Breaking down the strip lining sales technique
Legal LawIn our most recent blogs, we have been reviewing Negative reverse sale and how effective it is in building great bonding and rapport with sales prospects. Negative reverse selling is a way of saying and doing the opposite of what the potential customer expects of a salesperson, disarming him and building trust in him. One of his most compelling techniques is called strip-lining, a method of using inverse questions to get the prospect to talk, and you follow. “pulling more line and let them swim”. However, you must do this step correctly or it could backfire for you. When done correctly, prospects feel like they are in control of the conversation and you have a better chance of making a sale. Practice this step frequently in low-risk situations before using it on your biggest and best prospects.
What should you practice? Getting the correct setting means doing the following:
• Neutral prospects get very strict lines, like, “You seem to be very happy and I should go. Before I go, what do you like about who are you doing business with now?”
• Negative prospects get clear lines, but not as much as neutral prospects. For instance, “Based on what you just said about your current supplier, it makes sense to me why you are not interested in switching your business to another company. We also get great feedback from our customers, but your supplier sounds great at what they do. I don’t know if you can do better than that. There don’t seem to be many opportunities for us to work together here, right? “
• Positive prospects get direct lines that are just a slight tug: “Thank you for reaching out to us. I must say that your friend Bronwyn gets almost all the credit for having a great experience with us. She was very good at explaining the app issue, and that really helped her have a happy outcome with us. . Since I don’t know your application, I’m not sure I can help you at this point. Could you be kind enough to tell me? “
In all three examples, you will find three components. Look at each of them and you will see how the striped line responses are structured.
1. The first component is an accumulation (a compliment or validation from the prospect’s point of view). In the above, an example of that was, “You seem to be very happy.”
2. The second component is a conclusion (a conclusion that goes in the opposite direction from what the potential customer expects). In the above, an example was, “… and I should go.”
3. The third component is a question (a continuation of the discussion). In the above, an example was: “Before I go, what do you like about who are you doing business with now?”
If you look at the example above for positive outlooks, notice that the accumulation part of the answer validates how well things went “with Bronwyn” and gives her most of the credit: “Thank you for reaching out to us. I must say that your friend Bronwyn gets almost all the credit for having a great experience with us. She was very good at explaining the app issue, and that really helped her have a happy outcome with us. . “
The takeout portion includes words to the effect that you are not yet convinced that you can help the prospect. “Since I don’t know your application, I’m not sure I can help you as well at this time.”
The third part, the question, is pretty obvious; asks a question to begin to understand the application, the problem, and ultimately the pain of the prospect: “Could you be kind enough to tell me?”
When you separate a potential customer using all three components of the technique, the more likely you are to discover the most meaningful information. Now you know what a good fit looks like. What does a bad fit look like? Let’s say a potential customer calls your office and says: “I’ve heard really good things about your company. A friend of mine, Bronwyn, told me all about you and I’m very interested in doing business with you.” Obviously that’s a positive outlook. It would not be appropriate for you to make a direct line, as the potential customer is almost ready to buy. Saying to the prospect, “You must have used other providers in our space. Why wouldn’t you want to use them now?” Not only will it confuse the potential customer, but it will likely ruin the sale. So that’s a bad fit. Instead, you’ll want to use the approach I shared with you earlier, the one that begins with “Thanks for reaching out.”
Sometimes the potential customer says something that more or less helps to improve. In that case, you don’t have to, but you still need to make the conclusion and ask the question. For example, if the prospect says: “I heard some really good things about your company.” you could undress saying: “It’s good to hear it, but we’re not for everyone. Would you like to tell me why you thought it might have been a good idea to call and hopefully we’ll find out that we are a good fit?”
Bottom line: very tough stripline with neutral prospects, even sounding like you’re getting ready to drop the sales call or implying that you think the sales call is over; hard strip-line with negative outlook; strip-line lightly with positive outlook.
Strip lining is a great way to discover pain because it is extremely disarming and helps build confidence. When you do it right, it doesn’t seem like you’re selling. Prospects feel that you really accept and care about their goals and their pain. (As, of course, you do!) If you don’t discover the pain with strip lining, then maybe that particular prospect doesn’t have enough pain to do business with you. Strip liner combined with other Sandler approaches to finding pain will put you in a different league from all those other salespeople who traditionally start with the hard sell, list features and benefits, and offer prospects free quotes.