Sunday, December 23, 2007

Taking control

Taking control
A pro-clo takes control of his customers and he leads them. It is almost as if the pro-clo were the pied Piper with the magic flute wherever he goes, his customers follow. He simply leads them into making the only decision possible: the decision to buy.
After all my years in the selling profession, it still never ceases to amaze me just how much a pro-clo can take command and control of another person. Customers become like putty in his hands. He is able to warm them up and mould them towards the right decision.
The customer, be it joe Bloggs, a top executive, a company chairman, a powerful politician, or a multimillionaire, will do exactly what the pro0clo commands, within reason. When a pro-clo says sit, stand look at that, feel this, follow me, the customer does what he is told. This control is fantastic and the beauty of it is the pro-clo is so natural that customer is completely oblivious to what is happening.
This control, this air of confidence, this taking command of the situation or taking the initiative, is part of what makes a pro-clo what he is. The professional closer is not only in control of the sales situation, he is in control of his life.
So how, then can somebody learn to take control? The answer is, by having confidence. If you will learn this material, highlight the important passages and read them regularly- in other words, if you practice- you will become more conversant and competent. Then you will automatically be in control, because you will have confidence.
A good tip to control a customer’s attention throughout a presentation or demonstration is to use a pointer or a pen to emphasize specific features or to point out various things. To illustrate, try little exercise and see how easy it is to control somebody else’s attention.
Tell somebody (not a customer) that you are about to point to something really interesting and exciting with your pen. Ask him to deliberately concentrate on not looking. Then point to something, tap it with your pen and say:” just look at that’. He will do and when he does, move your pen and point to something else, tap it and say: ‘Look at that and that and that.’
That’s what I call taking control. In the above exercise we are obviously abusing that control to demonstrate a point, but in real-life selling the control is so discreet that the customer is not aware of what is happening. And a pro-clo would never do anything to abuse a customer.

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