will give the people with whom you’re talking the opportunity to come up with their own solutions, guided by the questions you’re asking. If you listen they will tell you why it would be a great idea to invest with you and receive the care they really want. And when you support them in that, a positive buying decision is almost always the result
You’ll have a much better idea of how to respond in such a way that people are emotionally drawn to make a positive buying decision rather than a negative one
So, make every effort to become a tremendous listener in your practice and in your life, and you’ll enjoy serving more people more effectively, a higher conversion ratio, more sales and more revenue