Negative Reverse Selling is very effective in creating great bonding and rapport with sales prospects. Negative Reverse Selling is a way of saying and doing the opposite of what the prospect expects from a salesperson, disarming them and creating trust with them.
Strip-lining is a great tool to use in gathering information from the prospect, while also putting them at ease. It is not a traditional sales method where the salesperson immediately shares features and benefits and tries to sell the person on his 'better" product or service. Instead, strip-lining helps build a trusting relationship.
Remember: Prospects are people and people are naturally resistant to being “sold.” People feel better about their buying decisions when they feel like they made the buying decision themselves and weren’t coerced, tricked, or sold. Strip-lining allows the prospect and you, as the salesperson, to be on equal footing and ensure there’s a good match for both of you. You won’t look needy trying to force features and benefits on the prospect. When you learn to do it effectively, the prospect will qualify themselves, and decide whether or not it makes sense to discuss buying from you. You won't master this technique over night, so practice it and initially try it out on smaller prospects before springing it on larger potential clients.
If you do strip-lining correctly, the prospect will easily see that you are the right person for the job and that there is a good fit with you and their company. This outcome sounds unlikely, I know, but it’s what happens. Not every time, of course, but then again, not every prospect deserves to become a customer, either. Strip-lining will save you time and help you develop long-term relationships with customers. By putting the prospect at ease, it will help you establish a trusted-advisor type reputation, which will help prevent your customers from shopping around for better deals. Why? Because they like and trust you! Your customers will reach out to you whenever they have to make a decision that is related to the product or service that you provide. Furthermore, because when you do this right, you come off as (and are!) successful and secure, and people love to do business with successful, secure people. Negative Reverse Selling and the Strip-lining sales technique are vital tools in any successful salesperson's arsenal.
What should you practice? Getting the fit right means executing as follows:
• Neutral prospects get very hard strip-lines, such as, "It sounds like you're very happy and I should leave. Before I go, what do you like about who you're doing business with now?"
• Negative prospects get hard strip-lines, but not as hard as neutral prospects. For example, "Based on what you just said about your current vendor, it makes sense to me why you're not interested in switching your business to another company. We get great feedback like that from our customers, too, but your vendor sounds really good at what they do. I don't know if you can do any better than that. There doesn't seem to be much opportunity for us to work together here, is there?"
• Positive prospects get strip-lines that are just a light tug: "Thanks for reaching out to us. I have to say, your friend Bronwyn gets almost all the credit for having a great experience with us. She was very good about explaining the application problem, and that really helped her have a happy outcome with us. Since I don't know your application, I'm not sure if I can help you at this point. Could you be nice enough to tell me about it?"
In all three examples, you'll find three components. Look at each of them, and you'll see how strip-line responses are structured.
1. The first component is a build-up (a compliment or validation of the prospect's point of view). In the above, an example of that was, "It sounds like you're very happy."
2. The second component is a takeaway (a conclusion that goes in the opposite direction to what the prospect expects). In the above, an example was, "... and I should leave."
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 you're doing business with now?"