Sales Scripts: Seven Secrets of Persuasion and Influence Secrets 5: Reverse Engineering and Stage Selling

Sales scripts are one of the most powerful ways to persuade and influence your prospects and can help transform you into a Master of Persuasion and Influence, only if you know the secrets.

Secret #5 Reverse Engineering
Sales pros look at their Sales Cycle and Sales Presentation strategically. The strategic viewpoint yields insights as to how all the various pieces of the presentation fit together. Sales Pros transition from one section of their sales presentation to another; it is practically seamless! The prospect may not know or sense that one part of the sales presentation has been reached; however, Sales Pros definitely know what section of the presentation they are in.

How do the Sales Pros do it?
Sales Pros reverse engineer their sales presentation, and this is how it works. They start at the end of the presentation where the prospect buys; then the Sales Pros ask themselves: “What would need to happen before that?” The Sales Pro then analyzes all the components of the phase where the prospect presents an objection. Then the Sales Pro asks: “What would happen before that?” Sales Pros continue this process of Reverse Engineering from a happy customer who bought the product all the way back to when the customer was just a lead. The Reverse Engineering process in your sales presentation is what Stephen Covey calls: “Begin with the end in mind.”

Each Stage of the Sales Process has its own Unique Characteristics!

Stage Selling
Stage selling is another concept that Sales Pros handle differently from most salespeople. A Sales Pro understands it at a deep level that each stage of the sales process has its own unique characteristics. They do not try to do too much too soon! At the Lead Generation stage, Sales Pros know that the only goal is to just get a lead. That’s it! The goal of appointment setting is just a scheduled appointment. If your only goal is to set an appointment, this takes the pressure off and makes it much easier to make more appointments.

On the other hand, some salespeople make the error of trying to do too many things at once! When the prospect has agreed to an appointment, the salesperson then tries to sell the whole product right then and there!  More often than not, the prospects are not ready to hear a full presentation because they thought they were just agreeing to the appointment, so they become scared and cancel it. Sales pros don’t make that mistake.

Be sure to check out my next blog post:
Secret #6: Handling Objections