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Education

StreetSmarts SM

SHARING WISDOM
SHARING WISDOM

WITH JEFF FORTNEY WITH JEFF FORTNEY

Listen and mirror your way to sales

By Jeff Fortney influence the decision. And that decision is made through
Signature Payments their eyes, not through some impartial lense. There is al-
ways a subjective component in every sales decision.
t's no secret that I value a well-placed aphorism, Focusing on costs is a trap
which is a brief saying or phrase that expresses
an opinion or shares wisdom without flowery lan- If that is the case, why do we so often insist on selling
I guage. Here are a few examples you'll recognize: purely based on objective facts? Some MLSs aren't even
The early bird catches the worm. Time and tide stop for aware they are selling this way. For example, if you sell
no man. Honesty is the best policy. cost savings early in a presentation, no matter how you
structure the overall presentation, you are selling purely
I've often leveraged pithy sayings like these when train- objectively. That is what holds the merchant's attention.
ing merchant level salespeople (MLSs). In my last column, Even if it isn't your primary approach, once you raise the
I discussed my sales tenet that most resembles an apho- topic, they default to the objective aspect of the sale.
rism: If your competition is doing something, you stop
doing it. This speaks mainly to sales philosophy. Previ- When you accept that we all buy emotionally, it becomes
ously, I explained the first tenet: Identify your targets. easier to see that making cost the last part of the conversa-
tion makes sense. Cost will be a part of a decision most
The two tenets I'll discuss in this article can be summed of the time—but not the driving force. Besides, if you
up in one word apiece: mirror and listen. While they are can sign a merchant at the same price they are paying a
separate and require distinct action steps, both address competitor today, wouldn't that normally be a win? That
another of my favorite sayings: People buy for personal brings me back to the two tenets Mirror and Listen. Mir-
and compelling reasons; they decide subjectively, but they roring does not involve mocking anyone. It is recognizing
justify objectively. Many people have tried to convince me that people are more comfortable with others who are like
that these statements do not apply to the payments indus- them. They relax around people who talk the same and
try. They argue that businesses can't be successful if they have similar interests and opinions. Act professionally,
allow personal feelings to affect their decisions, and we but remember that people doing business together have
are selling to businesses, right? to build rapport, and that comes from mirroring.
The problem with that argument is twofold. First, big Even though people buy for emotional reasons, they also
businesses (that we would think make only objective de- want to buy from someone they trust and respect. Some-
cisions) are managed by people who do not always make one like themselves. Mirroring is the first step toward get-
purely objective decisions. No matter how well written a ting them to tell you their pains with processing, and that
request for proposal is or how well it addresses all of a is what will literally lead to the sale.
prospect's needs, a poor face-to-face presentation or lack
of bonding by the parties will torpedo an opportunity Mirroring leads to success
quickly.
My father is my best example of mirroring. He worked
Second, how many large companies are we selling mer- 37 years for the Caterpillar dealer in the central valley
chant services to anyway? An MLS rarely sells to a mer- of California. His role was to go to the loggers, ranchers
and farmers in the foothills and help them address their
chant processing $1 million a year let alone one that pro-
cesses $1 million in a month. Even when we're presented equipment needs. From when I was 11 until I was a teen-
ager, I rode along with him a few days each summer as he
with an opportunity of significant size, the companies in-
volved typically have one or two individuals who make or made his calls. It was fun to spend time with my dad, but
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