The Easier Way to Sell Presents... Close the Deal Without Selling

In Episode 10 of Close the Deal Without Selling Hosted by Communications & Sales Educator, Ike Krieger

Episode Coupon Code : CAPABILITY

• When a prospect isn't sure of their budget you can use bracketing. (Pg.295)
  • Give the prospect two separate ranges of figures.
  • Ask them which of the two is most closely in line with what they’d be comfortable spending?
• If your prospect is reluctant to share a budget amount, 
  • You didn’t do a good enough job of setting your MBAs. 
  • You didn’t do a good job uncovering the problem, or,  
  • You’re dealing with a problem client.
• Get rid of discounting as a selling strategy forever.
• Find out the details of the paying process.
• The C. in Q.U.I.C.K uncovers your prospect's capability to spend the money to solve the problem. (pg. 299)
• Discover if the person you're interviewing has to take your information to other decision makers. Would that person move ahead with you if were up to them alone?
• Upon completing the C. in Q.U.I.C.K. ask permission to recap the entire conversation.
• Revisit everything from the problems, to the money, to the decision-making process.
• Verify that you both heard the same things.
• Upon completing the C. in Q.U.I.C.K. it’s time for the best system-based closing question.
  • “What’s our next step?”
• Use your presentation as your “close.”
• The K. in Q.U.I.C.K. gives your prospect the opportunity to share how they believe your product or service will solve their problem. (Pg.301)
• The K. section is as important to the success of the system as the other sections.
• This is a top-down system. Management must have buy-in.

Episode Coupon Code : CAPABILITY

Guidelines for The Easier Way to Sell

Get a copy of these guidelines in the ACTION GUIDE PREVIEW

Go to ACTION GUIDE Preview

(Pg. 15)

1. Seek the truth
   • Just because you believe something is true… that doesn’t make it true. It just makes it true for you.
2. We’re all in sales
   • Nobody likes to be sold to, but you have to sell to live.
   • Shift your truth about selling and self-promotion.
3. Talk Less… Sell More™ 
   • Give up the notion that to inform is to sell.
   • Get information… Don’t give it. 
   • Interview rather than present
4. Think like a doctor
   • Examine, and Diagnose before you prescribe. 
   • Remain curious, authentic, and neutral.
5. Be a problem solver
   • What is a problem?
   • What is business?
   • What is closing?
6. Know the problem you solve
   • People don’t care about what you do… all they care about is what you can do for them.
   • People want you to help them get what they want. 
7. Be a trusted guide
   • If prospects knew how to get to their destination on their own, they would.
   • Be a navigator.
8. Be an expert questioner
   • The person asking the questions is the one that controls the communication.
   • The one doing the talking usually dominates.
   • People like to talk... so, help them talk.
   • Ask Open-Ended Questions.
9. Be an expert listener
   • Listen with an intent to understand rather than an intent to reply
   • Learn to shut down your response mechanism.
10. Establish rules for the communication  
    • Establish Mutually Beneficial Agreements.
    • Avoid “But, I thought you meant.”
11. Uncover a “no” that was going to happen anyway
    • Sometimes "no" means "no."
    • Stop spending too much time trying to turn a real “no” into a yes.
12. Give up the need to sell
    • Heighten your commitment to sell.
    • Eliminate the need to sell.
13. Know your outcome
    • If you don’t know where you’re going… that’s where you’ll end up.
    • If you don’t know what you want… how will you know when you’ve got it?
14. Maintain your outcome
    • Maintain your outcome, not your position.
    • Proving you’re “right” is unproductive.
15. Invent the future
    • The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
    • Plan from the future backwards.
16. Be intentional
    • Do you want what you want… or do you just want to want it?
17. Meet people at their model of the universe
    • People like people who are like themselves.
    • People buy from people they like and trust.
18. Be interested rather than interesting
    • Shut down your response mechanism
    • Listen, and ask questions.
19. Avoid problem clients    
    • Trust your intuition.
    • You’ve got enough problems with your non-problem clients. To take on a client that you know is going to be a problem… is insanity.
20. Follow a system
    • Most salespeople “wing it.”
    • Use the Yes Formula
    • Achieve what you want more easily and more often.

Good Selling

 In Episode 9 of Close the Deal Without Selling Hosted by Communications & Sales Innovator, Ike Krieger

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BUDGET

• The U section of Q.U.I.C.K Is where the diagnostic process of uncovering problems begins.
• Resist the urge to begin problem solving prematurely.
• Download the list of PS/DS Open-Ended Questions and participate in a powerful learning exercise. (Pg. 176)
• Think like a doctor. Ask the diagnostic questions that will lead you towards a complete understanding of their needs and expectations. (Pgs. 30-41)
• Make the prospect the focus of the communication.
• Use “freeway terms.” They’re an invaluable addition to your communications toolbox. 
• As always, use the 80/20 rule for listening.
• Listen for the use of “freeway terms” by your prospect. (pg. 327)
• Note-taking is a valuable tool. Remember to ask permission before you start taking notes. (Pg. 304)
• Verify with your prospect that you have uncovered all the issues they’d like you to address.
• You've completed the U. portion of Q.U.I.C.K. when the prospect confirms all of their problems are on the table and that you’ve heard them accurately. (Pg. 296)
• The I in Q.U.I.C.K helps determine the investment of money and/or time that the prospect is willing to spend to solve their problem. Basically the I reminds us to find out... Is There Money? (Pg. 298)
• Experience the first stage of the prospect based close.
• A way to avoid discounting as a sales strategy.
• Use your presentation as your close.

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 In Episode 8 of Close the Deal Without Selling Hosted by Communications & Sales Innovator, Ike Krieger

See Section 9 of the Action Guide

• The first of a three-episode arc featuring a step-by-step analysis of the Yes Formula™ and Q.U.I.C.K. - designed to help you install and practice your new set of communications skills.
• Add doing to your learning
• Create rapport and relationship
• Set the same “ground rules” for you and your prospect. (Pg. 272)
• Follow the communications road map established in the Public Speaking Model.
• Dig deeper into the qualification process of Q.U.I.C.K. utilizing Step 1 of the Public Speaking Model, which is… tell them what you’re going to tell them.
• Remember … Success with this system is a process.

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Episode 7 of... 

Close the Deal Without Selling Hosted by Communications & Sales Innovator, Ike Krieger

• The Public Speaking Model helps you remember the system. (Pg. 233)
• An appraisal of your progress as you continue to install the  ingredients of the Yes Formula™ into your unconscious.
• Where are you in the Stages of Learning? (pg. 133)
• How the Stages of Learning impact your existence.
• How The Six Stages of Open-Ended Questions impacts your communication effectiveness. (pg. 182)

When you ask the right question, you cause others to think more clearly.

Good Selling!

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Some notes from Episode 7:

We begin by reviewing the Public Speaking Model and examining its effect on your use of the Yes Formula. You'll recall that the public speaking model consists of 3 steps...

1. Tell them what you're going to tell them.
2. Tell them.
3. Tell them what you told them.

Let's take a look at retention level of what you’ve been told through the first six episodes.

It's time for a Readiness Appraisal...

Pop Quiz!

Are you ready to employ the Yes Formula™ into your daily business practices? Let's do an appraisal.

Approach this appraisal as you might any other project. Give yourself a check mark for completing each one of the preparatory tasks you've been assigned since Episode 1.

You'll know by the number of check marks if you are in the position to approach your next sales call armed with nothing but the Yes Formula and some note taking material.

Give yourself a check mark if ….

• You’re clear on Q stage of qualifying as covered in Episode 6.
• You've memorized all the open ended, diagnostic questions you were assigned.
• You've created your own business specific PS/DS (Present State/Desired State) OEQs.
• You've memorized the Prelude.
• You've decided which of the PS/DS questions are most vital to remember.
• You've written those questions down on your note taking material so you don’t have to remember.
• You’re ready to enter a sales interview with nothing but the Yes Formula™ and note taking material.
• You’re thinking like a doctor before during and after your call.
• You’re able to remain curious, authentic, and neutral in your communications.
• You've become a powerful problem solver.
• You're aware of whose problem you're trying to solve.
• You're clear on your role as navigator.
• You’re prepared to conduct a diagnostic Yes Formula™ sales interview.

Did you find a check mark in front of all these tasks? If so, congratulations!

For those of you who still need to come up to speed on some of these assignments I'd like you to go back over Pam's Yes Formula™ sales call in episode 5 and identify each instance of her use of the above components of the list.

The Four Stages of Learning

Understanding the four stages of learning will help you become an even more effective communicator.

• Unconscious incompetence
• Conscious incompetence
• Conscious competence
• Unconscious competence

These stages pertain to almost every type of learning process you go through, especially with a system like the Yes Formula™.

Six Steps to OEQ Success:

Open-ended questions help organize the problem for all parties and offer an opportunity to find a solution. When you ask the right question, you cause others to think more clearly.

1. Know your outcome
2. Know your client
3. Formulate your question
4. Listen to the answer
5. Probe further if necessary
6. Take action, or respectfully withdraw

It’s better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. –James Thurber

 In this Episode of Close the Deal Without Selling Hosted by Communications & Sales Innovator, Ike Krieger

You'll Learn...

• Be an effective listener. Read the Listening Poem (Pg. 215)
• Reminders for Better Listening (Pg. 206)
• Public Speaking Model  (Pg. 232)
• The Prelude  (Pg. 273-276, 282, 285, 288, 290)

Q. Qualify - Setting the ground rules for the sale

U. Uncovering your prospect’s problem

I.  Investment - Is there money to solve the problem?

C. Capability - Can they spend money to solve the problem?

K. Knowledge - Learn your prospect’s reasons for buying

• Understanding Implied Control (Pg. 119)

The person doing the talking is usually the one who’s perceived as controlling the communication. Just the opposite is true. The one who listens and asks questions controls the communication. The one doing the talking usually dominates the communication.

Some notes from Episode 6:

1. Tell them what you're going to tell them.
2. Tell them.
3. Tell them what you told them.

Before we dissect the Before and After Scenarios of Ep. 5 it’s important to your success with the entire system that you be an effective listener.

Author Stephen Covey says, “Most people don’t listen with an intent to understand. Most people listen with an intent to reply.”

Here’s another quote by someone a bit less well known, Wilson Mizner, and for the purposes of our system and the purpose of active listening… he nails it. "A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something."

We’ll probably never find out where along the line the name of the author of this next piece got lost, but you’ll find that this poem, apparently written in the late 20th century, hits home on the psychological, the communication, and the human level. It will be interesting to find out what you get from the following, appropriately titled:

When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice, You have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way, you’re trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problems, you have failed me, strange as that may seem.

Listen!

All I ask is that you listen, not talk or do. Just hear me.

Advice is cheap: 25 cents will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper.

And I can do things for myself; I am not helpless.

Maybe discouraged and faltering, maybe lonely and isolated and grieving and searching, but not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can do, and need to do, for myself, you contribute to my fear and to my weakness.

But when you accept, as a simple fact, that I do feel what I feel, no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you, and you can get about the business of understanding what’s behind this irrational feeling.

And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious, and I don’t need advice.

Perhaps that’s why prayer works, sometimes, for some people, because THEIR God is mute and doesn’t try to give advice or try to fix things.

He just listens, and lets you work it out for yourself.

So please listen and just hear me.

And if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn.

And I’ll listen to you.

THE PRELUDE to The YES FormulaTM

The Prelude provides the first set of Mutually Beneficial Agreements (M.B.A.) in the Q. section of the Yes Formula.

Remember... the Q section only establishes the ground rules of QUICK. It is not the actual sales exam portion of the system.

Memorize the following.

“My company prefers me to give my presentation as soon as possible. But sometimes that's premature because I really don't have enough information to know what to focus on. So, if it’s OK, I have a few questions I’d like to ask and you might have some to ask of me--- and based on my experience, within the next few minutes we’ll know whether there is a reason to move forward or not. Is that an OK way to start?”

In Episode 5 of Close the Deal Without Selling...

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(Pg. 254-259)

Today's episode is a bit different.

You're about to hear the Yes Formula™ in action.

Ike shares a demonstration of a sales call without using the system, followed by a depiction of a successful sales call using the basic ingredients of the Yes Formula™ showcased in Episode 4.

• Do you hear any of your own sales strategy in the first part?
• How much of the strategy in the second part would you like to incorporate in your sales calls?

Please let us know if you have questions about this or any other episode.

Contact us at [email protected]

Good Selling.

In Episode 4. of Close the Deal Without Selling...

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Basic Ingredients of the Yes Formula™ 

(Pg. 268-272)

• R&R
• CAN
• MBA
• OEQ
• QUICK

In addition ...

• Learn an effective way to handle Problem Clients (Pg. 51)
• Encounter your first set of open-ended, diagnostic questions to use in your sales interviews (Pg. 175)

Your First Batch of OEQ's

Here a few of the diagnostic open-ended questions you’ll use in your sales interview.

Memorize these questions. Use them.

Come up with your own business specific OEQ's.

Remember ... Think like a Doctor.

• What do you want?
• What’s stopping you from getting it?
• What were you hoping I might be able to do for you?
• What would happen if you do nothing?
• What would happen if you keep doing what you’re doing?
• What seems to be the real problem here?
• How serious is the situation?
• If you could go back to when you started this project, what would you do differently?
• What’s one thing you really don’t like about the way things are currently going?
• What’s the one thing you would change immediately?
• When did you first realize that you needed to do things differently?
• How long have you been considering doing something about this?
• What’s all this costing you?
• How important is it for you to find a better way to handle this?
• What has this situation caused you to sacrifice?
• What are you doing to resolve this?
• What would you like me to do next?
• What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing right now?
• What steps are you following to accomplish X? How’s it working?

_________________________________

In this Episode of Close the Deal Without Selling Hosted by Communications & Sales Innovator, Ike Krieger

You'll Learn...

1. Why you should avoid educating your prospect. (Pg. 170)
2. The Commandments of Giving Proposals (Pg. 156)
3. Why it so hard to break unproductive sales habits. (Pg. 109)
4. Hold off on your presentation.
5. Let your prospects lead the sales dance (Pg. 364)
6. Pattern Interrupts can calm your sales call (Pg. 306)
7. Your Heads-Up Display (Pg. 266)
8. The 1st Yes Formula Ingredient - R&R (Pg. 268)

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The Yes Formula delivers an easier way to sell.

The Yes Formula is a communications model that works wonderfully in sales.

The Yes Formula will help you clear a pathway to yes and uncover a no that was going to happen anyway.

When would you prefer to hear a real NO? Sooner, or later?

Remember… you don’t want to create a no… you just want to uncover it as quickly as possible...

You’ll uncover more NO’s… than ever before.

And you’ll uncover YES… even more often.

Good Selling

In this Episode... From Communications & Sales Innovator, Ike Krieger

1. Building block definitions of the Yes Formula™.  (Pg.13)
2. Your ability to present and persuade is overrated. (Pg. 19)
3. Revitalize selling skills you already possess.
4. Examining the ups and downs of traditional sales training. 
5. Say goodbye to “Show and Tell” Selling. (Pg. 21)
6. Assume the role of a diagnostic problem solver. (Pg. 27)
7. Benefits of thinking like a doctor when you sell. (Pg. 30)
8. Why you should get information rather than give it.

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The Yes Formula is a communications model that works wonderfully in sales.

The Yes Formula delivers an Easier Way to Sell.

The Yes Formula will help you clear a pathway to yes and uncover a no that was going to happen anyway.

When would you prefer to hear a real NO? Sooner, or later?

Remember… you don’t want to create a no… you just want to uncover it as quickly as possible...

You’ll uncover more real NO’s… than ever before.

You’ll just hear YES… way more often.

Good Selling

This podcast episode is the first in a series that will help you Close the Deal Without Selling™.

In this episode you’ll…

1. Listen to Ike as he uses baseball batting averages to illustrate how a small change in your sales numbers can produce a bigger and better than expected result. (Pg.46)
2. Find out which of your current sales tools is not your friend. (Pg. 21)
3. Learn why approaching each sales opportunity in the role of problem solver is preferable to approaching each of those opportunities as a salesperson. (Pg. 24)
4. Discover the power of getting information rather than giving information
5. Come to understand that when you say it… it’s selling. When they say it it’s true (Pg. 25)
6. Realize that what you were taught about communications as a child is standing in the way of your sales effectiveness. (Pg. 108)

Join Communications & Sales Innovator, Ike Krieger, as he shares, The Yes Formula™, and other communications models that apply directly to profitable sales.

Ike’s proven system will help you turn your contacts into contracts more easily and more often.

Join the Club

Are you in sales? Then you know what it means to be frustrated and stressed out when selling opportunities come up empty or get drawn out unnecessarily. Are you tired of objections, or stalls, like, maybe, or, I need to think about it…?

Do you often find yourself giving great sales presentations, yet they still don’t buy? What’s up with that?

True or false? Your Sales and Closing efforts produce little or no frustration and stress.

15 out of every 100 salespeople respond… True.

That’s the good news …

The bad news… The other 85% find selling for a living to be one of the most frustrating and stressful activities in which they’ve ever found themselves.

Selling for a living is low on the totem pole of professions parents want their child to enter. Why is that? What can you as a professional salesperson do to reverse the negative “salesman” stereotype held by society… and yourself?

How much better would you feel about yourself if you learned how to sell and close using authentic conversations rather than traditional sales manipulation?

Imagine looking forward to your day-to-day selling activities.

Closing profitable sales will never be easy... if it were easy everyone would do it... But… The Yes Formula™ is the easier way to sell. The Yes Formula™ is a well-established system that makes your sales efforts more profitable and less stressful.

Good selling.