Wholesaler

This was an example actually that I used in my own business. And this particular part of my business was my speaking business, where through some sort of marketing effort that I had done I had an inbound call from a wholesaler who was pretty grumpy by the time he got to me. He had been shopping various value added speakers and my name was on the list and he had been having interviews in gathering information and getting some facts and figures. And I guess, hoping to that bolt of inspiration, that he was on the right track. And he called me and started to go through his questioning. So this guy calls me up, and as I said he is not in a too happy frame of mind. He tells me that he has got an event coming up and he has got the ability to bring somebody in as a value-added presenter.

He tells me that he hasn’t had much luck in the past, he goes, “I really haven’t had much luck in the past and I haven’t liked any of the people that I’ve talked to so far. So with that being said what do you feel like you bring to the table?” so here I am on the other end of the phone. And what I am hearing is everybody that he is ever brought in, in the past has sucked, everybody that he has been talking to and thinking about bringing in this time has sucked so go ahead boy give me your song and dance. And I really don’t have much of an interest in doing that. In fact, I really don’t have much of an interest in talking to this guy while he is in this frame of mind. So I am thinking I have got to break his state and get him a little bit more, at the very least curious, about whether or not I am a good fit and if so why. Or there is really not much of a point in carrying on the conversation at this point while he is in this frame of mind.

So I start off, he says: “what do you feel like you bring to the table?” And I said, “well I could tell you lots of reasons that other people have told me was the reason that they hire me and the reason that they bring me back again and again and again but frankly I don’t know if any of those are meaningful to you are not. So you said that you haven’t had much luck in the past. So let me just ask you what has to happen for you to look back after the events and think to yourself that this has been a really good experience?” Shortened version of happiness cake question. He comes back to me and says, “sales would increase.” So he is not playing along you know, I have asked a dreamy type question and he is giving me a very straight driver answer.

Now you get this a lot, in fact one of the objections that I get about that particular question is that, “it kind of sounds fluffy, fluffy cloud, blue sky, Californian gernal nut, positive mental attitude, what ever type of thinking.” And man, I deal with a lot of drivers these guys want bottom-line results they want them now and they’re not going to sit around and talk about dreaming. So when that is the case, when you’re getting short answers back. What are we going to do? We are going to match those short answers. We are going to match that tonality; we’re going to match that frame of mind. So he says to me, sales would increase and he says it with tonality that just indicates that shit head should be the punctuation at the end of the sentence. So I come back, “so that is the bottom line is that?”

And he says to me, “name of the game” still very short and very hostel. And I say, “So what would that mean to you?” “Urrr I would make more?” Now his tone is kind of like a verbal Duh, which is indicating to me that I am working with a pretty short runway here so I decided to shift the frame a little bit. So I said, “so what needs to happen for to that to occur?” and he says, “What do you mean?”

And at this point he is obviously annoyed. So I come back and say, “were you brought folks in before and obviously sales didn’t increase with them or you wouldn’t be calling me. If I was to look at the world through the eyes of your clients what do we need to do together to build the deliver to them an experience that they will reward you with a bigger market share?” So he is giving me short, clip bursts, commands, very short on patience running out of patience with me and I am matching that back exactly to him I am pacing the reality that he is giving me. But in that process I am asking him to change his perspective. Don’t look at the world from you and all the crappy experience you have heard before with speakers in the past. Let’s look at the world through your client’s eyes because your problem is they are not giving you the market show that you are looking for so what has got to happen for them to reward you with better market share?

And he says, “I am not sure that I follow.” Okay so here is a situation where this guy is not playing along with the answers behind the answers. He is not even interested in playing at all really what he wants to have happen here is for him to show up and say okay your are on. Like I am someone auditioning at Broadway play. I know my lines, my job is to come out and read them and he is going to sit there and evaluate me based on how I’m reading my lines. Well, guess what? I am not interested in playing that game but he is not interested in playing my game either. So in this case what I have got to do it again is to start planting seeds. He is not dreaming, he is not thinking about anything he is just saying come on show pony dance show me what you have got.

So step number one change the frame.  Break his pattern and get him looking at the world and this transaction with a little bit of a different view then he has been looking at it in the past. Now set number two, since he doesn’t have any outcome is that he is really driving for and he is not playing along in my efforts to try and get any. You know it’s kind of like am trying to dig a well or two and coming up dry, now I need to plant the seeds and say here are some things that you might want to be thinking about and it’s perfectly fine to me to expand his map of the world. Which right now is very limited. Everybody that I ever hired before stunk, the guys I have been talking to today haven’t impressed me very much, your turn.

But he’s coming at me with a sense of frustration, maybe even desperation, not a very good mental frame to be in so we have got to change that. So I given the scenario about increasing market share, he says I’m not sure that I follow. And I say, “well you bring a speaker in from the outside and you hope you get good feedback right? And even if you get great feedback that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are going to increase sales. In fact, my guess is sometimes even if there is a good idea as you are leaving the event you can even hear the advisers out there using the idea that your speaker brought to the table to sell your competitors products.” And he says, “exactly!” Now I have worked with enough of these guys to know that, that is a major area of frustration with them. So even though he hasn’t brought it up, that is the conversation that is going on in his head and because of the knowledge of working in the industry enough I am joining that conversation. Our third method of building rapport.

So now maybe I have got a little bit of a crack to be able to get to where it is that I need to go and open things up a little bit and hopefully bring him along for the ride. So He says exactly, I come back and say, “so next time I am guessing that you want to bring a speaker. You would like to open some doors that have maybe never been opened before and deliver a session that would be a great reward for the folks are already selling your product and give them a strong enough work to keep them coming back?” Now if you listen back again, you will notice my tonality has changed. I have gone from the very, very short, clip, bah, bah ,bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah which he was giving me. Now I’m bringing in a little bit more enthusiasm in an effort to lead him to where it is that I want to go. So far it is not working because he says, “yes that would be great.” As though you know, nice try show pony but you know, I have never seen that happen. And when he said that he literally sounded sarcastic. I mean it was you know, I made my first attempt there is nothing happening here.

I have not moved the needle and inch for this guy. So I say to him, “You know I get the sense that when you heard that you felt a little bit skeptical. Yet now you can easily find yourself wondering if I ever even would have brought that up if it wasn’t something that I have delivered on a consistent basis. You mentioned that you talk to other people. Think about this for a second did anybody else claim to be able to do that? And you get the feeling from your conversations with them that any of them would even know what I was talking about if they were eavesdropping on conversation right now? And as part of you thinks about that just for a second, let another part of you be open to the possibility, go beyond what you have been conditioned to believe what happened. Beyond what you think is the most that you have the right to hope for and think for a moment. What would it take to bring me in and have an event that was a real win for you and your clients? One that would have you happily telling your co-workers about the exciting new discovery that is putting revenue on the books, dollars in your pockets and that is the whole new name of the game?” His initial response was, “that would be incredible!”

And when I was in the moment, I assumed that there was really some sort of a special offer, call to action that I had made that he was saying that would be incredible to. It wasn’t until I went back and listened to the tape of the conversation that I noticed I didn’t really put an offer in there I was just loading him on top, on top, on top, on top of all different types of process language. So in the moment, though sensing that I was pretty close to a close or a point where we could possibly take action. I said to him, “and if we created that together ultimately what would that mean to you?” And his response was, “that would be huge. It would be an investment that would finally pay off and it would be a real differentiate from my competition. It would be of value added service that actually added value. Just incredible.”