Sin Number Three: Monopolizing the Conversation Sin Number One: Talking, Not Speaking Sin Number Two: Using Bad Language Another tip...you must enter the zones one at a time. It's a good idea to reserve moving into the confidential zone during presentations only if VITO invites you to do so. Doing so, will lead to an increase in your success in scheduling second appointments with VITO! To Avoid this Major Sin,Cheap Archie Manning Jersey, Ask Permission, and Breach the Zones One at a Time Here is an important tip. Start by looking at every single piece of documentation you're currently giving to your prospects during your sales presentations. Look at every single piece correspondence in your files. Is each completely 100 percent accurate? Are you willing to stand behind each and every sentence? If not, change them! End of conversation. Here is an important presentation tip. In order to honor VITO's space, we must always ask for permission before making the transition from the common zone, to the sociable zone, to the individual zone, and, on very rare occasions, the confidential zone. By doing this,Cheap Jack Youngblood Jersey, you'll be sending a message that you're respectful of the other person's belongings and physical boundaries. This message is critically important to gaining trust and building business rapport. Tip #1: Be very specific. Choose topics within your sales presentations that are likely to make sense from VITO's point of view then make it crystal clear what those topics of discussion are at the outset of each interaction or the sales presentations you conduct. You can do this diplomatically simply by giving VITO a choice such as, "Would you like to discuss our ideas to decrease one of your top three expenses by as much as 25 percent in the next 90 days or is there something else that's a pressing issue at this point in time?" Sin Number Four: Stretching the Truth If you have, perhaps you've unintentionally committed one or more of the five 'deadly sins' of scheduling second appointments! Let's take a look at each one, and as we do I hope you add them to your "not to do" list for your upcoming sales presentations. Think of the following as your personal tips for effective sales presentations the next time you are in front of VITO. Tip #3: Be alert for buying signals. Every interaction you have with VITO must be a learning experience. Fortunately, this is relatively easy. Prospects drop clues all the time as to how they want to be sold during presentations. Look for 'buying signals' such as: "Would you be able to...", "Is it possible to...", "Do you charge for...", "I'd like my...", or "What are your terms for..." The fastest way to be shunted away to someone other than the person you want to talk to and to totally eliminate the chance of scheduling a second appointment is to use inappropriate language during your sales presentations. I'm not talking about foul language or jokes with 'adult' content. Rather, I'm talking about using vocabulary that's unfamiliar to VITO. We all want to be heard. However, if you want to be successful in scheduling a second appointment with VITO you'll realize that long monologues don't cut it, but purposeful dialogues do. I've gone on many appointments, and I can't count the number of times I've watched in horror as my colleagues placed papers, briefcases, notepads or other materials on VITO's desk without asking permission. That's the business equivalent of putting your feet on someone's living room coffee table! There is a big difference between a salesperson who talks and one who speaks. Parrots talk. Babbling infants talk. Professional salespeople speak during presentations. The major difference between talking and speaking during your sales presentations is...purpose. Salespeople must learn to speak about their products, services, and solutions with VITO's purpose and result(s) in mind. Talking means blathering on about what's on your agenda. If we want to successfully schedule second appointments with VITO, it's imperative that we never talk about anything during the first appointment! For a moment, imagine there's an invisible 18-inch barrier surrounding your body. Actually, you probably don't have to imagine too hard, because there almost certainly is an invisible 18-inch barrier around your body. This is your "confidential" zone. This is the area most people hold as essentially private, a space only to be occupied by one's spouse, one's significant other, one's close relatives (children, for instance), and one's domestic pets (pythons excluded). Sin Number Five: Being a Space Invader Tip #1: Use open-ended 'prompting' questions. By the way,Cheap Tampa Bay Buccaneers Jerseys, if you do this with five VITOs, you'll have what I call a 'VITOpedia' that is worth its weight in pure gold - if you take the words and phrases and make them an integral part of your verbal and non-verbal communications that you use during all future sales presentations with your VITOs. To Avoid this Major Sin Apply the Golden Rule: If you ever find yourself saying, "Let me be honest with you" or "To be perfectly honest..." (as though these were exceptional occurrences),Cheap Aaron Rodgers Jersey, guess what? You're due for a truth check-up! To Avoid This Major Sin Learn the Language of VITO! Have you ever encountered great difficulty in scheduling a second appointment with VITO (Very Important Top Officer), such as not getting your calls returned, having sales presentations canceled at the last minute, or worse yet, showing up for a scheduled second appointment and having your prospect "unavailable"? The 'bigger is always better' mindset will do your sales presentations more harm than good. Exaggerating capabilities is an all-too-common sales practice. So-called 'little white lies' fall into this category as well. Over promising and under delivering during presentations has an unfortunate way of coming back to haunt you - and sabotage your attempts at scheduling a second appointment. So don't do it! Tip #2: Use what's called a 'clarifying question'. And after you clarify with your prospect you can then use a developmental question to move the dialog in a desired direction. When you show up for your next presentation, stand at the threshold of VITO's office and say something that's pretty darn close to, "May I come in?" (Now you're in the sociable zone.) After you've been invited to sit down, do so in the spot the other person indicates. (Now you're in the individual zone.) After a period of "getting acquainted", you must ask for permission before you place any material on VITO's imported Honduras Mahogany, hand-carved, inlaid desk. The best way to do this is to set strict limits on your own talk time. Keep it under sixty seconds. Yes, you read right! You must never, ever speak for more than sixty seconds without asking for approval to continue! This approval will come in the form of several types of questions. To Avoid this Major Sin Give Yourself a 60-second Time Limit (and stick to it): During sales presentations with prospects or existing customer VITOs, you must seek first to understand what's going on in their world. Then and only then will your ideas be accepted and understood. Tip #2: Be interesting. I'm not suggesting that during your sales presentations you attempt to become some kind of stand-up comedian. However, I am suggesting that you speak and in an engaging way during all of the presentations you make. The best way for me to give you advice on this score is to strongly suggest you join and participate in Toastmasters. To Avoid This Deadly Sin... There are three other zones that you should be aware of: The "individual" zone between 18 and 32 inches from your body. This is where most of us are comfortable with social or business interaction that involves people we know. Finally, there's the region outside these zones. It's known as the "common" zone, and it's the area where we are comfortable with (or at least occasionally prepared to accept) announcements of unexpected entrances from others. Hand the latest copy of the Wall Street Journal to them along with a highlighter and ask them to quickly mark the articles that catch their attention. When they're done,Cheap Patrick Kerney Jersey, ask them to read just one article and highlight the words and phrases that capture their attention. Here is a good way to learn the Language of VITO. Do what follows with your own VITO or the VITOs in your very best installed accounts. Tip #3: Finally, you can use what I call a social proof question to justify another 60 seconds of talk time. This is an indirect way of getting VITO to realize that their situation is similar to that of other VITOs you've worked with. Jumping into VITO's personal space during one of your sales presentations without being invited to do so is a great way to cut down on your success in scheduling a second appointment. Generally speaking, social proof questions include: 1) introduce a third-party VITO that is relevant to the discussion, 2) may increase confidence that you can address the purpose and needs of this VITO,Cheap Leodis McKelvin Jersey, and 3) validate VITO's reasoning. The zone between 32 and 44 inches from your body. This represents the "sociable" zone. It's about the distance between you and your prospect when you're sitting at a chair placed in front of their desk during sales presentations. In this zone, most of us are comfortable interacting with people we do not yet know well in social and business situations.