The Art Of Conversational Magic, Part IV: Selling The Way Your Customers Buy

Got a little story for you.

Last night I attended a talk by a certain business teacher by the name of Keith Cunningham. He teaches for Tony Robbins' seminars, was the originator of the idea behind the 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' book, and is a highly successful businessman in his own right.

He came so highly recommended that I decided to make the 30-mile trek from Santa Monica to Long Beach smack-dab during LA's storied rush hour. I'm glad to say the trip was worth it.

During the talk, he shared with us how he met and married his current wife Sandy, a lovely, inspiring and supremely successful lady.

They went out to dinner, and when it was winding down and they were about to leave, Keith asked her, point-blank, "What do you want?"

Sandy, not being prepared for this, asks for a little clarification, which Keith provides: "What do you really want in a relationship?"

Ah yes—THAT thing. Sandy is not one to hold back either, so, by Keith's account (which may or may not be slightly embellished), she goes on for 1.5hrs about EXACTLY what she wants in a relationship: doors held open, total devotion, respect for her independence, holding her hand in public, shared adventure. Oh, and a written note—every day. Every day? Yes, every day.

Well, Keith and Sandy have been married a good 7 years now, and for every day of those seven years, Sandy has received a note from Keith. Not necessarily a nice note every time, as Keith quipped, but still a note every day.

Keith mentioned this story in the context of running a successful business as he told us about the 3-step 'Millionaire Formula', which he put thusly:

1) Find out what your customers want.
2) Go get it for them.
3) Give it to them.

Pretty simple, eh? And in the context of dating—which I have maintained is just a manifestation of sales and marketing in a person-to-person context—this formula applies as well.

In fact, in the Tao of Persuasion course, we have a whole module and some devoted to the concept of 'selling the way your customer buys', which is what I want to talk about today.

This means that instead of hitting your business or social 'customer' over the head with how wonderful you are and why she should do business with you, so to speak, you figure out what she wants, and then proceed to deliver it to her. And if it's not something you can deliver, you give your best bow, and walk away.

Radical notion, I know.

This brings us to the concept of values and criteria. Values are people's deep unconscious motivators—things like justice, freedom, adventure, kindness, living life fully. They work on a global decision-making level.

Criteria are for local decision-making—values you apply to day-to-day decisions, like picking a supermarket, buying a car, choosing a gym.

Now if you forget everything that I say in this letter, I want you to remember this one sentence. These are the keys to the kingdom, the 'abracadabra' that opens up all the doors. I'm being somewhat facetious here, but not entirely. Here's the sentence:

"What's important to you about that?"

That's it? Yeah, pretty much. Because when you ask this question, people have to reach inside and find their conscious and unconscious motivators for doing things—and then explicitly state them to you.

So let's say you're at the Aston Martin dealership, and you're kinda deciding between that and a BMW M3 (a fine dilemma we'd all like to have, I'm sure).

If the salesman is smart, he'll ask you, "Well, what's important to you about a car?"

And then you will pause, think, and say, "Y'know, that's a great question. I guess raw power and speed are pretty important, but it all has to be in the context of good handling."

Aha! Now he's got a bunch of great CRITERIA from you: raw power, speed, and good handling.

Notice how he would want to use the same exact words that you used—this is called 'backtracking'. Not power or horsepower, but 'raw power'. Not handling, but 'good handling'. Matching my words verbatim.

Now if the salesman's good, he will now proceed to tell you about the Aston Martin's raw power, speed and handling—or even better, demonstrate those to you in a test drive.

If he's really good, though, he will ask the magic question again:

"Well, what's important to you about good handling?"

And that's when you pause again, think, and say, "Geegoshgolly, I guess it's just so much FUN when you have a car that's really responsive and can OPERATE AT THE EDGE. It's also very REASSURING when a car is solid and RELIABLE—that way you can really ENJOY its capabilities full-out."

Oh man. This salesman's hitting the jackpot now! Look at all the criteria he's getting from you—fun; operating at the edge; reassurance; reliability; enjoying something full-out.

(Incidentally, that's pretty close to the definition of romance that I have in The Tao of Dating. Women want to experience the passion and excitement of life in safe, reliable context. Be that guy.)

Now I want you to notice something else, too—some of these criteria are getting a little vague. We went from handling, horsepower and G-forces to things like fun, reliability and reassurance.

And that's what happens when you ask the magic question more than once: you start getting into VALUES. And values are like turbocharged, rocket-propelled criteria, since they hit you at such a deeper, more unconscious spot.

For example, if I approached you with a petition in a supermarket and told you, "Would you sign this please? It's about making people's lives better."

Well, okay. That's reasonably compelling, since it sounds like a good cause. But what if I said this instead:

"Would you like to sign this? It's about preserving your freedom and keeping it from getting trampled."

Whoa there! My freedom? And someone's trying to trample on it? I need to know about this, like, now!

The reason is that 'freedom' is almost always one of people's top values. If I were to ask you the magic question—'What's important to you about...'—six or seven times, I'd eventually get to 'freedom'. It's the prime unconscious motivator. ('Love' is another big one.)

Get it? Okay, so back to the Aston dealership. So those vague and abstract-sounding criteria he was getting from you were starting to venture into the realm of values.

This is a Good Thing. I want you to be bold enough and interested enough in your customer to ask the magic question enough times such that you get to the values—because that's where the real value lies.

And now what you do is you provide information about your product such that it fits your customer's stated criteria and values. Now if you were the salesman, this is what you would want to say to yourself the customer (okay, that's mildly surreal so work with me here):

"Stan, it's funny how you mention that, because just yesterday I was reading an article in Car & Driver about this Aston Martin DB9 here, and it was saying how it has such GOOD HANDLING, which is so important when you've got 450 horses of RAW POWER under the hood.

It just allows you to OPERATE AT THE EDGE of the car's abilities while experiencing that REASSURING feeling, knowing that this is a RELIABLE machine that can really take you there and just have a ton of FUN with it.

The best way to do that, though, is by taking it for a spin. How ready are you for your test drive?"

Notice how you, Mr. Brilliant Salesman, used the same words as the customer and resisted the temptation to paraphrase. 'Reassuring' instead of reassured. 'Reliable' instead of reliability. 'Good handling' instead of handles well.

The small stuff makes a difference.

And then, at the end, you make sure you append your pitch, your call to action. A key thing to remember is to make the pitch the next logical step in the process.

Notice how this salesman's pitch was to take the test drive, not to have you buy the car outright. If you rush ahead, try to take a shortcut and get ahead of yourself, you ruin the sale.

This is all eminently applicable in a dating context, as I mentioned many times in the Tao of Dating (available at http://www.thetaoofdating.com/order if you don't have your copy yet). One step leads to the next one. From Chapter 64 of the Tao Te Ching:

"Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion,
you ruin what was almost ripe.

Therefore the Master takes action
by letting things take their course.
He remains as calm
at the end as at the beginning.
He has nothing,
thus has nothing to lose."

God, I love that one. So succinct and true. To make it specific to your dating life: you stand a much higher chance of success if you exhibit patience and go through each step of the courtship process instead of getting all excited and asking for her hand in marriage on the second date. Eaaasy does it.

And, easily and naturally, you will ask questions like "What do you want in a relationship?", and hang on every word she says as she gives you the answer.

Oh wait. I can hear that—yup, the whiny voices of doubt. "But Dr Alex, that's kind of a heavy question to ask a woman on a date, isn't it? I can't do that!"

Gee, okay. So what are you on a date for anyway—to discuss the migration patterns of cod? To trade tips on the finer points of yak husbandry? Or to exchange on that all-important, life-changing topic—the weather?

Look, bro—you're on a date because you're both checking each other out as a prospective companion. Accept it, deal with it, lead with it, and be comfortable with it. Just like our superstar friend Keith Cunningham was.

Quit waiting for the world to give you permission—give YOURSELF permission. Something else that Keith said last night really stayed with me.

He said that unsuccessful or mildly successful people are those who are busy 'doing their best'—and these are the people who have perennial issues with self-motivation and self-discipline. You know who you are.

The truly successful people in the world are those who DO WHAT IT TAKES, every time, all the time. And that, my friend, is a HUGE difference. And the difference that takes those people to the next level.

So if you my friend, are ready to take things to the next level and really master the skills behind selling the way your customer buys, whether in a business or dating context, perhaps you should check out the free downloads we have for you at taoofpersuasion.com.

That's all for now.

The power is within you,
Dr Alex
www.thetaoofdating.com