Salespeople: Fight Back Against Customer Brainwashing!

You’re doing a sales presentation, and suddenly you look across the table and see aliens from another galaxy.

They seal your lips, so none of your eloquence can escape, and through telepathy they say:

“Listen to us sales unit. Your product sucks; it’s no different than any other. In fact, you’re lucky we don’t kick your puny butt into another dimension. Lower your prices, now. Give us the deal we want, and we’ll let you live another day, so you can swindle some other unsuspecting fools. Probe over!”

You do what any poor sap would do: you cut your commissions, your profit margins, anything, just to emerge with a sale.

You sleep like a rock that evening, and by the morning, you’re feeling like your old self, again. But as you prepare to meet your first prospect of the day, you get queasy.

What’s wrong? Normally, you’re juiced, upbeat, happy, and willing to jump into the fray.

You enter the office, sit down, and the same aliens come in.

“Just tell us your price, we have no time for foolishness.”

“Well, sure, I’ll cover that in a minute,” you say, just as they taught you when you were a rookie, in training.

“That won’t do, earth scum! Give us your best price, now!”

“Okay, okay!” Then, you amaze yourself, offering yet another bare bones deal.

You walk away, convinced the aliens are right. Your product is the same as anybody’s.

Why are your list prices so high? Doesn’t management appreciate how competitive it is out there?

What you don’t know is you’ve been brainwashed, convinced that everything is a commodity, and the only differentiator is price. This is just what clever customers want you to believe, because if you buy this, you’ll buy anything.

They’ve transformed you from a seller into a buyer, by incessantly making you doubt, until the foundation of your confidence is completely chiseled away.

You must find a way to fight back against customer brainwashing. The best way is by using affirmations.

You have to psych yourself up with statements that say, “We offer unique value,” and “Even if our prices and products are the same, I’m different, and I’m worth more!”

Fight every disparaging comment and innuendo that you hear with a counter-statement. And never let an objection go by, unanswered.

A wise sales manager told me, early in my career:

”Gary, when you’re in front of a customer only two things can happen: You’ll sell them, or they’ll sell you!”

True, and after we leave an office where aliens are entrenched, we have to re-sell ourselves, or all is lost.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC's Annenberg School, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.