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Old February 16, 2012, 12:25 PM
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GordonJ GordonJ is offline
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Location: West Palm Beach, FL
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Default Synergy, salesmanship, Pete and Haldol...

NOTE, this post was dictated via Dragon 11.5, and I'll have to come back to clean it up, OK?
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okay.

Let's talk about synergy and salesmanship.

Pete. Pete and I were the two best salesman in a chain of stores that sold consumer electronics.

Here was Pete's technique.

Pete would come in and park himself in front of the MGA VCR. Most of the time he wouldn't move. A customer would come in, and back then VCRs were very popular and were our best-selling product.

Pete, with legs and arms crossed, toothpick in his mouth would barely acknowledged the customer. He would simply ask
" VCR" ????

When the prospect said yes Pete would simply point down next to his legs and say buy this one. The prospect would ask why?

Pete would say,
because it is the best bang for the buck and I make an extra spiff on it when you buy it.

Then he would say,
unless you have a big screen TV in that case you want to buy the Sony up there and point to his left. Followed by

, do you have a big screen TV? And then if they said no, he would say any chances you're going to buy one this year?

And that was Pete's winning sales technique.

If they wanted to buy a lower-cost model Pete would say

just a minute I'll get a Junior salesperson to take care of you because I won't sell you one I've been doing this for 10 years and my reputation is on the line you can buy one of those cheap VCRs from one of those kids who is not going to be in the business very long.

On the way to the counter Pete would pick up VCR blank tapes and wires and accessories everything they would need and tell them

this will save you trip back to the store because you need all this stuff


then he dropped it on the counter and told the cashier to add an extended warranty on and went back and assumed his position.

Pete sold with sheer attitude.

It was subliminal selling at its best. Pure body language, nonverbal communication and attitude.

During this time I helped Steve Jobs get rich because I was one of the leading Apple salespeople in the country by selling the snot out of the Apple II E and IIC, which I sold to parents, most of the time by time by telling them they needed to go home and get their kid, and then I let him/her do the selling.

Pete and I rocked that store while all the twenty something kids barely earned their paycheck. In 20 stores, each with about 10 salespeople, he and I were always in the top 10, mostly the top 5 and very often number one and two.

I agree and disagree with the idea about closing as it is being discussed in another thread.

I agree the sale is made in the beginning upfront, however, I was taught to always be closing AND you have to ask for their money and it isn't a sale until you have their money. It could be an assumptive ask, like Pete used.

I have spent 50 years looking for the shortest possible way to make a sale.

As a kid I saw the magic in the words spiders, snakes and mice oh my.

I witnessed subliminal selling the first time out-of-the-box.

Many years later I was in a psychiatrist's office trying to convince the doctor who was as crazy as any of our clients were, to reduce the amount of Haldol one of our residents was taking.

Haldol is a dastardly drug. in fact it was used in the Soviet Union to break the will of its dissidents. We had a resident who was a walking zombie because the doctor had over prescribed, in my opinion, too much Haldol.

It was going to be a tough sell, the doctor was already defensive because we asked for a special meeting which he thought was a waste of his time.

Rather than argue with the doctor I had to come up with a plan to sell him on the idea to reduce the amount of how much Haldol our client was taking.

Long before Dan Kennedy ever confiscated the idea of risk reversal, it was a well-known sales strategy. Sitting in the doctor's office I invited him to spend the night with us in the group home.

He of course declined, and I made the statement that I'd been living there for three years, we had a spare bedroom and we would put our resident in that bedroom and watch over him during this period of time when he was being on a reduced level of Haldol.

See, it was a risk reversal.

The doctor didn't really care about our clients and that is a sad fact and the truth, he cared about his own AZZ. I relieved him of all responsibility, and he complied with the request.

As I was doing this, I was talking to him about golf, because I knew he was an avid golfer and he knew I was a golf teaching professional.

We discussed the four shots of golf, the tee shot, approach shot, recovery shot, and putting.


I was able to weave the words of golf, the lingo, into the discussion of psychotropic drugs, and the care of our residents.

It was then that I realized the synergy that was taking place.


Oh the drug was reduced and in 30 days later our resident was taken totally off of Haldol.

Turned out the poor guy who couldn't speak, would get migraine headaches, which in turn caused him to" act out"...a couple of aspirin and he was a new guy. Anyhow,

This synergy, was a combination of the vocabulary, of the lingo,the jargon people in different fields used to communicate.

Jargon is the shortcut.

Jargon and the lingo of one discipline, could be applied to another area totally different, totally opposite and allow you to get RESULTS.

The lingo of a salesman, could be;
the sale begins when the customer says no. Salesmanship is about gaining attention, getting interest, arousing desire and all things that lead to a sale.

The lingo of a psychiatrist, could be about side effects, counter indications,
liability, psychotropic medication etc.

The lingo of a golfer, could be big dog ( is used in the movie Tin Cup), par, birdie, eagle, double bogey.

So in talking to the psychiatrist, I would say things like I know Doc you don't want have a double bogey on this one, so let me be the caddie and make sure you have the right club in your hand when we make a shot.

Now it sounds totally unrelated, but see I was able to enter into his golf world, and related to his real Dr. world. It was through the jargon and the lingo and of course, my assured body language, and my confidence that this was the right thing to do.

Of course, that was because I clearly understood what was at stake, and the real motivations and the obstacles as a salesperson I had to overcome.

That day, was when I realized the power of jargon, lingo and the language we spoke doing our jobs.

It was then that I drew the circle and put the target inside the circle and understood if I my goal was to get that person to take the action I wanted them to take, I FIRST had to step inside their world and use the language they were used to hearing because it was a shortcut into their brain.

Synergy is the combining of two or more "things" to get a new and different thing...

I combined the best of what Social Work offered, the business world and sports and recreation to create, the forerunner to my Square One Workshops.

Concepts of business and concepts of Social Work were and ARE worlds apart, consider the Occupy Movement...

The problem isn't necessary philosophical, it is more of a lack of communication because each side is locked into their JARGON, which, in this case fits into the discussion about Plato's Absolute Truth theory...

but, not wanting to get involved in that discussion here...

suffice it for now, that if YOU took some time and understood what the other person was saying, if you were able to construct a communication which was free of Jargon and lingo...then you have a new way of communication and perhaps be able to resolve differences or at least resolve personal problems...

For me, it is like all those WSO at the Warrior Forum, IF there is a guy who can show you how to make 15,000 bux a month, why in the world would you need to buy another and then another WSO??????????

Just do the ONE thing that works.

Simple? Yea, but....

The reason why there are so many start ups and SO MUCH QUITTING IS....

I'll let all this sink in, correct the mistakes as I find them, and be back with a follow-up feel free to join in the discussion.

Gordon

People quit because they haven't resolved the SQ1 questions of What do you want? And Why?

Last edited by GordonJ : February 16, 2012 at 02:41 PM.
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