Dear MLM Distributor & Members,
In the next three lessons, we’re going to talk more about the process of Dialogue, which is a way of connecting with people at a deeper level than can be achieved just by conversation.
We determined in the previous lesson that Natural Selling is a Problem Solving Exercise. To find out if people have the sort of problems that you can help them solve:
- You ask simple questions
- You listen
- You respond to the answers and feedback constantly to make sure both of you are on the same track.
That brings us to the second principle of Natural Selling, which is…
Natural Selling is Asking the Right Questions at the Right Time
As we have seen, if you start off by telling people about you, your company or your products, you are more than likely to cause the response of rejection and objections. It’s the Law of Giving and the Cause and Effect working against you! The essence of Natural Selling is not about presenting, convincing, manipulating or pushing someone to buy something. It's about asking questions and listening.
Now, I'm not talking about manipulative or leading questions that are designed to get the answers that you want to hear. If you use these questions whose answers are you likely to hear? Your own!
While manipulative questions can be very powerful there are drawbacks to using them:
- People don't like them being used on them.
- They are uncomfortable for most Distributors and Sales People who won't use them (it's not that they can't – they won't!).
- They are not effective for long term results.
While you can temporarily motivate people to do something, there is a very interesting phenomenon that takes place after a short while. They stop being motivated and stop doing what they agreed to do.
This behavior is called passive aggression or buyers remorse. You might see evidence of this when customers stop buying from you, or Distributors drop out from your organization. This is because they came on board for the wrong reasons. Your reasons, not theirs. This is the number one cause of the high customer and team attrition rate.
Natural Selling Questions Reveal the Inner Truth
In Natural Selling, the questions you use are intended to help you and the other person uncover their inner and external truth and values. It’s them, talking about them. After all, who has the history of what is, and has been, going on in their life, and what they want and why they want it? They do!
Your potential partner or customers and you each bring a key thing to the process. On the one hand, they have their history and know what they want… they have the answers. You, on the other hand, know the potential of your products or business opportunity, and whether it can work for them based on the answers they give you. When you get a match which will happen most of the time, you'll then be able to explain your solution to them so that it all makes sense. So all you need are the right types of questions!
You also need to know when to ask them.
Natural Selling uses a “Dialogue/Conversation Framework”* that explains what the types of questions are and when to use them to help you and the person you are talking with see clearly:
- Whether they have any problems that are looking for your type of solution.
- If they do, what those problems are and the depth of them.
- Whether they are deep enough for them to want to do something about them.
Your questions help people open their minds. Questions involve people. They allow people to think about their lives, themselves and their problems.
*In my book, 'How to Sell Network Marketing Without Fear, Anxiety or Losing Your Friends!' and on my CD's, all the types of questions and why and when you ask them are laid out for you in an easy to see chart.
Help People Persuade Themselves
Natural Selling is not about you persuading them, it’s about allowing people to persuade themselves as they come to see what is right for them.
This is how it works. As people respond to your questions they also listen to themselves as they are speaking. They process the information internally, feel the discomfort of their present circumstances if their present circumstances are not working for them, and decide to make a change. The degree that they will change will depend on the degree of discomfort they feel and the degree of their desire to move toward their dreams. If you get out of your own way and listen to them, and are not too hasty to come up with your solutions too quickly, they will listen to you.
Their answers help them think about their problems and to own the idea that they want to change if their problems and internal motivation is great enough.
It gives meaning to the saying “When I say it, they can doubt me. When they say it, it’s true.”
Asking questions eliminates the need for you to present and to learn closing and objection handling techniques, because who eliminates all the objections in the Dialogue? They do, because they are the ones talking and revealing how they feel about their problems to both you and themselves.
The “Sale is Made" in the Process
Learning how to ask the 'Right Types of Questions at the Right Time' will prepare a person to be receptive to your solutions and, essentially, allow them to 'sell themselves' on the idea that you can help. The “sale” is actually made during the process where both of you are discovering what your potential client or partner is looking for and why they want it.
It’s when you have asked enough questions, responded appropriately to their answers, discovered there is a need to make a change and that the other person is open to changing, that you propose you might know of a solution that might help them.
The Natural Selling Process can take two minutes or it can two years! It really depends on the other person and where they are in their lives. One thing is guaranteed. If you don't rush them and let your Personal Agenda guide you not manipulate you, if there is a sale to be made, you will make it every time.
Tomorrow we will take a close look at the other most powerful communication tool available to you – Listening.
Exercises
- Have you ever experienced “Buyers Remorse”? Think about the situation and what happened. Did you ever do business with that person or organization again?
- Open up a Dialogue with a stranger or someone you know by asking them a question and continue asking them questions. Remove your Personal Agenda. Just listen and ask questions based on the answers you get to your previous questions, or on something that comes to your mind. Don't talk about you or your ideas, or make comments. Just gently focus on asking questions. If you're asked a question, briefly answer it and follow your answer with a question of your own. See how “deep” you go exploring a particular issue. Observe your own feelings and how the other person is feeling.
To your success...
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