The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes [58]
There are several factors that made this approach very successful. First, note how we used fear as a motivator. It’s far easier to get in to see top executives if there are “dangerous trends” facing them than if you offer some currently unrealized benefit. Also, the term social proof was heavily at play here. That means, “When others are doing it, it’s okay for me to do it, too.” Let me give you a great example of how social proof shapes society. For those of you too young to remember, there was a time when it was a shame in society to live with someone without being married to the person. And surely, you would never have a child out of wedlock. Today, other than very religious families, every one I know lived with their significant other before they married them. Hollywood stars were the first to break this taboo, paving the way for the rest of society to follow suit.
Or to put that in a business context, “When best buyers buy, other best buyers buy faster.” In the script above, note the language: “We’re now showing this to all the top law firms. In fact, we’re in touch with [name several other top law firms] and are in the process of arranging to show this in their management meetings. We’d love to arrange to make sure you also see this important information.” Note that we didn’t say, “We have shown this to so-and-so.” We said, “we’re in touch with” and “arranging to show this to…” This was the truth.
I have a rule about selling: never lie. Make sure you’re telling the truth. By wording our telephone approach carefully, we were telling the truth, but the impression we gave was that it was already happening. By mentioning names of other top firms, we got interest from their competitors pretty darn fast. We also made certain that it was the truth. We were in touch with all the large firms. In fact, we called all of them on the same day. If someone checked, another firm might say, “Well, yes, we’ve heard from them, but we haven’t set anything yet”—or whatever—but the point is that we were, in fact, “in touch” with all the large firms all at once.
Prior to all this, my client once could not get in to see even a single partner. Now the company was presenting to the entire management committee of law firms with astonishing results. For example, I accompanied the salesperson to present for the executive committee of the largest law firm in a major city. At the end of the presentation, that firm bought almost every thing that rep had to sell.
From a structural standpoint, when you use a selling approach like this, you have to make sure that your first objective is to truly serve the buyer. That “stadium pitch” or “core story” was rock solid and full of terrific and useful data about law firms and their challenges. If you want to have a disaster, go ahead and promise an outstanding educational experience and then don’t deliver on it. You’ll find every person in the room squirming with anger about their time being wasted.
In this case, however, the data was superb. We even built