The exact scripts to use
In 2007, when I was a 17-year-old sales assistant in a clothing store, I sold more store cards than entire store ‘clusters’ put together.
A cluster, in this example, was all of the staff in all of the stores for each area — competing against me. So I wasn’t just first, I was so far ahead that the company itself actually asked me to re-train its sales assistants on my technique.
After it became immoral to sell people into retail credit-agreements (post-2008), these skills transitioned into my other ventures of sales and marketing. Less used for selling ‘finance’ or ‘payment plans’ and instead focusing on making products look, sound, and feel more attractive to buyers.
You see, marketing is sales. Marketing is the efforts you make to create, support, or close the sale. Today, I’m going to tell you exactly what it was that helped me do so well, so in turn, you can use these tactics in your own careers too.
Creating Rapport With Customers
It’s been said that there are three types of customers:
Visual
Audible
Kinaesthetic
These categorizations are defined by the pseudoscientific art of communication, known as NLP (neuro-linguistic programming).
There is currently no scientific evidence to support the widely-disputed existence of NLP, so I won’t be adding to that debate here — but what it does do is put a clever brand name on the very real and uncontested psychological skill of mirroring.
Used intentionally by hostage negotiators, pick-up artists, salesmen, and others, mirroring is the precursor to rapport or ‘chemistry’ that we all perform naturally.
By complimenting someone’s body language, you’ll be sub-consciously signalling how alike you are. This is effective because we tend to like people that seem like us.
With that said, it’s worth knowing that 93% of all communication is non-verbal.
By knowing that statistic, it stresses that it’s not what you do say, but rather, it’s what you don’t say that matters most.
To establish this rapport with strangers, it could be as simple as:
Leaning when they lean
Crossing your arms when they do
Taking a sip of water when they do
Smiling when they do
Nodding when they do
You may not think it’s that simple, but the next time you’re at dinner with your family, watch everyone closely to see how they interact. You’ll see small imitations that feel natural but are being subconsciously signalled between people who already hold rapport.
Then, it’s just practice to complement, but not mime, strangers' body-language to build rapport from scratch.
Visual Customers
Once you’ve taken care of the 93% of communication, you may as well concentrate on the final 7%. That is verbal communication.
The clearest example I remember comes from Derren Brown’s “Trick of the Mind” book.
To paraphrase, if someone comes into your store looking to buy a sound-system and they want to see what deals you have, they’re subconsciously signalling their visual intent.
Read that again.
“…if someone comes into your store looking to buy a sound-system and they want to see what deals you have, they’re subconsciously signalling their visual intent.”
The bolded words can be interpreted that this is a visual customer. Your response should be something like this…
Follow me, I’ll show you some of our best-sellers, but there’s also one you need to see that’s on sale until tomorrow. Probably the best-looking sound-system for the price.
Your response is tailored to ‘mirror’ the use of visual-based language. Phrases like ‘show you’ and ‘need to see.’
I’m not saying it’s a form of hypnosis — it’s not — or that it’s a guaranteed win each and every time. I’m just saying that it worked for me and gave me an edge that nobody else had.
Audible Customers
Take the same things you’ve learned above and apply them to a new category. Audible customers.
They’ll use phrases like:
“Tell me about”
“I want to hear about”
“I heard about”
“Great-sounding deal”
This doesn’t have to be product-specific. You may assume customers buying headphones will be ‘audible’ in nature, but people buying ‘Beats’ or ‘AirPods’ aren’t after sound quality, they’re after aesthetic… They’re visual.
Listening out for the language and establishing an audible customer invites a rapport-building opportunity.
Respond with phrases like:
I’ve heard people raving about ‘x product.’
Even though this isn’t my personal favorite, people tell me it’s the best.
Let me tell you a secret to leveraging this store card for more discount.
I know it sounds crazy, but it’s cheaper to ‘x’ than ‘y.’
Your aim isn’t to fool your customer — your aim is to sympathize with your customer. By mirroring them, you’re getting closer to their needs than most ever will.
Kinesthetic Customers
Kinaesthetic learning is about touch. It’s about feelings. People that learn effectively through these means are said to be more tactile and in touch with their feelings.
The idea behind this categorization is that the language choices of customers are about those feelings. They’ll likely use language like:
“Feels right”
“Feels like good-quality”
“I’m not feeling it”
“Something about this just doesn’t feel right”
The aim here is to sell good-quality, sturdy, well-built, expertly-crafted items. All of those features are ‘kinaesthetic’ in nature.
Buying a car is a kinaesthetic experience. If it were all based on looks alone, or how good of a deal it sounds, then you would never require a test drive or to sit in it.
A car purchase is about how that machine feels as an extension of you. You need to feel comfortable, you need to feel cool, and you need to feel safe.
Good marketers and good salespeople in this niche sell the feeling first. However, it can be replicated across all other niches too. The idea is that if you can sell the feeling, you can sell it for whatever price you want.
Visuals are price-restrictive. It has to look as good as the price it’s commanding — but products selling the feeling aren’t bound by the same rules.
Putting This Into Practice
The secret to selling more store cards than anyone else was to initiate conversation, build rapport with my customers by mirroring body-language, and then listen out for verbal-cues.
Once established, I sorted them into a ‘bucket’ in my mind and tailored my sales approach to mirror the language that customer was using.
Examples:
Audible: “Have you heard about the way you can get 20% off today?”
Visual: “Would you be happy if you saw that price go down by 20% today?”
Kinaesthetic: “I bet you’d feel a whole lot better if I knocked 20% off this price today, right?”
As soon as they showed interest I’d say — and it’s corny to admit this now, but it worked so well, “There are 1,440 minutes in a day, but if you’re willing to give me just two of those minutes, I can get you a store card that unlocks that discount right now.”
Although my sales scripts have matured since then, at the time it worked to put me on top of the bonus list each month. Since then, I’ve taken that knowledge and applied it to all of my marketing and sales copy thus far.
Before selling each product, I choose the demographic it’s most likely to appeal to and structure my ad copy around it.
As selling store cards is a redundant example to most of you, one area that you can use these techniques now is in your email marketing.
Using email subject lines like:
“****, you almost missed this.” (Selling the feeling of missing out)
“{Watch trailer} ‘x product’ is out now.” (Selling the visuals)
“We shouldn’t tell you this, but…” (Selling the idea of being told a secret that other buyers don’t know)
These are subtle, but they’re effective. And perhaps you’re already doing this naturally, but if your product features start to align with your ad copy a lot more, you’ll be selling to more customers than ever before.
It’s not about manipulation, it’s about adapting to your individual customer’s needs…and you only get there through effective listening.