July 28, 2009

What the CIA Can Teach You About Networking

One of my clients, Sarah Carson, one of the first women Harvard MBA's and a private investigator (she breaks all the boundaries!), told me this fascinating tidbit about a tip she heard.

Sarah was listening to a CIA agent lecture about "passive interviewing." He said (and he should know) that if you ask too many questions, people feel interrogated, and they tend to clam up. The best way to get the most information out of people was NOT to ask questions, but to volunteer a small piece of information about yourself. Passive interviewing is a way of getting information from people without them realizing that information is being sought from them. Undercover agents do this when they lead their targets into thinking that they are someone other than who they really are. You start volunteering information about yourself to encourage the other person to start sharing too.

That would turn a networking meetings on its head, wouldn't it? The man asked everyone in the audiece to turn to the person next to them, and get as much infornation as possible about their partner without asking a single question. He gave them minutes to do it.

I liked this idea so much because it takes away the tiresome stream of questions that we often fling at people in order to find out more about them, their businses, if they'll be a good fit with us, etc. It's a softer and more influential way of gathering information, and in addition, it creates a more powerful relationship from the get-go.

The next time you meet someone new, try volunteering small pieces of information without asking any questions, and see how much information the person you're talking to will share with you. Probably more than if you asked a direct question.

I'll report back when I've tried this out. I know it comes from the CIA, but if it's useful, what the heck!

Filed under What I've Learned from Clients by Ann Convery

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June 23, 2009

Ever heard of the Zeigarnick Effect?

The Zeigarnik Effect states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed ones. Why is this good news for you? Because if you leave them a little hungry and a little curious in fact very curious, they will not be able to let you go in their minds. This is what you want. You want to remain top of mind and there's no better way to do it and you arouse as much curiosity as possible and satisfy only 75% of it.

Filed under Surprising Thoughts on Speech by Ann Convery

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May 26, 2009

Curiosity 10X

Curiosity is the single biggest factor your can possibly use in selling. Now you may freeze and think that I want you to sell your services or product whenever you speak. Not at all! I don’t want you to sell them on your services or product. However, I do want you to sell them on you.

I do want you to be remembered. I know how difficult it is for people to remember especially with the amount of information we are bombarded with today. If you create curiosity interest and hunger for what you do this is fabulous. You are marketing yourself in a whole new way. But I do not call this a sales technique because there is no direct selling at all. (So no worrying! :-))

Filed under Surprising Thoughts on Speech by Ann Convery

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April 28, 2009

Pattern Recognition

Human beings are about pattern recopgnition. If you tell me you’re a realtor, or attorney, or network marketer, my brain immediately goes to work and in nano-seconds I have you pegged, and I think I know all I need to know about you. Wrong. The Speak Your Business system is designed for pattern interrupt. Where you interrupt the patterns that have already been created – even before you open your mouth, – you are re-writing the script in their brain, and you’re taking control of the conversation in a way very few people do.

Filed under Surprising Thoughts on Speech by Ann Convery

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March 31, 2009

No One's Listening

Commmunication. In many cases, people meet, tell each other what they do, the pattern recognitions take over, and NO COMMUNICATION HAS TAKEN PLACE. Someone tells you she's a realtor, you think…

You know everything about what she does.
You don’t need one, and
You stop listening. You’re polite, you smile and nod, but you’ve stopped listening.

No communuication has taken place. This is a dangerous waste of time, it happens all the time, and the Speak Your Business system is deisgned to stop it.

Filed under Surprising Thoughts on Speech by Ann Convery

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February 24, 2009

3 Ways to Capture More Clients in 5 Minutes

When I talk about Follow-Ups, I mean the words you say after you say hello. But only top-drawer sales masters really use these techniques. Why not borrow them?

You know the phrase "the sale is in the follow-up"?

Well, landing your prospect is in the follow-up too. A good series of follow-up lines, that you've practiced and have ready when you talk about your business, can create an invisible sales funnel that draws your listener further and further into wanting to know and work with you.

A great follow-up series can convert them from "mildly curious" to "Can I call you next week?"

There are at least six different follow-ups.

Here are three ways a Headline Follow-Up can capture more clients.

(What's a Headline Follow-Up? A bullet-point, only you're speaking it instead of writing it.)

1. Make the headline about the results you produce for your clients, a secret they don't know, or a fact that is tantalizing and provocative.

For example, after you've delivered a knock-out message about the results your service or product delivers, and someone asks, "How do you do that?" just steal one of these 4 follow-ups and reword it to fit your business.

- "All the techniques in the world won't teach you how to sell if you don't know the biggest secret to sales."

- "I've been in business for 15 years and there's one secret to selling that nobody teaches you."

- "Believe it or not, no one actually buys your service."

- "There's one simple word that can lose potential clients fast. Once you've lost them, it's virtually impossible to ever get them back."

These are all designed to provoke curiosity and a bit of anxiety. But they won't work if you don't stop talking.

2. Deliver your follow-up, then stop talking. Wait for their response. This takes practice. Most of us can't stand silence. But silence builds intrigue, mystery and a little user-friendly tension.

Why? In your silence, it feels to your listener that you are withholding something valuable. You appear to have self-control, and therefore you appear to have power.

In your silence, you are allowing the curiosity and tension level of your listener to rise. This is good. In order for your listener to ask you for more information, they need to be at a certain level of healthy tension.

If you want to attract more clients and customers, withstand your own anxiety and allow theirs to rise. The more curious they are, the more anxious they are to hear more.

You can watch this happen in less than 5 minutes.

But this will not work if you give in, soothe them, and gabble on about your business. Then their level of tension decreases, and so does their interest in you. (Research backs this up.)

If you want to know how good you are at holding silence, tell a joke. How long can you stretch out the pause before the punch line? If you're really good, you'll tease your audience so that they'll burst out laughing when you deliver the goods. Why? The laughter is a sign of how much tension you've built.

3. You don't have to answer their questions immediately. This is an old tip from PR. If they say "Tell me more," resist the urge to tell them just yet. You can answer with another even more tantalizing secret, or little-known fact, or even a question.

Build the intrigue! It takes guts to do this. Most of us dutifully and politely answer questions, adding a little to try and make our service or product more interesting. Yes, you can and will give A FEW solid results - not facts - results about your service or product, but build the intrigue first. You will be delighted with the results.

I was studying with sales super-star many years ago, and I always felt like there was never enough time when I hung up the phone. I actually felt the anxiety rise in my throat. Finally I asked her, "How come I always want more of what you have to say?" She laughed and said, "That's sales!" And hung up.