chapter six voice training to close [Music] sales using digital recorders Beyond any reasonable doubt if you're going to build your sales career to the fullest you've got to do something that 95% of all salespeople never do they never deliberately train themselves how to use their voices more effectively or do any work toward developing voice inflection and voice modulation this chapter is devoted to you on the importance of utilizing your voice and offers specific suggestions of how you can train your voice to improve your sales Effectiveness in order to develop your voice let's consider the digital voice recorder or the recording function on your smartphone and how either tool can be utilized to develop your voice you should record not only your presentation but also the way you handle objections and close the sale then you should listen several times to what you have said and the way you said it you're going to be amazed to discover that your Effectiveness notwithstanding much of what you say is Superfluous you talk too much and you often speak in a monotone if it is possible to record your sales call in front of a live Prospect I encourage you to do so if this is not possible you should definitely record your presentation roleplaying with someone else in a training room environment in either event you will be shocked at the non- answers you give to questions and objections and the number of times you heard what the prospect said but missed what they were saying would you buy from you record your presentation listen to it and then ask yourself if I were calling on me and made that presentation would I be able to persuade me to take action on the offer many times when I talk to people about recording their presentation they say yeah but zigg I don't sound that way that person on that recorder that's not me well friend I've got news for you it is you admittedly there will be be some Distortion but the Distortion is not nearly as much as you think voice inflection changes meaning to demonstrate what you can do with your voice I'm going to take one sentence which has eight words in it and make those eight words mean eight different things take the sentence one I did not say he stole the money that's a simple factual statement two I did not say he stole the money implies that it was said but by someone else three I did not say he stole the money is a vigorous denial that you said it four I did not say he stole the money hints that you might have implied it but you didn't say it five I did not say he stole the money implies that someone other than the accused stole the money you could also make it say six I did not say he stole the money here you hint that the accused might have borrowed the money but didn't actually steal it seven I did not say he stole the money implies that he might have stolen some money but not the money eight I did not say he stole the money suggests that he might have stolen something but certainly not the money they are the same words but with an educated change in your voice inflection you can make those eight words say eight different things The Voice inflection close the exciting thing is the fact that voice inflection is a skill you can learn it's not as easy as it might appear but in just 15 minutes a day for 10 days you will have mastered the fundamentals in my judgment voice inflection is the most most important single undeveloped skill you need to concentrate on in your pursuit of professional sales Excellence you start to learn voice inflection by taking your digital recorder or smartphone and practicing that one sentence once you have recorded it the first time listen and see if you accomplished your objective if not try it again and again until you have recorded it exactly as you want go through the entire sequence until you can make those eight words say eight different things don't be disappointed or or discouraged if it takes you two 3 4 or a dozen times to get it right once you are satisfied that it is right give it the acid test record the eight words with the voice inflection covering the eight different areas let your mate or an associate listen and see if they can pick out what you are communicating keep practicing until someone else understands clearly what you are saying now the groundwork is solidly laid for you to re-record your sales presentation and procedures be certain to save the First Recording because you will see a definite Improvement in the recording and more importantly in the sales results I will return to voice inflection several times and I hope and believe that by the time we are finished the proper use of your voice will be one of the skills you will be committed to acquire remember you bought this book to become more professional so if you're serious you will follow the suggestions we are making you are not trying something you using something that has been tried and proven by thousands of people who have learned the technique in our seminars or training materials final thought using voice inflection and change of pace helps to hold your prospect's attention that's important because if they aren't listening they won't get the message and the information necessary to make the yes decision under these circumstances they will be compelled to say no and both of you will lose dealing with the price objection now let's cover one major objection that can be more effectively handled by properly using your voice this OB is encountered by virtually every salesperson many times during the course of their sales career all of us encounter on a regular basis the prospect who suggests directly or indirectly that the price is a little out of line or that the product is ridiculously and unreasonably overpriced one Prospect might belligerently and dogmatically say that price is ridiculous another Prospect might gently even smilingly say well it seems to me that the price is a little pause out of line I've even had folks put it in Exquisite colloquial terms you folks kind of proud of that stuff you sell ain't cha you justify or they defend to the one who is dogmatic and says that price is ridiculous you repeat almost forba him what he said the price pause is ridiculous your voice inflection should make it sound like a question inflection is important because in this example you are as one of my mentors the late Charlie Cullen would have said audaciously challenging the prospect you're creating a situation that forces them to defend their statement instead of you justifying the price there's quite a difference one puts you on the defense and the other puts you on the offense the difference in results is substantial it's simple but not easy I challenge you to get your digital recorder use the same words and carefully listen to what you've said chances are excellent you're going to have to repeat the process a dozen maybe even 20 times to get your voice inflection just right trouble yes work yes worth it you bet you suppose the prospect says it seems to me the price is a little out of line the first thing you've got to determine is whether the price really is the problem or there is another issue you make that determination by asking questions sales trainer John Hammond has successfully handled thousands of objections by asking if there were a way I could show you that the price is more than fair and the product is worth every dime we're asking would you go ahead and take advantage of our offer today this forces the prospect to make a commitment based on price when their real objection is color size style neighborhood or something else you could and should identify if this is the situation their response is going to be well no not really then the sales person can say then there must be some other reason you are hesitating would you mind if I ask what the reason is this is a superb procedure for smoking out the real objection if price is the objection you continue in this way you let me ask you Mr Prospect do you like the product many times they'll respond yes I like the product but it seems to me that the price is a little out of line you softly and gently Mr Prospect wouldn't you agree that it's difficult to pay too much for something you really like now the ball is back in their Court many times if if it's a relatively inexpensive item your prospect might go ahead and invest since that question which forces them to think could also lead them to make a yes decision in most cases if it's a high ticket item they will probably think for a moment and say well I do like it but yes I think you can pay too much regardless of how much you might like it I know I wouldn't give you $100,000 for a Cadillac even though I might really enjoy having one the fear of lost close now now you're dealing with something which is very basic so let me repeat the fear of loss is greater than the desire for gain you need to establish and that prospects mind the fact that they're safe in dealing with you that they won't lose either money or face by buying from you but that they will lose product benefits if they don't buy from you one effective way to do this is to say to the prospect Mr Prospect you're going to be concerned about price one time that's the day you buy you're going to be concerned with quality for the life of the product itself with this in mind let me urge you to think along these lines wouldn't you agree that it's better to invest a little more than you expected than a little less than you should wait for answer the reason is simple if you invest a little more than expected we are talking about pennies if you invest less than you should and the product won't do the job which you expected it to do then you will lose all you have invested a quote often attributed to John Ruskin makes an stute observation concerning price it is unwise to pay too much but it's worse to pay too little when you pay too much you lose a little money that is all when you pay too little you sometimes lose everything because the thing you bought was incapable of doing what it was bought to do the common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot it can't be done if you deal with the lowest bidder It is Well to add something for the risk you run and if you do that then you will have enough to pay for something better better that makes sense doesn't it Kevin's exponential Insight number two the fear of loss a powerful motivator if you've ever watched HSN or QVC you've seen someone bring in a thousand pieces of product and say listen when it's gone it's gone we'll have no more think about that if you're watching and something you're even moderately interested in begins to disappear all of a sudden 800 of them are gone you're faced with the fear of losing out maybe this is your only chance and you'll be left asking what if fear of loss is a powerful technique and those numbers are real when there are only 200 left you'd better get on the phone because it might be 3 to 6 months before they bring it back or never limited quantities deadlines and limited time offers all create a sense of urgency on QVC for example a product's first run will be priced at the very lowest it will ever be that's a rule of the network because they want to give people an incentive to buy now and have the fear of losing of that price point a beautiful bracelet might be $26 and 42 cents that first day but it's going to sell for more next time the fear of loss is about getting in now at the lowest price it will ever be that is gamechanging and how one of Zig Secrets is being used every day this is a bargain I believe it would be safe to say that all of us and that certainly includes yours truly have been guilty of buying bargains in the past you saw the big sale advertisement on ladies shoes there they were Bruno maggle $250 shoes special one time only closeout inventory reduction super gigantic colossal never before has such a bargain been offered it's obviously more than you can resist down you go to the store slip on those magnificent Bruno maggle shoes and while it is true that you wear a 6 - 1 / 2B and these are 6A AAS you begin to rationalize they will stretch as you wear them and though they are most uncomfortable as you struggle to take those five or six convincing steps in the store and even though you know they really are too tight the lore of getting such a bargain saving over $100 just overwhelms you besides they are exactly the right color to go with your new dress and purse logically you know you should not buy the wrong size but emotionally the lore of such a bargain over overwhelms you the sale is made you pay $119.95 and you walk out with a $250 pair of shoes carrying them of course since they are so beautiful you save them for church on Sunday as you slip them on and your feet start to scream your better judgment tells you not to wear them but you determine to tough it out because after all they're so beautiful and such a bargain so you do tough it out and you do survive the sermon so you can't remember a word the preacher said that's the one and only time you wear those shoes almost $120 to wear them one time is a pretty steep price wouldn't it have been better to have paid the regular price and gotten your size and worn them for months to come me too as the old saying goes I know how you feel because I've done exactly the same thing the suit was regularly priced several years ago at $279.95 marked down to just $149.95 though at the time I wore a 44 regular and this was a 42 regular I felt confident I was going to lose the weight and in the meantime I could suffer a little for such a beautiful suit you can finish the story can't you that's right I wore it one time and the moths got to the suit before I lost the weight yep it would have been better had I invested a little more than expected instead of a little less like I did on the former a few dollars would have been invested on the latter I lost the entire purchase price one wearing cost me $149.95 plus tax the same line of thinking can be applied when you persuade your prospects to have their teeth crowned or byy a nicer suit a better dress a more powerful truck A Better Built lawnmower or whatever you are selling just remember that when you are attempting to move that Prospect into a better product it must be in the prospect's best best interests otherwise you both will end up losing as the late Dick Gardner often said why settle for the get by when in the long run the good costs less the cost close here's a question you ask when your prospect talks about price Mr Prospect if you could convince yourself don't ever say if I could convince you because he's not interested in you convincing him of anything that the price is more than fair would you be willing to go ahead with a yes decision today if that question gets a yes answer then you ask the next question which is a very significant one you eyeball the Prospect and say Mr Prospect since you are obviously concerned about price let me make certain we're communicating are you really that interested in price or is it cost you're concerned with the odds are great that your prospect is going to respond with what do you mean am I talking about price or cost what is the difference seeing is believing you well Mr Prospect let me explain it this way now get your talking pad one ready for use prospects are inclined to believe what they see if you write it down not only are they more likely to believe it but chances are great they will understand it better as well when I talk about price and cost here's the example I use you should get your own example one that's appropriate and fits your situation Mr Prospect back in 1971 my 6-year-old son and I went out to buy a bicycle we went to the Schwin bicycle shop and were shocked at the $64.95 price tag certainly no prudent parent in 1971 when $64.95 represented a lot of money could justify spending that much money on a bicycle for a 6-year-old boy we headed for the discount store after all I reasoned he's just going to tear it up learning how to ride and a cheaper bicycle will be good enough for that we invested $34 .95 in a bicycle much better price-wise about 6 weeks later we went back to get a new pair of handlebars the cost normally would have been $4.50 but the bike was still in warranty so it didn't cost us anything 60 days later when we went back for more handlebars the bicycle was no longer in warranty so we had to invest the $450 about 6 weeks later we were back in the bicycle shop because the entire sprock Arrangement had completely collapsed I've forgotten the exact cost but it came to $115 and change a few weeks later we were back in the shop because the wheel bearings were shot and they wanted another $5 or $6 at that point I decided there was no way out so I threw in the tow then we bought the Schwin bicycle at $64.95 cheap costs more now let's look at the difference between price and cost the price of the economy bicycle was $34.95 the price of the Schwin bicycle was $64.95 now let's look at cost the cost of the economy bicycle was $34.95 plus $450 plus $15 for a total of $544 my son rode that bicycle for 6 months not counting the downtime the cost of the Schwin bicycle was $64.95 and he rode it for 10 years it cost us $9 a month for my son to ride the economy bicycle it cost a $66.50 a year for him to ride the Schwin and it was still a good bicycle when we passed it on to a smaller child the only money we had to spend on it was for a couple of tires and that had nothing to do with the durability or the quality of the bicycle note as you talk you diagram it on your talking pad this one looks like this now Mr Prospect let me point this out the price of the economy bicycle was considerably less $34.95 versus $64.95 but the cost difference was even more $9 a month versus $6.50 a year so Mr Prospect may I ask you again is it price you're concerned with or is it cost price is a one-time thing cost is something you are going to be concerned about for as long as you've got the product if this next sentence is true you can and should close with it some companies can beat us on price but Mr Prospect when it comes to cost we win that battle since you are obviously cost conscious doesn't it make good sense to immediately start enjoying the lowest possible cost PS it goes without saying that you will use an example involving your own product to make this point the price is too high later on in Secrets I deal at length with the statement that no salesman is is normal if they are really outstanding I now extend that to include the buyers because they are not normal either at the time they get ready to sign the agreement there is demonstrable proof that when a person signs an order for a significant amount of money in almost every case there is a measurable increase in their pulse rate A change is taking place and they're going through a process that affects them emotionally when we become completely aware of the extent of the effect we will be able to deal more empathetically with the Prospect and consequently be more effective as salespeople in dealing with the price objection you must remember that many people will automatically say the price is too high whether they feel that way or not this is a method many people use because they think that by using it they'll be able to negotiate a better price here is yet another approach to handling the prices too high objection I'm glad you're concerned about price Mr Prospect because that's one of our most attractive advantages would you do you agree that as a practical matter a product is worth what it can do for you and not what you have to pay for it wait for answer starting with that premise let's take a look at what our product will do for you objection the price is too high you Mr Prospect our company had to make a choice between building our product as cheaply as possible and selling it as a get by product or building quality into the product for service durability and your long- lasting enjoyment in short for long range value and benefit with this decision facing us we tried to put ourselves in your shoes we felt you would prefer to deal with a company that puts everything possible into its product to make it the best and most useful rather than a company that uses cheap materials and cheap labor to turn out a get by product most people Mis Prospect and I'll bet that includes you clearly understand that good things are not cheap and cheap things are seldom good you do want something you can can depend on for good service over the Long Haul don't you Mr prospect prospect forgets price but remembers quality as we explore cost and offer suggestions and instructions on the most effective way to use your voice and deal with price in this chapter it's almost like killing a fly with a sledgehammer since we give you so many details on this one point however it is important and will become even more important in the future so the objective is to cover all the bases from your perspective persective I think it's important to remember that the customer is likely to forget the price especially if he likes the product example you probably have several suits or dresses which you really enjoy wearing chances are good that if you've had them very long you have forgotten the exact price of those suits or dresses people forget price but they'll never forget poor quality or a poor choice they generally give the sales person a generous portion of the blame some of that goes with the territory but too much blame means you won't have the territory for long the quality close in selling low ticket items brushes soap Cosmetics your time investment would be too great to cover all the foregoing information on dealing with price so let's look at a powerp packed quick response which is enormously effective you can also use this one to convince the hesitant buyer who says the price is too high in an over-the-counter transaction in a retail outlet lower your voice look your prospect in the eye and say you know Mr Prospect many years ago our company made a basic decision we decided that it would be easier to explain price one time than it would be to apologize for Quality forever slight pause and I'll bet you're glad we made that decision aren't you if you are selling that low ticket item this last one might be the only one you will use in situations involving considerable sums of money it can be the icing on the cake that moves the prospect into the buyer's chair State Farm agent of Jackson from Tucson Arizona was dealing with a prospect and making no progress as a matter of fact up was in somewhat of a sales slump and this Prospect was mildly antagonistic after AB had made his presentation and handled several questions the prospect was fairly emphatic in a statement that the price was too high just as he had learned from the training that covers this close abled at the prospect lowered his voice and said Mr Prospect at State Farm we decided many years ago that it would be easier to explain price one time than to apologize for poor quality or poor service forever pause and I'll bet you are glad we made that decision aren't you the prospect said nothing for a few seconds then firmly said I'll take it the sale was almost exactly twice as big as the biggest contractive had ever written I urge you to do what of Jackson did practice drill and rehearse until the words and the right voice inflection become a a part of you do this and you will have developed a powerful tool for persuading your prospect to take the action which will benefit you and them the answer for everything close chances are excellent especially if you are in direct sales that you have been in a selling situation in which you've answered one objection after another regardless of what has come up you've handled it effectively finally the prospect in a husband/wife situation turns to his wife and says oh Martha it doesn't make any any difference what you say he's got an answer for everything or in a more sophisticated environment they might say to you well you've certainly done your homework it doesn't make any difference what I ask you've got an answer for it feed your ego or make the sale if that ever happens I should say when that happens you're faced with a major decision you can either decide to feed your ego or decide to make the sale you can't do both when they say you've got an answer for everything thing you can either grin and say well as a matter of fact last month I was number one in the office and the month before or you can take a different approach and make the sale if you give the preceding response you've just fed your ego and that's all you'll feed when your prospect makes the statement you've got an answer for everything if you want to further your career you need to lower your voice look them in the eye and slowly softly say Mr Prospect I really appreciate that comment and I'm going to take it as a compliment but actually I don't have an answer for many of the questions and objections people bring to me that's the reason I'm excited about selling the product which is the answer to your problem and that's what you really want isn't it nodding your head as you talk that procedure my selling friend is stronger than dirt it will get results if you are sincere and believe what you are saying let's elaborate on that last sentence by saying you can take the biggest crook in town and teach them the words procedures and techniques that professional salespeople all over the world successfully use however the effectiveness of those words and techniques would be seriously limited by The credibility of the person using them it is true the most important part of the sales process is the salesperson High performers in the world of selling established trust with customers through one-on-one I toi communication skills they maintain trust by personally assuming responsib for completing the sale which means servicing the account on an ongoing basis and utilizing their company support people in the most effective manner High performers demonstrate great integrity with their follow-through and belief that the sale is not complete until the product is installed and functioning and the customer is satisfied one a yellow or white pad to do your figuring this procedure clarifies the offer and makes it more believable and understandable many people don't buy because they don't [Music] understand