Welcome to Chapter three of the five main skills of top sales reps persuasion, you may wonder what is persuasion about? Are we talking about tricks and magic ones to fool customers? No, that's not it. Sorry to disappoint you. It's much more serious than that. Let's see what it is about.

These are the lessons that I have under this topic. Number one, reciprocity, number two, commitment and consistency. Number three, Kal t factor number four, large to small request. And number five, scarcity, mimicry and anchoring. So in our context, persuasion is not about leading customers to buy something that they don't want but to motivate customers They get decision when they are when they are in between different offers different suppliers, etc etc. So this is the point of persuasion in our context of sales skills, leading customers to take a decision.

Obviously, towards your own products or services. The first lesson is reciprocity. What it is reciprocity is about. It's about we could call it or sometimes it's called given take, give now I'll take afterwards and vice versa. It's about if, if I pay you a meal, if I pay your lunch today, it will feel you will feel that the next time you'll have to pay it. This is a kind of intrinsic in your Behavior behavior.

And so used in in business terms you change information customer will give you information. Or if you can give an incentive or customer a rebate scheme, if they buy this level, so it's kind of motivating them to place higher volumes. So there are several. There are several areas that can be explored under the reciprocity topic. Again, use them responsibly. Use them with a good background and try to find out don't mix them all.

Don't Don't, don't feel overwhelmed by all of them. Just try to find out which one best suits your customer and your own interest of course, sometimes can be a rebate sometimes can be information about market trends, new products, new features, sometimes can be just technical support from your people. Of course, if you give technical support, customers will feel feel obliged or in depth to place more volumes we do try to find out which of these things works, some of them will work some of them will not work, or will not be suitable for this customer. It's very important, again, that every customer has his own specific specifics, as his own needs, as his own agenda as his own vision and ambition. So you have always to deal with each customer as individual ones and not as gold ones. This one is if this approach works.

For this customer doesn't mean that it will work for another one. Okay. And again, it's also kind of like the unique for each customer, okay, reciprocity and that in mind, commitment and consistency. It's also something that comes under the umbrella of persuasion, if you are able to close a deal with a customer offering certain terms and they've follow you for one two years, they will feel in this mode of keep on going with with that kind of relationship. So, try to not break patterns try to not change usually your conditions because It can wake up the customer to challenge and to question why are they doing business with you? Or why should they keep doing business with you?

So if you have been consistently reliable, they will expect that you'll be reliable in the future. If you have been committed to quality, they would expect that you will be committed to quality in the future and therefore, that will wait on that decision in the future. Okay. Key lt factor. What does key lt stands for know, like and trust. And yes, people are deemed to make business with other people that they know that they like or that they trust, or the three of them have them in one row.

So this is kind of a thing it's it's even On your day to day life, you tend to go to places where people are friendly, or you know, the managers, or that you trust that they will not fool you. This is something that we have in ourselves, we tend to do business with people that we know, like or trust. So that's why it's important to build up relationships. That's why it's important to build up. Trust, that's why it's important to to have empathy. Because all of these plays a role in the end in the decision making process, whether you know it or not, it's in the background, large to small request.

This is a technique that might work in some industry sectors might not work and so you have To it again, you have to know to which customer you're talking. And how do they do business in general, one of the things that's done under these terms is you start asking a huge price. And then customer refuses Of course, and your job a lot, make a big discount. And as you did a big discount, even if the price is still high customer will think that you already gave a big concession and yet, you haven't done any concession at all. But it's all plate with the numbers that are thrown in here. And the perception that the customer will have that you did a step towards them.

That plays again on the background plays a role in the decision making process scarcity made me cry anchoring. These are a couple of other aspects of persuasion. When you use scarcity, you tend to tell your customers you know that market is short and we are almost in stock out. That intends to put the customer under pressure and to place volumes in a hurry. Even if that's not true, I would recommend to not abuse these kind of situations and if you use them, please be sure that they are true. Don't use them just to close a deal.

If they are not affect don't tell a customer that the other suppliers have production issues and that the market will become short very soon. If it is not true. Because again, we are breaking some of those laws that we I've spoken earlier about the robot reliable about trust and about honesty. And it can pay now that you will not pay in the long run customer who will kick you out. The anchoring effect, everybody heard about it, you throw a number, and that number will be a reference, even if it's a completely or not completely, but if it's a number that is displaced, it's a number that will be the reference for the all the other discussions. So it's methods sometimes used and can be beneficial.

Again, you need to know to which customer you're talking and if this kind of persuasion techniques can have value or can help to make a decision. You have them all here. Plant. And once again, these should be done, there is possibly and under the premise that the information is correct, and that you are not using it only for your benefit. That's it. It's fair to use them.

When the customer is in doubt, to make a decision, it's fine as long as it's correct information is correct as long as it's true. And as long as the basics of the discussion are fair. Okay. So here we have the wrap up. This is the part that you should stick with it. I hope this makes sense.

I hope that persuasion is something that you acknowledge and even if you're not comfortable with it, you can start practicing it. Again, with families with relatives with acquaintances. Just just to test How comfortable are you doing it? Because, like everything else, it's all about practice. It's all about practice. Even sales see you so