CHAPTER
Success Sales Psychology
Zig
I was conducting sales training and motivational classes for a company from 9:00 in the morning until 9:00 in the evening, six days a week.
That’s about as busy as you can get. I did not have time to go look for a house, and with three children in a motel room with your wife, that really is kind of crowded, so the redhead and I talked about a house. At great length, we talked about the house.
We finally decided on what was a reasonable price. Now I know the price was reasonable because she explained to me that it was reasonable. It looked like the foreign-aid bill for the world to me, but she assured me everything was all right.
She went out and searched for a house, and to give her full credit, she really looked at two houses. When she walked in the front door of that second one, the search had ended. She had found what she was looking for.
You need to understand our discussion about that house. We had agreed on a certain price, and then all of a sudden, she said to me, “Honey, suppose we find the dream home—I mean exactly what we’re looking for—will that end our house hunting for all time? How much more can we invest than that original amount we talked about?’
We wrestled with that one over and over, and we finally arrived at a figure which was an additional $20,000. I know what you’re thinking. “In today’s market? $20,000? What are you, Ziglar, the last of the big spenders?”
Let me explain that in Dallas in 1968 you could buy quality housing, after you had your lot, for around $10 or $11 a square foot. So when I’m talking about an additional $20,000, I’m talking about a bunch of house extra.
Today for another $20,000 you could get a neat little carport or a small patio, but in those days it was a whole lot, so that’s what she went out looking for, and when she came back after looking at that second house, she had found what she was looking for. I remember it as if it were yesterday.
I walked in the motel room that evening a little after 9:00, when I’d finished the session, and she was seated on that king-size bed, and she was so excited the bed was vibrating. She hopped up, and she ran over to me, and she said, “Honey, I have found the house. It absolutely is magnificent, in a real nice section of town, has four nice bedrooms on a great big lot, huge garage.”
“Well, sweetheart,” I said, “how much does this house cost?”
“Aww, honey, you’re going to have to see it,” she said. “Every single bedroom has a walk-in closet. It has four baths, and the backyard is plenty big enough for you to build that arrow-shaped swimming pool that you’ve been talking about. The master bedroom is so big we’re going to have to get us a riding vacuum cleaner. Honey, it is absolutely magnificent.”
I said, “Sweetheart, how much does that house cost?”
I finally got it out of her. She told me, and it was $18,000 more than the maximum, which we had already agreed, at least in my mind, was $20,000 more than we had any business at all to spend or to invest.
“Sweetheart,” I said, “we cannot invest that much money in a house.”
“I know that, sweetheart,” she said, “but you know, we really don’t know anything about real-estate values here in Dallas, so I did ask the builder to stop by tomorrow evening when you finish your class and take us all out to see that house at the same time, so you can get a feel for the market.”
“I’ll go and look at it, but I just want you to know in advance, that’s all we’re going to do so we can get a benchmark to go from.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said.
Sales lesson number one is simply this: when possible, you establish value before you give price. That’s very important. If you’ll notice, she told me about the bedroom, she told me about the walk-in closets, she told all about that huge master bedroom, she told me where I could build a swimming pool, she told me about the neighborhood. Try to establish value before you give the price.
Sales lesson number two comes right behind it: you always establish value before you ask for the order. If you don’t, you come across as a high-pressure salesperson who wants to make the sale quickly or get rid of the prospect so you can get out of there and see somebody else. No, you establish value before you ever ask for the order.
Sales lesson number three is this: you get the prospect involved with the product as quickly as possible. She had said, “The builder’s coming by. We’re going to go out, and we’re going to look at that house.”
The next evening, when we pulled up in the driveway, I knew I had a problem. It was exactly what I was looking for—a beautiful neighborhood, a wonderful-looking, ranch-type home.
At that point, I did something that your prospects have been doing to you all of your life, and that brings us up to sales lesson number four. Please remember this: your best prospects are the toughest ones to get the appointment with.
Why did I resist going out there to see this gorgeous house? I knew from what she had said that it sounded like exactly what I wanted, and I did not want to go see that house at that point, because I was afraid of something, which brings us to lesson number five in the world of selling, and that is, when we walked in that house, I acted as if I had no interest at all.
You see, your best prospects often show no interest. Why in the world would I indicate to that redhead I had no interest in that house?
The reason is very simple. I was afraid that if I showed any enthusiasm at all, the redhead and that builder would gang up on me and talk me into doing something I already wanted to do, knew I had no business doing, and was scared I was going to do if I gave them any encouragement at all—buy a house that I did not feel we could afford to invest in.
As we walked through the front door, an interesting thing happened. There was a nice little entrance-way with a neat little chandelier. Now the redhead has never had dramatic training. But as we walked in, she just looked over her shoulder ever so slightly, paused approximately one-half second, glanced up at that beautiful chandelier, and walked on. Message delivered. Message received.
When she walked into the den, she immediately started giving me ownership of the whole thing. She said, “Honey, look at what a big, beautiful den this is, and look, honey, this gorgeous fireplace, and you notice all the bookshelves, which you can put all of your books in? Over here, honey, we’re going to set the television set, and I can see you now with our big, oversized sofa here, which there’s plenty of room in this den for. I can see you laying on that sofa on Sunday afternoon watching the Cowboys out of one eye and watching that fire burn in your fireplace out of the other eye.”
Then she said, “Look back here,” and she took me all over that house. We got into the master bedroom, and she said, “See what I told you, honey? Plenty of room. We can put the king-size bed over here, and you know how you and I like to get up in the morning and drink coffee. We’ll sit at a little table over here with our chairs here. There’s plenty of room. Now, honey, just look at your closet. I mean, even as messy as you are, there’s plenty of room for everything right in here for all of your clothes in your closet.”
She opened the back door and walked out and said, “You see what the backyard looks at. I measured it all. We can put one end of the pool up here, and we can put another end of the pool right down here, and then we’ll go right into the big garage. Look, honey, plenty of room there for your two cars, and if you’ll notice, here is a place, 11 × 11, where we can build that little office you’ve been talking about.”
Yes, she was really giving my ownership all the way through, and that is sales lesson number six. Finally, when the tour of the house was over, we stood there, she reached over, and she squeezed my hand, and she looked up into my eyes, all five feet of her, and said, “Honey, how do you feel about this home?”
That’s sales lesson number seven. You ask the prospect how they feel, not what they think. Interestingly enough, people buy emotionally. They buy with their heart, not with their head. How do you feel? I said, “Well, sweetheart, it’s beautiful.”
What else could I say? I mean, there I was. You think I’m going to look down at that smiling face looking up into my eyes and say, “No, I don’t like this house. It’s just a wild idea you got.” No way, so I said, “Sweetheart, it’s absolutely gorgeous. I would love to have it, but you know we cannot invest in a home this expensive.”
“I knew that, honey,” she said, “but I just wanted you to see something which was really nice. Now we’ll go look at something cheap.” Come on, you don’t think she’s trying to shame me into doing anything, do you? She’s not that kind of a girl.
Nothing else was said that night, and actually that is sales lesson number eight. Sometimes you need to back away. Sometimes you need to let that prospect breathe when you have the luxury of doing so.
Now when would that be? On this occasion, obviously we’re going to be together the next morning. If you have a ride back to the office or something of that nature and your prospect is still with you, let them breathe and collect their breath. Sometimes they’re letting the facts soak in and they’re mulling in their minds as to whether or not or how could they handle this particular situation.
The next morning I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, and when you have a mouthful of toothbrush, you’re handicapped, at least as far as your speech is concerned. She walked in and said, “Honey, how long do you think we’re going to live in Dallas?”
I said, “A hundred years.”
“How long?”
“A hundred years. I love Dallas. I hate to move. This is centrally located. This is where I want to stay.”
“No, I mean really how long do you think we’re going to live here?”
“From here on in. I love this city.”
“You really think, then, we’ll be here thirty years?”
“Absolutely. Why do you ask?”
“Honey,” she said, “you know I was just thinking about that $18,000.” She forgot all about the $20,000. I say she forgot. I wonder, did she? She forgot about the original price of the home, interest and taxes and insurance. She said, “That $18,000 spread over thirty years; now how much would that be a year?”
“That would be $600 a year.”
“How much would that be a month?”
“Well, $600 a year, that’s about $50 a month.”
Then she said, “How much will that be a day?”
“Sweetheart, come on,” I said. “Your arithmetic is just as good as mine. That would come out to about $1.70 a day. Why do you ask me all of these questions?”
“I was just wondering if you would be willing to invest another $1.70 a day to have a happy wife instead of just a wife.”
Guess where we lived for seventeen years? That’s right.
I want to establish something very important. She did not let the why we should buy serve as a stumbling block to the how we could buy it. Now, you might wonder, “Now, Zig, is your wife a salesperson? Is she in selling?”
She doesn’t have a briefcase, and she doesn’t go out and sell, nor does she work in a store where people come in to see her, but I’m here to tell you that everybody on the face of this earth is in the world of selling, and everybody is, in fact, a salesperson.
You might wonder, “Where did she learn that particular thing?”
In the afternoon, during these training classes I was teaching right there in the motel, when our daughters would get home, they’d look after our son while he was taking a nap. She would come into the training rooms, and she heard me talking about this. That close, incidentally, is what we call the 1902. In 1902 a man named Frederick Sheldon wrote a book, and in the book he talked about that.
Sales lesson number nine out of this story is this: even though I am knowledgeable about sales training and technique, really good technique in the hands of a really good person is extremely effective.
Sales lesson number ten is that she made it affordable. How could I honestly say I could not come up with another $1.70 a day? Obviously I knew it would be more than $1.70 a day. But the professional salesperson always makes it easy for the prospect to buy. That is exactly what she was doing.
Sales lesson number eleven, incidentally, is to know how to ask a lot of questions.
Sales lesson number twelve: you need to understand what your sales objective is when you make a sales call. You might say, “Ziglar, that’s crazy. Everybody knows that. The objective of a sales call is to make a sale.” Everybody does understand that, but what kind of a sale? What price sale? She clearly understood what her objective was. It was to make an $18,000 sale. Oh, the house cost a whole lot more than that, but that was her objective—to make an $18,000 sale. Before we ever left the house, she had already sold the original price. She had already sold the additional $20,000 that the house was going to cost. Now all she needed to do was make that $18,000 sale.
That’s extraordinarily important. Let’s say you’re in the automobile business and a couple comes in, and they say to you, “Look, our payments cannot exceed more than $400 a month if we’re going to be able to trade with you.” You find exactly what they need and exactly what they want, but the payments come to $475 a month. Now you have a $75 a month sale in front of you. You see, they had bought the $400 before you even entered the picture. You had nothing to do with that. Their needs and wants had already established the $400, just like in real estate.
If, for example, a couple says to you, “Look, $250,000, that’s it. That’s max. That’s as far as we can go. Here’s what we want for it.” They detail exactly what they want for that $250,000. You find exactly what they want, but the price is $280,000. You don’t have to make a $280,000 sale. You have to make a $30,000 sale.
Why is that so important? Because psychologically, and from your perspective, it’s easier to sell that other $30,000 than it is the total $280,000.
Sales lesson number thirteen is this: you need to know as much as possible about your prospect. Obviously, since we had been married for many, many years, she had a chance to know an awful lot about me. You are never going to be able to get that well-acquainted with all of your prospects. You can’t work on somebody for thirty or forty years to make a sale and expect to survive in the world of selling unless you’re selling some powerful expensive products out there.
What am I getting at? She knew one thing that I very much wanted in life. When I was a youngster in Yazoo City, Mississippi, I was invited one day by a buddy of mine to go swimming at the country club. It was a hot day that summer. I rode my bicycle out to the club. I had on my bathing suit. Man, I was ready to hop in, but my buddy never showed. There wasn’t another person around. The water looked so cool and inviting, I could not resist it, and in that pool I went.
I knew I had no business doing that. You can’t go in unless you’re with a member. I’d been in that pool no more than two minutes when this fellow who was a member and who traded at the store where I worked, came by, playing golf, and saw me in there. He knew I had no business in that club. He told me to come see him the next day.
I was scared to go see him. I was more afraid not to go see him. To this day, I vividly remember that visit in his office. It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. That fellow, I thought, was awfully hard on me. I was afraid I was going to be put in jail.
When I left, there was tears in my eyes and my own childish anger and frustration. I said, “One of these days, I’m going to build me a swimming pool bigger than that one at the country club in Yazoo City, Mississippi.” I’m here to tell you that in the summer of 1969, we built a swimming pool that was one foot longer than the original pool at that old country club.
Know as much about your prospect. She was capitalizing on that when she showed me where everything was.
Sales lesson number fourteen is this: don’t miss the sale because you don’t have what the prospect asked for. Did you know that a lot of times, the prospect asks for things that are not available? Put this one down and think on it.
A lot of people don’t really know what they want because they don’t know what is available. When we moved to Dallas from Columbia, South Carolina, I said, “Sweetheart, you’re going to be spending most of the time at home, so you’re going to select the home, but there are three things I do want. I do want a home with a swimming pool in it. I do want a little place where my office is going to be. I want that office in the home. I must be about writing some books. The third thing is I want a circle drive.”
This home had an awful lot of things, but there were three things it did not have. It did not have the swimming pool. It did not have the office. It did not have the circle drive, and she used that as a sales plus. She said, “Look, honey. You can design your own pool. Here’s where you can put your office. You can design your own circle drive.”
Now I wanted that house, and we bought it. for a lot of different reasons.
There are five basic reasons why prospects won’t buy from you. The first reason they won’t buy from you is that in their minds they do not need what you’re selling. I want to emphasize that salespeople are not needed to sell needs. You don’t need salespeople.
Also how many television sets do you need? How many suits of clothes do you need? How many groceries do you need? We do not need anybody to sell needs.
When it gets beyond needs, there’s something else. The second reason people don’t buy is they don’t have any money. It is true that some people do not have the money, and I don’t want to mislead you or discourage you, but there are some people who lie to you about that one.
Let me tell you a fact: most people in corporations buy what they really want—not necessarily what they need, but what they want.
The third reason people don’t buy is, they’re in no hurry. As a young salesman, I read this poem and committed it to memory:
The bride, white of hair, is stooped over her cane.
Her footsteps, uncertain, need guiding,
While down the opposite church aisle,
With a wan, toothless smile
The bridegroom in a wheelchair comes riding.
Now who is this elderly couple thus wed?
You’ll find when you’ve closely explored it
that here is that rare, most conservative pair
who waited till they could afford it.
The role of the professional salesperson is to impart a sense of urgency in the mind of the prospect, because there’s seldom a perfect time to buy anything. You can’t wait until all the lights are on green before you head for town. If you can impart to the prospect the idea that the major thing is to get started, and if they can handle this phase of it to begin with, yes, they can go ahead and enjoy ownership.
The fourth reason people don’t buy is because they don’t know what you’re selling. That is so tough for us salespeople to understand. How could anybody not want this, as good as this is? They don’t want it, though. That’s where our opportunity comes in as salespeople.
Number five, they don’t buy because they don’t trust you. Very few of them are going to come out and say, “Look, friend, I know you’re lying to me. You’re exaggerating. It probably won’t do all of those good things. That’s impossible.” Very few people are going to say that, but you will miss more sales because somewhere or other along the way, you have communicated something to that prospect that made them feel not quite right about buying. And you’ll never know why.
That’s why the most important part of the process is the salesperson. You can’t be one kind of person and another kind of salesperson.
The prospect might buy you and still not buy the product, but he won’t buy the product unless he has first bought you.
The sales process involves getting prospects. When you get a prospect, you’re on first base. When you get the appointment, whether it’s in person or on the telephone, you’re on second base. When you make your presentation, you’re on third base. So far nobody has sold anybody anything. All you’ve done is invest time and energy and effort and spent money. Until you close the sale, you’re nothing but a conversationalist.
Before we go any further, let me check your thinking on something. Do you feel you deserve a profit when you sell a product that solves a problem? OK. Do you feel you deserve two profits when you sell two products that solve two problems?
I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, because as the late Fred Herman would say, “That ain’t sanitary,” but you are saying that the more people you help, the more profit you deserve. You see, it is true: you can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.
Next question. Say you’ve been selling for five years, or even a year. Do you still have customers who are using and enjoying the benefits of what you sold them a year ago or five years ago?
Who made the best deal, then? Was it the customer, or was it you? The customer made the best deal. That’s right. You probably spent your profit in many cases even before you made the sale, but the question is, is the sales process something you do to somebody or for somebody?
I fought in the ring for a couple of years. As a matter of fact, the only reason I quit was because of my hands. The referee kept stepping on them. In the world of athletics, we go out, we try to find out where the opponent is weak, and we try to take advantage of the weakness. That’s true whether it’s in tennis, football, boxing, or what have you.
In the world of selling, we find out where the opponent, that is, the prospect, is weak—where he has a need. Then we strengthen their weakness by selling them what we are selling.
That’s right. That’s what professional selling is all about. But one of the most frustrating things you can do as a salesperson is convince a prospect and not persuade the prospect. You convince them that the merchandise is wonderful, and they agree. You convince them that it will save money. You convince them that they need it. You convince them that it will benefit them enormously, and that they have the money to buy it.
You’ve convinced them in every area, but they don’t buy. “No, I don’t think I’ll take it.” You’ve convinced but have not persuaded. Now where is the line?
Many years ago, a fellow named Aristotle, who was a very bright guy on most things, made a foolish statement. He said that if you drop two objects of different weights from the top of a tall building, they would fall at different rates of speed.
They’d been teaching that theory at the University of Pisa for a long time. Galileo came along and said, “That’s crazy. Two objects will fall at exactly the same rate of speed, even if they’re of different sizes.”
The other teachers, professors, and students got after Galileo. They said, “That’s crazy. The great Aristotle says otherwise. Prove what you’re saying; convince us.” He went to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, he took a couple of weights; though they were of different sizes, they were of the same material. He dropped them, and they fell at the same rate of speed; they hit the ground at the same time. He convinced them beyond any doubt that they would fall at the same rate of speed.
Guess what they kept teaching at the University of Pisa? They kept teaching exactly what Aristotle had told them. Galileo had convinced. He had not persuaded.
How do you persuade? You persuade, as I did, with that series of nine questions a few minutes ago, not by telling people. But he convinced or you must convince by asking those questions. That’s what I am saying.
In athletics, as I said earlier, you explore the opponent’s weakness. In selling, you take their weakness and make it strong by selling the product. You persuade them to go ahead and get your goods and services, and that will strengthen their weaknesses.
Another point, which is critical in your sales career, has to do with the law of averages. You’ve been told this from time to time: If you make so many calls, you’ll get so many appointments. If you make so many appointments, you’ll make so many demonstrations, and with so many demonstrations, then you’re going to end up with X number of sales.
I agree with the law of averages, but sometimes the law of averages will get you in trouble. For example, if I put one of my feet in a bucket of ice water and one of my feet in a bucket of boiling water, on the average, I am not going to be comfortable.
I believe you, as a salesperson, are exactly like this old farmer that I heard about. He did not want all the land, you might not want all the sales, but that farmer wants the land next to his. You don’t want all the sales, but I’ll bet you want the next one, don’t you?
I want to ask you a question. Would you give me $100 for a product that you knew was worth only $25? I don’t see any hands up. Suppose I used my three best bear-trap closes, then would you give me the $100 for the $25 value?
Suppose I explained that my wife and kids would suffer if you don’t buy. Some of you softhearted or softheaded ones might go ahead and buy, but you’re not going to build a career that way.
The sales point I want to make is this: when the prospect says no, you back up, because he won’t change his mind. Let me say that again. When the prospect says no, he won’t change his mind.
I know what you’re thinking: “Wait a minute, Ziglar, every time I make a sale, they’ve already told me no, no, no.” I don’t doubt that for a moment. I asked the redhead to marry me, and she said no. I asked her the second time, no. Third time, no. Fourth time, no. Fifth time, no. Sixth time, she said OK, but she never changed her mind.
Please understand this, salespeople: when a prospect says no, before they can change their mind, they have to admit they were wrong, that they made a mistake.
Do you like admitting that you made a mistake? It’s a tough thing to do. People don’t do it, but let me tell you what they will do. They’ll do exactly the same thing the redhead did. She made a new decision based on new information.
If you want to be professional in the world of selling, think of the prospect’s mind as a pair of scales. When the value in the prospect’s mind exceeds the price, you have a prospect, but as long as, in that prospect’s mind, the price is $100 and the value is $25, you don’t have a chance for a sale. Now you can’t really change the price, but you can change the value.
That’s the reason every close that you use should give additional information, so that with every close, that prospect is seeing more and more reasons for saying yes. When you get that value above the price, that is the point you will make a sale.
Even though the value is higher than that price in the prospect’s mind, you still have to ask for the order. You still have to use professional skills. You still have to close the sale as a professional should.
You must not oversell. When I think of overselling, I think of the story of the Roman Catholic girl dating the Southern Baptist boy. After about the fifth date, she came home one evening, and she obviously was in trouble. I mean, mom looked at her and knew that her daughter was in love.
Mom said, “Now, daughter, you know us Catholics don’t marry those Baptists, and those Baptists don’t marry us Catholics. It’s a losing proposition. I want you to terminate that relationship.”
“Mom,” the girl said, “it’s too late. I’ve fallen in love. Can’t we do something?”
The loving mother said, “Well, I’ll tell you what let’s do. Let’s sell that boy on taking instruction. We’ll make a good Catholic out of him, and when that happens, everything will be all right.” So they went to work on the process, and it was an easy sale. That boy was really sold on the product. There was no question about that.
After he’d gone through the instruction, the wedding day was set, the announcements were sent out, the gifts starting coming in. Everything was all set. About a week before the wedding, the girl came in one night shedding those big tears, and said, “Mom, it’s all off. Cancel the wedding. Send back the gifts. Call the priest. Tell our friends.”
The mother said, “I’m puzzled. I can’t understand it. I thought we had that boy sold on being a good Catholic.”
The girl said, “Mom, that’s the problem. We’ve oversold. He’s going to be a priest.”
Sell professionally, sell with the right skills, sell with the right intention, but don’t oversell. I believe that’s one of the most important secrets if you’re going to build a career in the world of selling. Sell what it is, sell what it does, sell its true value, but don’t exaggerate that value. When you oversell, you end up with a short career.