Rocket Readings: Are Your Words Making You Invisible To Your Buyers?

Are Your Words Making You Invisible To Your Buyers?:

Those of you who have read the book I co-wrote about Trigger Events, are familiar with the Selective Perception. A simple concept of how once you train the mind to look for specific things it will be much more selective in seeing those things. So if you know that a certain event paves the way for something positive for your sales success, you will selectively look for people experiencing that event; a promotion leading to a predictable change in suppliers, should lead you to look for people being promoted to that role. Something some sales people do instinctively, it evolves with trends in their market, and awareness just makes it a more consistent habit.
Selectivity however is a two way street, prospects are selective as well, especially in what they listen for, if they don’t hear what they are looking for they ignore it. Which means words, what and how you say things become even more important, especially when you are prospecting, trying to gain Engagement. If they don’t hear specific things, you’re gone; more importantly, if they hear specific words, things they don’t want to hear, sales and marketing speak, you’re toast for sure. This leaves a narrow channel to success, and if you are not in that channel, you’ll be invisible to your prospect. This is the opposite of selective perception, call it: being systematically ignored.
And it’s not just the big and obvious things but the little things that can quickly have your prospect reaching for the mental off switch.
It is an exercise in sales multi-culturalism. People in the same neighbourhood will see and refer the same thing in different ways. A VP of will look at an offering differently than a user of the same, evaluate it using different criteria based on very different expectations. If you use the same words as the user, the VP will shut you down, the reverse is also true. Let’s look at something familiar to all of us sales. Front line reps and managers will talk of deals, pitches or sales; while their VP will talk of revenue and the cost of that revenue, though both are speaking to the same thing. While in the C suit they’ll speak of shareholder value. One reason CRM’s face initial resistance is because they were sold to executives, based on their criteria and reference points, not to the users’. Conversely, if you primarily sell to users, then approach their VP with the same story told in the same way, the executive will shut you down faster than you can reel off the next feature.
It is up to you to learn what the customer is trying to achieve with your offering, then present it in a way they can consume, understand and value, if not, you’ll be invisible, and sadly often, transparent.
Next Step