I. Instruments
A salesman must start with his appearance when selling himself. Before you speak, the customer knows nothing about you. He sees your appearance first and makes a first impression. Your appearance determines your first impression. You must pay attention to your appearance if you want to make a good impression on customers from the beginning.
One can't judge a book by its cover. This is a warning, which means that you can't judge a person's ability just by his appearance. However, it is precisely because people (including you and me) often judge people by their appearances when they meet, so this warning is given.
In the era when self-help sales are becoming more and more popular (supermarkets and convenience stores are all self-help), packaging has become an "invisible salesman", which deeply affects customers' desire to buy. A box of beautifully packaged fruits is certainly more attractive than a bag of inferior plastic bags. There is no doubt about it.
If you think of yourself as a product, the instrument is equivalent to packaging. The quality of packaging is enough to affect the sales of products, and the quality of instruments is the primary factor for the success or failure of salesmen themselves.
Under the sponsorship of Mary Kay Cosmetics Company, the American College of Geriatrics in Dallas once trained 50 elderly women with an average age of 83 for six months. As a result of this training, it is found that helping to modify personal appearance has a good effect on encouraging personal self-esteem and making them feel happy in all situations. In other words, the better they look, the better they feel.
Maybe you will also find these phenomena in your ears:
My wife has become more charming and friendly since she came back from the beauty salon.
Children are happier and more energetic when they wear new clothes.
Take a shower, hang up your face and put on your favorite suit (including tie) and leather shoes before going out for social intercourse or speech, and you will feel radiant and confident.
Not surprisingly, appearance does affect my internal emotions and external performance. Appearance includes appearance and clothing. If a salesman wants to be outstanding, he must pay more attention to these two aspects.
1, appearance
If you say you don't care about looks, ask yourself, would you like a person with dirty nails, a full face of beard, messy hair and body odor? A disheveled and untidy person can't even handle his appearance well, which will make people feel disorganized, let alone expect others to have a good impression on him.
Regarding the appearance, the following eight points should be paid special attention to:
A. Take a bath every day: Taking a bath can not only sweat, but also make you look neat and energetic.
B, removing body odor; If you have body odor, you should take medicine besides taking a bath. In addition, it is easy to have bad breath after meals, so brush your teeth after meals (especially after lunch).
C. protecting teeth: everyone wants to see a pair of white and bright teeth. Smokers often leave smoke stains, and we should try to get rid of them.
D, finishing hair; Hair is too long, too messy, too dirty and too oily. The length must be moderate, clean and docile.
E, face renovation: wash your face with soap every day. A man's beard must be shaved clean. If necessary, shave twice a day If there are obvious defects, you should go to surgery and beauty.
F, trimming nails; Nails should not be too long, there should be no dirt, and besides, don't let nicotine from cigarettes turn your hands yellow.
G, keep fit: try to keep a proper weight and a good figure. Obesity is not only harmful to health, but also bloated and ugly, so salespeople should keep exercising and stay healthy.
H, pay attention to posture: No matter sitting, standing or walking, keep the correct posture-chin closed, abdomen narrowed, head held high and chest held high.
2. clothes
As the saying goes, "Buddha wants gold clothes, and people want clothes." Only when the clothes and accessories are properly matched will they leave a deep impression on customers, or wear big and heavy weird accessories, because that will only bring a sense of suddenness and be detrimental to sales promotion.
When wearing clothes, please grasp the following eight principles:
A. Willing to spend money: Try to buy clothes with better texture when economic conditions permit. Good clothes are not only durable, but also bring confidence to people.
B, the size is moderate, and the size of the clothes should fit, not too wide or too narrow.
C. Clothes matching: the coat should be matched with pants, ties, handkerchiefs and socks to make people feel fresh and dignified.
D, plain color is appropriate: if the color of clothes is too bright, it will make people feel frivolous, so it is appropriate to choose plain color.
E. frequent ironing: shirts should be changed every day, and suits (or foreign clothes) should be frequently ironed. Dirt and wrinkles are annoying, and clothes must be kept clean and straight every day.
F. suit measures to local conditions: the clothes for work, banquet and leisure are different, and the customers who visit the office and the customers in the factory wear different clothes.
G, choose accessories: necklaces, rings, bracelets, glasses, belts, lighters, pens and other accessories, but also in line with their own identity.
H. Matching of clothes and shoes: Shoes should be matched with clothes, and shoes should have different choices on different occasions. If you wear leather shoes, you must polish them.
Second, listen
I don't know if you have noticed a problem. Why did God give man two ears but only one mouth when he created everything? That is to tell us to listen more and talk less.
1. Obedience is more important than speaking.
Most people can only talk and are not very obedient. Few people really know how to listen. Obedience is more important than talking, because people who can talk give people the impression that they are smart, while people who can listen are not as attractive as those who can talk, but they give people the impression that they are kind, caring and more attractive. People's psychology is wonderful. They like to be smart, but they don't like to associate with smart people. They prefer to be close to those who are kind and always caring. Therefore, it goes without saying which is more important, obedience or speaking.
The importance of listening goes beyond this. Doctors should listen to the patient's conversation to understand the condition and prescribe the right medicine; Enterprise executives should listen to the reports of their subordinates in order to formulate countermeasures to solve problems. In order to communicate with others, everyone should listen. The problem is that "I like talking, but I don't like listening" is one of the weaknesses of human nature (but human beings are afraid of open formal conversation-speech). As long as you pay attention to some informal parties, or dinners, or chats, those who are listening to others are eager to try; Moreover, after the speech, some people were in a hurry to speak, and even many people scrambled to speak, which shows how much human beings love to talk!
Salespeople should master this weakness of human nature and let customers speak freely. Whether customers praise, explain, complain, refute, or warn, scold or insult, they should listen carefully and respond appropriately to show their concern and attention, so as to win customers' goodwill and goodwill in return. Therefore, being good at listening-listening attentively to customers is a lifelong advice for novice or veteran salesmen.
On the surface, customers speak actively and salespeople listen passively, as if the former has an absolute advantage and the latter is at a disadvantage. In fact, the listener has an advantage over the speaker. Because the speaker's speed per minute is about 125 words, and the listener's thinking speed is four times that of the speaker, when the speaker has to worry about his own speech, the listener has enough time to analyze and review the customer's opinions to respond. Therefore, a salesman who is good at listening is in an advantage on the surface. British Prime Minister Churchill said: "Speech is silver, silence is gold." I think it is more appropriate to change this sentence to "Speech is silver, obedience is gold".
2. The principle of listening
Listening is so important, how can you listen? We must grasp the following three principles:
A, don't be distracted, concentrate and listen attentively.
Interference sounds such as telephone ringing, radio, TV and music should be eliminated as much as possible. In addition, scenes that are easy to distract attention, such as people coming and going in front of the office, should also be avoided as much as possible.
Listening to people is a university question. According to the research of the Department of Mass Communication of the University of Minnesota, the average person can only remember 1/2 whether listening to tapes or live, and within 8 hours, they will forget what they remember from 1/3 to 1/2. In other words, unless you have an amazing memory, most people will only remember half of the speech, and within eight hours, they will forget most of it. In short, most people only listen to 25% of them 15%.
There are two reasons for this poor effect: first, because the listener's thinking speed is faster than the speaker's speaking speed, he has a lot of free thinking time; Second, when the speaker's argument is different from his own, it is difficult for the latter to listen any longer.
In order to avoid bad listening effect, besides paying attention and listening attentively, the best way is to prepare a pen and paper and take notes. After you write down the talking points of the customers, you won't forget them.
B, ask questions in time to help the speaker clear his head.
In principle, don't interrupt when the other person is talking, but asking questions in time is more effective than nodding blindly. A good listener is neither afraid to admit his ignorance, nor afraid to ask questions to the speaker, because he knows that this will not only help the speaker clear his head, but also make the conversation more concrete and vivid.
In conversation, it often happens that the speaker is thoughtless, makes irresponsible remarks and makes himself confused and unintelligible. For example, if he wants to give a question three reasons, as a result, the first reason alone will go further and further, and he will never forget the second and third reasons. At this time, the listener should ask, "What is your second reason?" Help the speaker clear his mind and get to the point.
On the other hand, although the speaker talks endlessly, the content of the conversation is too theoretical and difficult to understand. The listener can insert a sentence "Please give an example" at the right time, which can often make the speaker give specific examples to illustrate. In this way, all vague arguments can be explained clearly.
C, from the conversation, understand the opinions and needs of customers.
Salespeople always have to find the right topic to keep customers going. This will not only avoid misunderstanding caused by listening to fragments, but also make customers inadvertently reveal their inner intentions. Customers often have opinions, needs, problems, etc. The salesman should let him express his opinions, understand his needs, deal with his problems and solve his problems.
The salesman must listen to the real meaning of the customer from the content and tone of the conversation, expressions and body movements. Only in this way can we grasp the needs of customers. After understanding the needs of customers, selling according to customer needs can get twice the result with half the effort.
The relationship between the speaker and the listener is not antagonistic, but the relationship between the listener and the speaker. A knowledgeable and fluent person, if he meets someone who can't listen, is like casting pearls before swine and wasting time; On the contrary, when a good listener talks with an ordinary person, because of the listener's intention and timely exploration (questioning), ordinary people often show profound knowledge and make the conversation interesting.
Third, smile.
Why do puppies become good friends of human beings? The secret of winning the favor of mankind lies in wagging its tail. Whenever the owner appeared, it immediately wagged its tail, so the owner immediately had a pleasant association: it was really friendly, considerate and lovely. It is a smile that human beings show friendliness, kindness, courtesy and concern.
First, the role of a smile
The Louvre in Paris exhibited Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting-Mona Lisa's smile. For centuries, millions of tourists from Qian Qian have come to see this work of art every day. Someone once asked, "Why is she laughing?" Some people say she is happy, others say she is heartbroken. In fact, no one knows the answer, and no one is so eager to know the answer, because it doesn't matter why she laughs. The important thing is that she smiled. She has a smile that makes people tired of watching.
There is only one animal in the world that can laugh, and that is human. God gave everyone a face, which is our smile besides eating, washing and making up. Can this human patent be hidden?
Smile is the best lubricant in interpersonal relationships. It shows friendliness, kindness, courtesy and concern. It can not only make you feel happy and motivate yourself, but also change the atmosphere, narrow the distance between people and develop a happy garden. Smile must take the initiative. Smile at others first, which means telling them "I like you and I'm so glad to meet you". You can make people feel comfortable effortlessly. Why not?
There is a famous saying: "I saw a person without a smile on his face, so I gave him a smile." The poorest people in the world are those who can't smile. When you smile at him, you will not only make yourself richer, but also make him feel better.
The value of a smile
In America, a broken wire shocked a child's face. Fortunately, it was not fatal, but it burned the nerve of the left face, which led to a lawsuit. In court, the plaintiff's defense lawyer told the child to turn to the jury and smile. As a result, only the right cheek can laugh, and the left cheek can't laugh at all because of nerve burns. It only took 12 minutes, and the jurors unanimously passed. If a smile is worth $20,000 after it is lost, it must be more valuable than this before it is lost.
United Airlines knows the value of a smile. It regards smiling as a policy and declares that their sky is a friendly sky. When United recruited employees, during the interview, the examiner had a strange posture: deliberately turning his back on the candidates and talking to them. Of course, the examiner did not mean to discriminate. He did this in order to listen to the smile in the examinee's conversation. The company thinks that smile is the greatest wealth of employees in their work, so there should be a smile not only on their faces, but also in their voices.
In addition to United Airlines, Hilton Hotel also attaches great importance to the value of smiling. Conrad Hilton, the founder of this hotel, once said, "If my hotel has only first-class facilities and no first-class waiters' smiles, it will be like a hotel that will never see the warm sunshine. What's the fun? "
Warneker, the king of department stores, believes that smiling at customers is a profitable thing, which takes a short time and is not troublesome, but it is invisible to business. So in his later years, he still stood at the door of his department store every day, greeting guests with a smile on his face, and never tired of it.
Smile practice
There is a "million dollar smile" salesman in the sales circle of the United States and Japan, William Willa of the United States and Harahei of Japan. They all got the above reputation because they have a smiling face that customers can't resist and their annual income is as high as one million dollars.
William and Yuan's charming smiles are not born, but the result of long-term hard training. William was once a famous American baseball player. After retiring at the age of 40, he applied for a sales job in an insurance company. He thought he should be admitted because he was very popular in baseball, but he was unexpectedly eliminated. The personnel manager said to him, "the salesman of the insurance company must have a charming smiling face, but you don't." After listening to the manager's words, William was not discouraged, but determined to practice smiling face hard. He laughs at home a hundred times a day. Neighbors thought he was unemployed and crazy. In order to avoid misunderstanding, he simply hid in the toilet and laughed. After a period of internship, he went to see the manager of the insurance company to learn about his achievements. The manager said, "Still no good." William didn't give up and kept trying. He collected many charming smiling faces of public figures, pasted them all over the house, and observed and studied them at any time. In addition, he bought a big mirror of the same height and put it in the toilet.
After a while, he went to see the manager again The manager said coldly, "A little better, but it's still not attractive." William didn't give up and went back to practice harder. One day, he met the administrator of the community and greeted him with a natural smile. The librarian said to him, "You look different." This sentence greatly increased his confidence and immediately ran to see the manager, who said to him.
Undaunted, William went back to practice hard for a while, and finally learned that smiling face worth millions.
Yuan once looked in the mirror and assumed that he was practicing different kinds of laughter on various occasions and in various moods.
Because laughter must come from the whole body, it will have a strong appeal, so he found a huge mirror that can reflect the whole body and practiced it day and night every day in his spare time. After a period of practice, he found that the opening and closing of lips, the lifting of eyebrows, the stretching and contraction of wrinkles all affect the meaning of "smile". Even the ups and downs of hands and the advance and retreat of legs will affect the effect of "smile"
For a time, Yuan was mistaken by his neighbors for a neurological problem, because he practiced laughing on the road, and sometimes he was awakened by the question of' laughing' in the middle of the night, because he was so fascinated by practice. After a long period of hard practice, his smile reached the point of perfection. Yuan deeply realized that the most beautiful smile is the baby's smile, and that kind of innocent smile exudes attractive charm, which makes people bathe in it and cannot be resisted.
The examples of William Willa and Yuan tell us:
Charming smile is a long-term effort.
B a smile must come from the heart to attract people.
C the innocent smile like a baby is the most attractive and irresistible.
Fourth, praise
First, the effect of praise
It is human nature to be eager for praise. A few simple words of praise can sometimes have a great effect, not only making people feel warm and uplifting, but also solving difficult problems and even changing people's lives. Psychologists have done experiments between praise and grades for primary school students. They divided several students into three groups and then conducted tests for five consecutive days. They praised the first group, criticized the second group and ignored the third group. As a result, they got the first praise. The criticized second group also made progress, but the progress was limited; The third group, which was neglected, did not improve their grades. The experiment also found that smart children can benefit from praise or criticism, but slow children need praise and react poorly to criticism. Let's look at a few examples:
There was a girl who kept a dog and let it go out to exercise every day, but once it was released, it ran around and never came back. Later, the girl came up with a way to praise, pet and hug the dog when it came back automatically. Now, as soon as the dog hears her barking, it will come back very obediently.
A famous surgeon described his experience as a doctor. He was stubborn when he was a child. Not only is he not good at his lessons, but he often gets into trouble. He was almost expelled from school several times. Just when his grades were terrible and everyone was extremely disappointed with him, a teacher said to him, "Your hands are great, and you will get ahead with them in the future." Teachers' praise is like winter. It lit up his heart. He decided to repent and become a surgeon. Every time he encounters difficulties, he will think of the teacher's words and motivate himself: I must be like the teacher said, I deserve it. The teacher's words changed his life.
There is also a real management case. The general manager of a company is vacant, and the deputy general manager of production and the deputy general manager of business department are ideal candidates. Finally, the board of directors decided to promote the deputy general manager of production. The deputy general manager in charge of the business department is greatly dissatisfied with this. After the new general manager took office, he knew the dissatisfaction of the deputy general manager of the business department, but he had to use the sales skills of the deputy general manager of the business department, but he was worried that the other party would not cooperate and would secretly make trouble. He was so distressed that he couldn't think of a good way.
Later, a consultant suggested to him: "in the next six months, you should try your best to praise the ability of the vice president of business in front of colleagues and peers." No matter what he does, you should say he is good. If he still refuses to cooperate after half a year, please ask him to go away! " The general manager kept his word. Soon, the praise strategy worked. The vice president of business not only fully cooperated with the general manager's work, but also praised the general manager in front of outsiders. Similarly, the vice president in charge of business perfected himself while learning to praise others, and later became the next general manager.
B, praise learning
Praise plays a great role. However, human beings are strange animals. Everyone craves praise from others, but most people refuse to praise others. We usually praise others when they die, retire or leave their jobs. Therefore, praise, like love, needs to be learned. Here are four ways to learn compliments.
1, get into the habit of praising others
China people are an implicit people, and most of them are not used to praising others directly. What we often hear is "He (she) knows everything and says nothing!" It is strange that he is not a worm in your stomach. If you don't tell him, how will others know?
Everyone has the ability to praise others, as long as we take the initiative to say it often and make it a habit.
To form the habit of praising people, we should start from the family. The person who deserves the most praise and gets the least praise is the housewife. For a housewife, it is a hard and boring job to clean the yard, tidy the room, cook three meals, wash clothes and clean the floor every day. But day after day, we are used to it. People always take it for granted that praise is the only reward a housewife can get and the one she deserves most.
As for treating children, parents all know that one compliment is better than ten scoldings. But knowing is one thing, and executing is another. Still more critical than praise, it is worth reviewing and improving.
In fact, praise doesn't cost money. Just use a little brain, say a few words or write a few lines, and the small return on investment is amazing: a kind word warms three winters. We should all remember Mark Twain's words: A kind word can benefit me for two months.
2. Praise must be sincere and decent.
Smile must come from the heart to attract people, and praise must come from the heart to impress people. Although everyone likes other people's praise, exaggerated praise becomes false praise, flattery rather than praise. Flattery is disgusting, so praise must be sincere, natural and based on facts.
Give an example to illustrate. Wilson, a female writer, has a footman who is proficient in carving. He worships the sculptor Bogren the most. One day, Bogren visited Wilson's house. The footman was so excited that he spilled the whole glass of wine on Bogren. Embarrassed, the footman quickly wiped it with a napkin and explained, "I'm sorry, I've always served ordinary people." I have never received such praise. "The sincere praise of the footman not only made Bao Gelun very happy, but also helped him. In addition, if you want to praise properly, you must keep in mind the differences between men and women. Men like to be told that he is strong, energetic and energetic, while women like to be praised for her appearance, skin, hairstyle and clothes.
3. Pay attention to people and things that are not praised.
We should pay special attention to those unusual and unappreciated people. Entrepreneurs are praised for their achievements, and chefs are praised for their delicious dishes. However, few people praise the conscientious postman and the friendly grocery store owner. The fishmonger in the market provides you with fresh fish every day, but you never praise him. Once the fish tastes a little bad, you complain endlessly.
In addition, we should pay attention to the characteristics that the other party is not noticed. Man likes to be praised for his unknown advantages. Praise those unobtrusive advantages can win each other's favor best. As a salesman, customers have many things to praise, such as figure, manners, skin color, clothes, achievements, expertise, hobbies, interests, knowledge, decorations and so on. The most important thing is that you must tell the characteristics that others don't pay attention to, or they will get confused.
4. Compliments.
According to legend, praise from a third party is the most pleasant. The reported compliment is a double compliment, which is more powerful and meaningful than the direct compliment in person. What is the reason? Because praise in person is likely to be flattering or polite; And the praise behind it is often true.
In the dialogue between Party A and Party B, Party A praises one of Party C's advantages. At this time, Party B has two choices, one is to forget after hearing it, and the other is to tell Party C that Party A praises one of his advantages.
Repeated praise will kill two birds with one stone: a praises c, and a will benefit from c's gratitude; C is praised by a, and it will be particularly happy to be praised outside; Party B who sends messages in the middle will naturally be proud of Party A's kindness, and will also get the thanks of Party A and Party C. In fact, compliments are easy to convey, which can be said during chatting, photographed on the phone or written down when writing letters. You just need to repeat the American English you hear. If there is a bad feeling between Party A and Party C, if Party B can convey Party A's kind words to Party C, it can also convey Party C's words to Party A..