One of my favorites is Jim Nelson of Exsell in Green Bay. He has great ways of explaining what you should do in selling situations. Here’s the short version of one of his approaches:

• Your Mindset: To proactively discover with the prospect what his fear is, and how he can relieve it with your help!

• Why people will use you or your product:

To move away from a Pain.

To Exploit a Possibility/Opportunity

To Acquire a Gain.

Fear of the Uncertainty in the Future.

An Unmet Need, that usually can’t be easily described.

• The prospect is usually UNCLEAR about what the objective is, and it’s your challenge to help him work through to CLARITY about the problem. Interestingly, it’s often the case that they don’t understand the problem/objective, and are very amenable to your help in trying to understand and articulate it. It’s your OPPORTUNITY. Then, the solution is usually much easier to see and understand, and you will be explaining it in terms of what YOU can do to help.

• If you’re not successful, it’s because you didn’t make him feel SAFE about using you.

Corollary

You want to be seen NOT as what you do NOR as a PROVIDER OF SOLUTIONS, but as an ADVISOR who works with the prospect to understand a problem and its potential process. You are appreciated for your PROCESS, HOW you do what you do ... NOT WHAT you do.

I constantly hear TEC members beginning to understand this revelation. It’s their REAL POINT OF DIFFERENCE.