Good Salespeople Work With Their Prospect's Perceptions

A key element to how we operate in the world is our perception of the world.  Ted Koontz observed "Where we stand depends on where we sit."  Our particular perception of a situation, the point of view we take and the interpretation of which we decide to make dictates our actions.  To most people, perception is reality.  Skilled negotiators and salespeople are adept in altering perceptions by offering new mental constructs from which to see the world.  Change one's perception and one's reality changes - and along with that, his/her reactions to it.  

Wanting to obtain richer content for the media network that I work for, I once approached several major financial institutions to ask if they could help.  Naturally they asked that we make them offers.  Unfortunately, we didn't have much of a budget at the time.  So taking a page from the Internet business, we showed these financial institutions the vast global network that is our client base.  If they contribute their content to our network, they get to reach some of the richest client base for free.  When we changed their mental framework, these institutions see this (and rightly so) as a terrific sales channel for them and we got their content for free.  

The lesson here for salespeople is not to rush up to prospects and immediately push their point of view ("you should buy this from me").  Apart from it being a distasteful way of hard selling that confirms what people hate most about bad salespeople, it's ineffective.  Instead, take the time to understand your prospect's perception of the world, because until you understand how they see the world, you won't be able to sell them anything that brings them benefits that applies to their (perception of) the world.