What Are Their Secrets?

Customer Secret #4

\”You look like a successful person… what guiding principles did you follow that led to success?”

Salespeople are taught to ask prospects question, and if there was a good one to ask, this one would be be near the top of my list.

The reason to ask it is not what you think. The actual reason is that it is an excellent question to ask if you aren’t good at typing a person’s personality. Once you are proficient at typing a person’s personality, you won’t need to ask it. But when you’re still developing the typing skill, you need a little help.

First of all, this question is innocuous because of the way it is phrased. It starts out with a statement that shows you respect the other person. Who wouldn’t want to be recognized for surviving a million daily battles throughout life, and coming through them all still standing. And furthermore, it is an honor to be asked what it was was that led to that successful outcome. That shows that you are reducing your own stature, that you as a salesperson, have all the answers.

The response they give you though, is going to be one or more of their “values.” Why this is important, is because people with similar personality temperaments have very similar values. This allows typing a person a lot easier that trying to use behavioral typing because you can simply find the value(s) they tell you in a look-up table, and cross reference it to one of the four personality temperaments.

Why do you want to know their personality temperament? This is going to sound strange, but you want to use personality temperament to get to know their values.

Wait… What? You ask them a question about their values, only to use it to get to know their values? That sounds circular and stupid, right?

Actually, no. 

When they offer up one of their values, that is only the tip of the iceberg. They have a lot more guiding principles than that single one that they just told you about. There could be dozens of them that they follow that led them to their current level of success. And you as a salesperson want to know them ALL. 

The more you know about your prospect, the greater your ability to help them achieve their goals. So you want to know more than just one value. And you get to know the other ones they didn’t tell you about, by looking them up in the chart of common values for the personality temperament that they are in.

I know this sounds complicated, but actually it is more comfortable from the prospects perspective than the way salespeople are currently taught how to get that information. 

The way salespeople are told to get this same information is to ask the multiple questions that pepper their prospects into submission. A typical scenario might go like this: “When you’re buying a product like this, what do you look for that tells you that you got a good deal? What else might you look for? What else? What else?”

I’ve read sales manuals that say to ask the “what else?” question five times. By the time you get to the fifth one, you’re finally getting close to the REAL reason or criteria that the prospect has.

That sounds great, right? Unless you’re on the receiving end of that badgering, like your prospect is receiving. Then it isn’t so comfortable. 

I personally believe that this endless stream of questions is the reason that 70% of prospects don’t want to talk to a salesperson. They’d rather spend hours doing the research themselves and avoid salespeople at all costs. When talking to a salesperson, they know they will be bludgeoned by an endless stream of values solicitation questions.

The prospect really just wants you to read their mind and give them exactly what they want. They only tolerate you and your questions because they think that you can’t read their mind. But what if you could deduce what is on their mind? How much more pleasant would the experience be for them? That is what reading their personality is all about.

When you know a prospects personality temperament, you just can go to the look up table and read off what-else that they value and use as buying criteria. You don’t need to ask them very many questions.

You can start today. If you’d like to learn what your customer values and how to type their personality temperament, come visit my customersecrets website today. Get the free chart that links each of the four personality temperaments with their common values. This will allow you to start making sales faster in a way that is truly customer centric because you’re giving them exactly their own reasons for buying your products or services.