The Wolf of Wall Street in the Real Print World. Part 2

Sell me this penPart 1 can be seen here

3 videos can be seen in this article and 2 more can be seen at the bottom of the home page of this site

Let’s look at some simple sales frameworks.

Gather information. So how do you go about that?
You want to understand what kind of person you are selling to. How will they will use your pen? If they are in management, they probably sign important documents.

Listening to them will give you background and hints as to how to most effectively persuade them to buy your pen.
Respond to the information by identifying their need for the pen and the fact that an unmemorable pen used on a memorable document could hamper thinking. What would happen if they didn’t have a pen? You need to identify their pain.
Deliver information on your pen. Show the importance of using your pen to their job position. Highlight the benefits of your pen, the fact that it has blue ink which distinguishes the original from a copy
Hand back the pen telling them that they can keep the pen for a week and you will call back next Friday, at which stage they can place an order or give you back the pen.

Another framework used is AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. This is a simple process, which means that it is not definitive, it’s a guide.

You have to get your customer’s attention. Without that you can’t persuade them to buy. People’s attention span is getting shorter. In 2000 it was 12 seconds and in 2013 it was 8 seconds. Compare that to the attention span of a goldfish at 9 seconds.

Develop good openers, e.g. Have you ever …Can you see …Are you noticing …
Bad openers will only turn them off, e.g. I’ve got the thing that you want …I just dropped by …I was wondering whether …

If you don’t get their attention within the first 8 seconds, you won’t be able to keep it, let alone win it back.
You have to keep their attention by getting them interested. Get them talking about their problems and needs for your product. What would happen if they didn’t have any problems identified. What about delivery, storage, quality, price, payment, aftercare, guarantee, etc.
This step creates a desire for your product. The need is recognised, but not the desire for your product. Like keeping a fire going, you have to stoke desire to a good flame. You may want to use the scarcity principle, e.g. the offer won’t be around for long. You may want to show how other buyers use the product and approve of it. Another one is to show them how well your product is suited to their needs.
Now you have to sell. AFTO – ask for the order. You may have to negotiate, overcome objections or generally convince them to buy.

Some other sales methods are

ADAPT: Assessment, Discovery, Activation, Projection, Transition
AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
ARC: Ask, Recommend, Close and Cross-sell
CHaR: Confusion, Humour and Request.
LAIR: Listen, Acknowledge, Identify objection, Reverse it
LOCATE: Listen, Observe, Combine, Ask, Talk, Empathize
SELL: Show, Explain, Lead to benefits, Let them talk
SPIN: Questions about Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff
FAB: Features, Attributes (or Advantages), Benefits.
QUAPMAC:Question, Unique, Ascending, Preclose, Match, Askback, Close
NETPOSC: Number, Enquire, Total, Pre-close, Overcome, Satisfy or Stop, Close

As part of some of the sales training courses I run, I focus on the psychology of selling, the use of body language, negotiation, etc. Some of my favourite processes include QUAPMAC, NETPOSC and SPIN.

SPIN is a question asking process, derived by Huthwaite (which is the Q of QUAPMAC). You have to identify pain and you have to get them to realise that they have a problem. This may not be easy. Would using the machine you are selling help them to get more sales, produce new products, retain present customers, regain lost customers, have improved quality, be more price efficient, use less labour, etc. After you have identified a need that your customer agrees with you arrive at the need pay-off questions.

QUAPMAC is like driving along a road with traffic lights at each junction. You can’t go to the next junction until you get a green light and your role is to identify when you get it and you can’t skip steps.

The Wolf of Wall Street says it is supply and demand. To an extent, that is true, but generally not.

Jordon says that the real answer to ‘sell me this pen’ doesn’t show in the film properly. He said, “It’s sort of a trick question. Because when you say to a salesman, ‘Sell me this pen,’ you might find some will say to you, ‘This is a great pen, this pen writes upside down. It defies gravity, this pen is the cheapest pen on earth, this pen will never run out.’ They’ll say all the reasons the pen is good, they’ll start telling you the features, and the better ones will give you the benefits too. But that’s not what the real answer is.

“The real answer is, before I’m even going to sell a pen to anybody, I need to know about the person, I want to know what their needs are, what kind of pens do they use, do they use a pen? How often do they use a pen? Do they like to use a pen formally, to sign things, or use it in their everyday life? The first idea is that when you say ‘Sell me this pen,’ I want to hear [the salesman] ask me a question. ‘So tell me, how long have you been in the market for a pen?’ I want them to turn it around on me and start asking me questions to identify my needs, what I’m looking for. And if you do that, people don’t know what to do. Next thing, he is answering, and now I’m controlling the conversation, finding out exactly what he needs.

“Once I have that, I say, ‘You know, Bill, based on what you’ve just said to me, the pen I have here is the perfect fit. Let me tell you what it’s about…’ Then you can tell them about what you have, because you’re filling a need. Most average or newbie salespeople think that they’re supposed to sell you the pen, when a really seasoned salesperson will actually turn it into a qualifying session to find out what you need. That’s the truth of it. It’s like trying to sell someone a house and you don’t know if they’re in the market for a house, what kind of house they want, how many kids – so how can you sell someone a house? That’s the point.”

After spending 22 months of his 4 year sentence in jail, Jordan is now trying to pay off the $110.4 million fine he got by telling people how to sell and is on the speaking and seminar circuit as a motivational speaker. He has reportedly paid back $14 million so far. In addition, he has written two books and has accredited his cell mate, Tommy Chong, with encouraging him to write and change career direction

He said “I got greedy.... Greed is not good. Ambition is good, passion is good. Passion prospers. My goal is to give more than I get, that’s a sustainable form of success.... Ninety-five percent of my business was legitimate.... It was all brokerage firm issues. It was all legitimate, nothing to do with liquidating stocks”.

Another point in selling is that the salesperson has to totally believe in their product. If they don’t, they wont be able to sell effectively and even if they use all the right words and phrases, it will come through in their body language. As a management consultant, when I advise companies, I tell them to make sure their sales people totally believe in their products, otherwise they can't have them selling them.

So far, we have only covered the tip of the iceberg. We have not covered communication, research, prospecting, tele-sales, etc.