This is a guest post by Paul Archer.

I almost fell right into their trap. I was just a mouse click away from being sucked into the greatest scam that happens every Christmas and I’m still shaking with the nerves.

My daughter, Bethan, has been asking for a new game for her Nintendo DS called Professor Layton and The Curious Village. So when I arrived home after a gruelling car journey down the M6 in the pouring rain, she grabbed me at the front door. Please Daddy, please Daddy…pleeeeease. Bags, cases, coat, laptop in hand, I speedily agreed to her persistent request so as to get inside in the warm.

More fool I. Now being a good and principled father, onto the Internet I went in search of her game. Amazon, game.com, Tesco online, play.com…I tried them all and no one had any stock in at all with not a whisper of availability before Christmas.

I’d been done like a kipper.

Kippered by the toy company who knew full well I.d have to keep to my commitment to my daughter and buy the game and when they release more stock after Christmas, which they will. I will be consistent.

And in the meantime, whilst I.m on Amazon or play.com I.ll have to buy her something else to make it up to her having to wait until after Christmas. And thousands of other dutiful parents are doing the same thing.

The influencing technique is taken from Doctor Robert Cialdini.s principles of influence is called commitment and consistency which is really useful in selling, managing large accounts and coaching your team.

The principle boils down to the fact that humans value consistency – it’s good and principled, makes us known as honest and reliable. Let’s face it, who doesn’t want to be these things?

It’s used throughout society. Weight Watchers, which I’ll be joining in the New Year, works because you publicly have to weigh yourself. In front of others – perish the thought. Political canvassers ask you to say verbally who you’ll vote for on your doorstep which they’re kissing your child.

No one ever changes their football team after they’ve told people they support them.

This principle is really useful for us as well and here’s some ideas:

• Ask your customer to fill in the application form themselves
• Use test and trial closes during your sales pitch, even after the first 5 minutes
• Help people make a small purchase early in the relationship and this will encourage them to be consistent.
• Get a commitment at the beginning of your sales meeting to give you some referrals
• When coaching just ask lots of questions to encourage them to talk and say what they’re going to do. Its   classic GROW model and it works
• In coaching make sure you allow your team member to vocalize their action plans
• Contract with team members in meetings to summarize their actions out loud and in writing

Many of these things we’ve been told before but it’s helpful sometimes to know the science behind them. And beware of ever been caught out yourself.

Did I fall for it? Well, no thankfully, as soon as I realised all the companies were out of stock so quickly and knowing that this is the number one game this Christmas, I soon put 2 and 2 together and pleaded with my daughter to accept a store voucher instead so we could get the game after Christmas. Mean old boring Daddy. After all it is credit crunch.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.archertraining.co.uk or his sales  blog at www.paularcher.com

This is a Guest Post from Karen Andrews of Shine Sales.

Are you asking questions that make your customers & prospects THINK?

Questioning or probing as it is also known, is most of the most important skills you can learn when dealing with customers and one of the most powerful. The ability to ask questions that uncover important information about a customer’s needs, current supply and willingness to change is a strong characteristic of a ‘consultative’ sales approach.

Most importantly, when you ask great questions it can help you to win new business much quicker and with fewer objections. When we help prospects to think about the needs of their business and to really think about current or potential problems or challenges they may face, they start to see us differently and understand the value we can add to them or their business.

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This is a Guest Post from Paul Archer, of Archer Training.

The Fallacy of Open Questions – Open questions versus closed questions.  This battle of Telesales Tips has been fought for years and no one is the clear winner.  However a good open question does lend itself to a fuller answer from your customer.  But the trick is to know how to follow up. Some telemarketers will struggle with this, and for others it comes a little more naturally. Regardless of of your questioning technique level, this post will help you get better!

Anyway here’s a reminder of the six open questions from Rudyard Kipling’s famous poems:

“I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who”

The dangerous one here is “why”.  Proven to be antagonistic and annoying to the receiver.  When faced with the “why” question, many customers will raise their defences as they feel as though they are being attacked. Interesting.

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