unReceptive

A Better Way to Sell, Lead, and Influence

Tom Stanfill

• Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781400225811
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Sales
• Index: Business

Receptivity of your audience is far more important than the power of your message. Learn how making this simple change in focuscan make all the difference in your ability to influence and succeed in the world of sales.

In this groundbreaking new guide, ASLAN co-founder and CEO Tom Stanfill shares his proven methodology, road-tested over decades by hundreds of thousands of sales professionals, workshop participants, and industry experts, on how to convert even the most disinterested prospects and customers. unReceptive will show you how to:

• Eliminate resistance and make selling easy and enjoyable, while experiencing a deeper sense of purpose.
• Overcome the five receptivity barriers – the customer's perception of you, opening a "closed" door, uncovering the unfiltered truth, changing beliefs, and motivating the customer to take action.
• Adopt the tested and true operating system used by the most persuasive and influential people.

When you shift the focus from crafting the perfect message to creating receptivity, you flip the entire art of selling on its head and form lasting relationships that set you and your customers up for lasting success.

PART I

THE FIRST BARRIER-CHANGING THEIR PERCEPTION OF YOU

When we attempt to persuade, the first thing the customer “buys” is you. How you think about your role and your approach to selling will determine whether the customer buys you before they buy your recommendation. Therefore, receptivity starts with developing the right mindset.

If the number one barrier is customers’ perception of you, the solution starts with us. Who we are communicates far more eloquently than what we say, so let’s begin with developing the right mindset around the two fundamental drivers of receptivity: pressure and priority. To address the first barrier to converting an unreceptive audience, everything hinges on two questions asked consciously or subconsciously by every customer: “Are you going to pressure me?” and “Am I the priority?”

Your ability to move prospects from emotionally “closed” to “open” hinges on how you answer these two questions. It drives how you write an email, introduce yourself, learn what their needs are, deliver a recommendation, and advance the opportunity, whether that’s getting another meeting, closing the sale, or helping them come to some other decision. In other words, the answer to these two questions determines everything.

So we start with developing a mindset that will almost instantly eliminate pressure and convince customers they are the hero of the story.

TWO

Drop the Rope

In sales, there is always tension. And where tension exists, people focus on the relief and not the truth. To end the tug-of-war, recognize control is just an illusion and drop the rope.

A vaccine representative for a major pharmaceutical company enters a meeting with a team of executives at the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo folks know the senior account executive’s agenda—to convince them to prescribe more of the big pharmaceutical company’s vaccines—and they’re ready for it. The team is motionless. No questions, no emotion. The rep initiates a smattering of small talk, but his inquiries are met with brief answers. Impatience and obligation take up the oxygen in the room. Some of the rep’s vaccines are needed by the Mayo Clinic, but their resistance is sky high. They expect an upsell. The conference table is more like a chess game with competitors staring across the table at one another as they strategize their next move. Mayo’s unspoken message is clear: “Just tell us what we need to know about your vaccines and leave.” What’s the right move? Bear down and sell hard, or break the ice? Passionately deliver the prepared deck, or pivot into something more informal?

What would be your strategy?

YOU CAN’T MAKE ME

Because we are rewarded for what we sell, there will always be tension. You want them to buy, and they want to consider their options. When tension exists, people tend to focus on avoiding it. This was best illustrated in a five-second exchange in the classic TV show M*A*S*H*. In just five words, the protagonist shows what happens when we look for results without first establishing receptivity. The scene involves Hawkeye Pierce, the chief surgeon, ignoring an order from his always inebriated boss, Henry Blake. Blake calls Pierce into his office and proceeds to yell at him, “Sit down, Hawkeye!” To which Hawkeye fires back, “You’re forcing me to stand!” When we are told to do one thing, we almost instinctively want to do the opposite.

The moment makes an important point about human nature: we will do just about anything to resist being controlled by another person, the process starting for most of us when we are toddlers challenging our parents’ authority. The need for control and choice is hardwired into our brains. In fact, research has found that people seek power not because they want to control others’ actions but because they want to ensure their own autonomy. It’s a survival mechanism.

Psychologists call this phenomenon “reactance.” I call it the “Tug-of-War Principle.” Whatever the name, it’s an unpleasant arousal that emerges when someone experiences a threat to their free behavior. When a person tries to get us to do something, we feel as if they’re “tugging” at us and instinctively “dig our feet” into the ground. We pull back. That’s why, early in our marriage, when my wife used to tell me to put on my seat belt, I childishly refused, thinking to myself, “I would rather go through the windshield.” This kind of resistance doesn’t apply only to demands; it applies also to pressure, whether spoken or unspoken. When someone tries to get us to do something, even if it’s in our best interest, we often naturally resist. To maintain a sense of urgency, we humans need to know we have choices and that we have a sense of ownership over those choices. The more others pressure us, the more it feels like they’re trying to take away our choice.

People resist any outside pressure to think or act differently if they feel their choices are being limited. One study observed what happened when mock jurors were instructed to disregard certain evidence that reflected poorly on the defendant. If the judge gave a speech about why they must disregard the evidence, they were more likely to convict. As Ryan Smerek, organizational behavior expert at Northwestern University, put it, the “mock jurors reacted to being told what to think—to the degree that they decided to use the inadmissible evidence just to spite the judge for being spoken to authoritatively!” What should we do in situations like this when we are the perceived authority threatening to take away our audience’s free will? We need to “drop the rope,” relieving the tension so the others can see all their options, including but not limited to the solution we are offering.

Now let’s get back to our pharmaceutical rep in the Mayo Clinic meeting room. What was his strategy? He dropped the rope, saying: “My goal today isn’t to get you to sell more of our vaccines but to work together to solve a problem we both have: How do we get more patients to embrace the need for vaccines? Whether you buy more vaccines from us or the competition, my goal today is just to learn how we can work together to improve health outcomes. If we’ve burned too many bridges in the past, I understand. But my hope is that we can begin working together to solve a problem we both face. How does that sound?”

He addressed the tension in the room and communicated that he wasn’t trying to pull them to his agenda. Instead, he was focused on their agenda, which was improving vaccines and health outcomes. He sent the message that it was their choice by asking permission and using words like whether and if. The tone of the meeting instantly changed, and for the first time in years, they met as partners instead of as combatants.

NOTHING TO RESIST

The Woodstock music festival was primed to be particularly violent in the summer of 1969. There were site issues, limited construction time, too many attendees, traffic delays, bad weather, a scarcity of food and medical supplies, and a sanitation crisis. The cultural movements at the time also increased conflict between hippies and law enforcement. Earlier that year, other big festivals in Miami, Denver, and Los Angeles had devolved into chaos because of similar issues. With all the tension in the air, Woodstock was likely to follow suit.

Security and law enforcement were worried, as they knew they needed order but also feared the kind of backlash such strict rules might cause in a crowd of rebels. They decided to do something different. Instead of bringing down the hammer even harder, they hired one of the crowd’s own—entertainer-activist Wavy Gravy along with members of his Hog Farm commune—to handle the larger crowds. Wavy and his team created something dubbed the “Please Force,” which took a very different approach. Instead of shouting orders like “Do this!” and “Don’t do that!” they asked crowd members, “Would you please do this?” They didn’t order them around; they asked. The volunteer security detail even set up “freak-out tents” where attendees who were experiencing bad psychedelic trips could ride it out.

People hate being controlled and told what to do, especially drugged-out hippies, but when you don’t give them something to fight back against, it neutralizes the conflict. By not giving them anything to resist, Wavy Gravy’s “Please Force” peacefully managed more than four hundred thousand people in one of the largest music festivals of all time. There were no laws but complete order, nonetheless. That’s the power of dropping the rope.

“THANKS, I’M JUST LOOKING . . .”

Customers apply this concept of reactance even when a salesperson does nothing wrong. I’ve done it myself. Once, when needing a new television, I walked into Best Buy and was instantly overwhelmed with options. They all looked the same. Surrounded by giant screens with HD imagery and blaring sounds, I realized I hadn’t done my homework and had no clue what I wanted. I was also in a hurry and had no time to figure it out. I needed help. An associate came up to me and offered, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

What did I say? “No thanks, I’m fine, just looking . . .” as if I preferred spending an hour reading little placards and comparing specs I didn’t understand to talking to someone with the necessary expertise to help me get what I wanted in fifteen minutes. Why did I do this? The salesperson said nothing confrontational, but I rejected him nonetheless. I felt tense at his offer to help, an instant rigidity, because I assumed along with it came pressure. Many of us, without even realizing it, sense an affront to our independence is about to follow, so we reject any offer of “help” from someone who wants to sell us something. But at that Best Buy, on that day, what the salesperson did next changed everything.

“I don’t get commission,” he told me. “I’m just happy to help, so just let me know if you need anything.” Then he started to walk away.

“Oh!” I replied, feeling a little desperate now. “Yes, please, I could use your help.”

This savvy salesperson dropped the rope. Through his words and body language, he demonstrated that there would be no tug-of-war. We were not enemies; he was here to help and on my side. When he dropped the rope, all tension immediately lifted and I shifted from “closed” to “open.” I became receptive. And I walked out that store a few minutes later with a brand-new TV.

Even though the Best Buy rep wasn’t on a commission, the interaction demonstrates the power and ability to eliminate the preconceived tension that initially exists in every seller-buyer relationship.

TRADE THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL FOR INFLUENCE

Dropping the rope can feel impossible to salespeople because it means doing something we humans never want to do: relinquish control. But control is just an illusion. Influence starts by communicating the obvious—the customer has all the control. And by doing so, we trade the control we never had for the opportunity to influence.

When my business partner and I started our company in 1996, we knew we needed to join forces with another team that had expertise in the areas we lacked. We formed a partnership with a training and consulting firm run by two men, Ken and James, who had PhDs in behavioral psychology and had won awards for their innovative training simulations. After about six months, I became disenchanted with the relationship as we’d offered a sizable percentage of our intellectual property in return for sweat equity, and in my opinion, we weren’t getting a lot of sweat. I reached out to schedule a meeting to talk through my concerns.

The meeting did not go well. We were working exclusively with Ken, but both he and James attended the meeting. As I communicated my concern, Ken got just a tad upset. They had years of experience running a successful firm, and we were just learning the industry. Their offices were on the top floor of a new high-rise, whereas we’d set up shop in my partner’s basement. They were working with Fortune 500 companies. We had one contract with a local firm of about twenty-five employees. They had PhDs after their names, and we were, well, fun at parties. You get the picture.

Ken’s frustration was reasonable. If the relationship was going to work, however, I needed to communicate my concerns, and it was clear my message wasn’t being received. So I tried a different tactic. To substantiate their percentage ownership in the program, I slid our training book across the table and asked him to validate his contributions. He didn’t exactly appreciate that move and left the room. Now, it was just the three of us. James wisely suggested we allow everyone to cool down and regroup in a week. We agreed and nailed down a time, and I spent the next seven days coming up with every conceivable reason to get out of the contract. I was not receptive to continuing our relationship with their firm, and in several imaginary conversations, I justified why we needed to end the relationship and that they should forfeit their ownership percentage. In the car, shower, and over dinner, I replayed the situation over and over in my mind.

The meeting date finally arrived. Due to scheduling conflicts, it was just James and me. I walked in with my speech all prepared, ready for battle, and James asked me to sit down on the couch. “It’s some psychology trick,” I thought, “and I’m not falling for it. I’ve brought my A-game today.”

“Listen, Tom,” James began, “obviously we can see you are uncomfortable with our partnership. The last thing we want to do is force you to continue in a relationship that’s not best for you. So before we discuss your concerns, I want you to know that you have no obligation to work with us in the future. If you want out, that’s totally fine with us.”

After strategizing for a week about how I could shred the contract and pay them nothing, here’s what came out of my mouth: “No, James, we don’t want to do that. I’m sure we can figure out how we can continue to work together. We just need to get on the same page.” Why the 180? When I no longer felt the pressure but instead the freedom to choose, I was able to reconsider what I wanted, which wasn’t to end the relationship. My partner and I needed the expertise from this other team, and if I could trust them with determining an equitable relationship, the partnership was what I wanted. Dropping the rope is potent.

RELEASE THE PRESSURE

Teenagers are especially averse to even the slightest questioning of their choices, and there are scientific reasons why. “The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be unti...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• One: Traditional Selling Doesn’t Work
• Part I: The First Barrier—Changing Their Perception of You
• Part II: The Second Barrier—Opening a Closed Door
• Part III: The Third Barrier—Discovering the Unfiltered Truth
• Part IV: The Fourth Barrier—Changing Their Beliefs
• Part V: The Fifth Barrier—Taking Action
• Index
• About The Author