Maximize Your Influence

One of the Bricks - Fear of Rejection

We all experience rejection in small doses every day. But what about when we persuade for a living? Rejection seems to take a higher toll. We avoid rejection like the plague, but it affects your income. Running away from the rejection solves nothing. Letting our fears overtake us and paralyze us also solves nothing. Ironically, whether we run or succumb, neither option helps the situation.

Fear of rejection can also affect the bottom line by inhibiting you from getting out there and approaching people in the first place. If you are so incapacitated by fears of rejection that you retreat from attempting persuasion at all, then you have sealed your own fate.

So we can hate and fear rejection all we want, but it's still going to happen. What do great persuaders do about this? How do great persuaders respond so that their fear of rejection doesn't paralyze them and affect their performance?

The first thing to keep in mind is that even if your audience ultimately concludes that your product or service is not the right fit, they are not rejecting you personally. We generally understand this concept on a superficial level, but I ask you to give it some thought and really let it sink in. Do not allow yourself to feel inferior, embarrassed, or depressed based on somebody else's opinion.

The ability to bounce back after being faced with rejection on any scale is critical in the persuasion world. Great persuaders have the ability to erase the negativity from their minds at will and move on with a clean slate in a matter of minutes. This tendency is worth noting considering the fact that most of us hang on to negativity and use it to nurse our wounds or make excuses for weeks, months, and sometimes even years.

Another way to hasten your rebound from rejection is to realize that your worst fears are probably not even realistic. Suppose a sweet deal slipped through your fingers. No matter what you said or did, the client's words were final. In other words, you were rejected. Is your life really over?

Does your audience now hate your guts? Are they going to smear your good name and come after your family in a mad rage? Are they going to spray-paint the office with slanderous, hurtful remarks? Of course not. The truth is, it just wasn't a good fit. They'll have forgotten about it in a matter of minutes or hours, and you should too.

Offer: FREE BOOK

Direct download: Podcast_216_-_The_Brick_Wall_of_Resistance_Part_2.mp3
Category:sales -- posted at: 6:30am CDT

The Hostile Prospect

This person disagrees with you and may even actively work against you. For a hostile prospect, use these techniques:

·         Find common beliefs and establish a common ground.

·         Use appropriate humor to break the ice.

·         Don’t start the presentation with an attack on their position.

·         You are only trying to persuade on one point; don’t talk about   anything else that could trigger disagreement.

·         Because of your differences, they will question your credibility.    Increase your credibility with studies from experts or anything that will support your claim.

·         They will try to find reasons to not like you; don’t give them any.

·         Don’t tell them you are going to try to persuade them.

·         Express that you are looking for a win-win outcome rather than a win-lose situation.

·         Show them you’ve done your homework.

·         Respect their feelings, values, and integrity.

·         Use logical reasoning as clearly and as carefully as possible.

·         Use the Law of Connectivity and the Law of Balance.

Deal of the week: FREE BOOK

Direct download: Podcast_215_-_Dealing_with_Rude_Mean_and_Hostile_People.mp3
Category:sales -- posted at: 6:30am CDT

On this episode Kurt discusses the geeky article of the biggest causes of anxiety. Article here. He also discusses the blunder of the week that happened to him at a burger joint in Southern California. And why first impressions really are important. He also discusses the brick wall of resistance and how we sometimes create it.

Has this ever happened to you? You enter a retail store and you're approached by a sharply dressed persuader. You are interested in buying, but the salesperson is a little aggressive. You get an alarming feeling in the pit of your stomach and then do what many of your customers do to you. You lie!

You say, "I'm just looking; I'll come backlater," or "It's too expensive," or "I have to talk to my spouse before I decide." What you're really thinking is "I don't like this guy," or "I don't trust her," or "Something didn't feel quite right." In the end, you never go back to this store, you never recommend it, and neither the store owner nor the persuader ever knows why.

This obstacle is truly a silent persuasion killer. Most people will never say anything to you to alert you to the fact they are feeling this way. They are more comfortable lying to you—so they don't hurt your feelings. They walk away and simply never deal with you again. The reason this obstacle is such a killer is because we don't even realize we're doing it.

 What do you do to overcome this tendency? Your persuasion attempts must be nonthreatening and very natural. Forget loud and flashy. That strategy only encourages resistance. And most definitely forget about high pressure. Not only does that solidify the wall of resistance in that particular moment, but the wall will increase in size. When people feel they have been pressured, bullied, or coerced into buying or doing something they don't need or want, they are resentful. They will never do business with you again.

 The moment people sense that you are attempting to persuade them, the brick wall increases in size and strength, and they will resist you. To counter this tendency, persuasion and sales must take place below the conscious radar.

 Great persuaders have cultivated a sixth sense when it comes to the "push and pull" aspect of persuasion. You must encourage without pushing. Entice, but don't ensnare. You have to sense and then predict, based upon knowledge, instinct, experience, and nonverbal cues, what you can do and how your audience will respond. With this sensitivity, which you can learn, there won't be any smacking head first into the brick wall of resistance.

Offer of the week: lawsofinfluence.com 

Direct download: Podcast_214_-_The_Brick_Wall_of_Resistance_Part_1.mp3
Category:sales -- posted at: 6:30am CDT

Join Kurt as he interviews Kristin Zhivago. Kristin is president of Zhivago Partners, a digital marketing management company, and the author of the book, Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy. Kristin was one of the first to identify selling as a matter of supporting the customer's buying process.

Kristen and Kurt discuss:

  • Biggest blunder people make today in sales & influence
  • Tips for entrepreneurs
  • How to think like a buyer
  • How to deal with a prospect who has found wrong information or too much information from the internet
  • How to not bore your prospects
  • What questions to ask to get your customers to buy
  • Current trends in online marketing

And much more!

Content Marketing: How to go from Creep to Friend

Why do they need or want what you’re selling? It is never, ever what you assume. Interviewing thousands of customers for my clients convinced me of that by the second interview. What roadblocks must be overcome, in their own minds, before they can reach for their wallet? Who do they have to convince? What else have they looked at, and why did they reject it (so far)? What makes them nervous about buying from you, because of their past experiences and because of the things you said – or didn’t say – on your website? What is the question they wish everyone would answer, but no one does?

All of us marketers can easily suffer from a problem that is similar to the one salespeople have. Most salespeople listen only closely enough so that they can talk. In other words, their goal is to talk, not to listen. They listen so they can talk. Similarly, marketers gather facts about their customers so they can prove to their bosses that they “get” those customers, and so they can write. They are more excited about the output than the input, just like salespeople, and just like the graph above makes clear.

For more information about Kristin visit: zhivagopartners.com

Offer of the week:

Find our your Persuasion IQ & get a free digital copy of my best-selling book! www.takeyouriq.com 

 


On this episode Kurt discusses the blunder and ninja of the day, and the psychology of waiting and whether or not is a good or bad thing and if it affects your ability to persuade.

Atmosphere can also include the tension in the air. Is there a rush, or are customers relaxed? What type of climate are you trying to create? Do you want a quick, fast decision, or do you want your customers to feel comfortable enough to stay for a while?

An interesting study on what happens when you create an atmosphere of being rushed can be seen in the following example:

Princeton University psychologists John Darley and Daniel Batson wanted to see how students would respond if they were in a situation replicating the biblical account of the Good Samaritan.  As the story goes, a band of thieves beat, robbed, and left a man traveling alone by the roadside to die. A devout priest and a reputable Levite passed by.

 Neither of the men stopped to help the dying man. Finally, a Samaritan, stopped to help him. The Samaritan bound up his wounds, took him to an inn, and even paid the innkeeper to care for him until he returned.

Darley and Batson asked seminarians on a one-on-one basis to prepare and present a short speech on an assigned biblical topic. The test was set up so that on their way to the location where they would deliver their speech, each student would cross a man slumped over, coughing and groaning.

Which students would actually stop and help? Before preparing their speeches, the students filled out a questionnaire asking why they had chosen to study theology. Then a variety of speech topics were assigned, including the story of the Good Samaritan. As the students were leaving to deliver their speeches, some were told, "You'd better hurry. They were expecting you about three minutes ago." Others were told, "They won't be ready for a few minutes, but you may as well head over now."

Now, most people would assume that seminarians stating on their questionnaires that they had chosen to study theology so they could help people and who were then assigned to speak on the Good Samaritan would be the ones most likely to stop and help the ailing man on their way. Interestingly, neither of those two factors seemed to make much of a difference.

In fact, Darley and Batson stated, "Indeed, on several occasions, a seminary student going to give his talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim as he hurried on his way." The element that seemed to be most influential was whether or not the student was rushed.

Of the students who were told they were already a little late, only 10 percent stopped to help. Of the students who were told they had a little bit more time, 63 percent stopped to help.

We can learn from this example that we can create atmospheres where people are so involved that they ignore other factors they normally would not ignore.  On the flip side, if participants are too relaxed than they become difficult to persuade.

Free Book Offer: Lawsofinfluence.com

Direct download: Podcast_212_-__Psychology_of_Making_Your_Prospects_Wait.mp3
Category:sales -- posted at: 6:30am CDT

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