Yesterday I suggested that “people negotiate differently – and behave differently – during the negotiation process. We can observe different styles of negotiation and how different types of behavior can affect the outcome of negotiations.”

I also said “There are four basic styles of behavior and these are determined by the way in which people relate to one another. How can you ensure that you approach people in the correct way?” “Knowing About Social Styles” developed by Merrill and Reid, is a theory which I have discussed in several of my articles and it is very useful to have a thorough understanding of it when negotiating. In the Social Styles Model there are four basic “styles”, or preferred ways of interacting with others.”

So today, let’s look at the characteristics of, and how we should negotiate with each of the “Social Styles”

Driver: The Director

• Assertive, but not responsive

• Task, rather than people oriented

• Decisive and determined

• Controlled emotions

• Set on efficiency and effectiveness

• Likes control, often in a hurry

• Firm, stable relationships

• Stubborn, tough

• Impatient

• Inflexible, poor listener

To Negotiate With Drivers:

•   Plan to ask questions about and discuss specifics, actions and results

•   Use facts and logic

•   When necessary, disagree with facts rather than opinions, be assertive

•   Keep it business-like, efficient and to the point

•   Personal guarantees and testimonials are least effective – better to
 provide options and facts

•   Do not invade personal space

Expressive: The Socializer

• Assertive and responsive

• Reactive, impulsive, decisions spontaneous, intuitive

• Placing more importance on relationships than tasks

• Emotionally expressive, sometimes dramatic

• Flexible agenda, short attention span, easily loved

• Enthusiastic

• Strong persuasive skills, talkative and gregarious

• Optimistic, takes risks

• Creative

To Negotiate With Expressives:

•  Seek opinions in an area you wish to develop to achieve mutual  understanding

•  Discussion should be people, as well as fact, oriented

•  Keep summarizing, work out specifics on points of agreement

•  Try short, fast moving experience stories

•  Make sure to pin them down in a friendly way

•  Remember to discuss the future, as well as the present

•  Look out for the impulse buy

Amiable: The Supporter

• Not assertive but responsive

• Dependent on others

• Respectful, willing and agreeable

• Emotionally expressive

• Everyone’s friend, supportive, soft-hearted

• Low risk taker, likes security

• Group builder

• Over-sensitive

• Not goal orientated

To Negotiate With Amiables:

•  Work, jointly, seek common ground

•  Find out about personal interests and family

•  Be patient and avoid going for what looks like an easy pushover

•  Use personal assurance and specific guarantees and avoid options  and probabilities

•  Take time to be agreeable

•  Focus discussion on how

•  Demonstrate low risk solutions

•  Don’t take advantage of their good nature

Analytical: The Clinician

• Not assertive, not responsive

• Precise, orderly and business-like

• Rational and co-operative

• Self-controlled and serious

• Motivated by logic and facts

• Not quick to make decisions

• Distrusts persuasive people

• Like things in writing and detail

• Security conscious

• Critical, aloof, skeptical

• Excellent problem solver

• Likes rigid timetables

To Negotiate With Analyticals:

•  Take action rather than words to demonstrate helpfulness and  willingness

•  Stick to specifics. Analyticals expect salesmen to overstate

•  Their decisions are based on facts and logic and they avoid risk

•  They can often be very co-operative, but established relationships take  time

•  Consider telling them what the product won’t do. they will respect you  for it and they will have spotted the deficiencies anyway

•  Discuss reasons and ask ‘why’ questions

•  Become less responsive and less assertive yourself

If you are serious about developing not just your negotiation skills, but also your all-round communication skills, I do advise you to familiarize yourself with the “Social Styles” model.

News: Please look out for a very special post tomorrow, and do have a great w/e!

People negotiate differently – and behave differently – during the negotiation process. We can observe different styles of negotiation and how different types of behavior can affect the outcome of negotiations.

In commercial negotiations, some people negotiate quickly and take risks; others take their time and try to avoid risk. Some buyers are very loyal, others will automatically shop around. Some negotiators can be quite intimidating – to the point of being rude; others are quite passive and easily manipulated.

This makes selling and negotiating a real challenge. To negotiate with all these different buyer types, we need to be able to adapt our behavior and be flexible in our approach.

To begin this process, we can look at two aspects of buyer behavior – assertiveness and responsiveness.

People who are assertive are confident and know what they want. They are not afraid to put forward opinions and are willing to listen to the opinions of others. They are not afraid of conflict and will be more than happy to argue their case.

People who are highly assertive can be seen as being aggressive, while people who lack assertiveness are often passive and get taken advantage of. There are times when it is appropriate to be more or less assertive and we need to recognize when these times are.

Responsiveness means the extent to which people are willing to respond to us and our questions. Some people are highly responsive and will give lots of information about themselves, their problems and needs. Others are unwilling or unable to respond in this way and we see these people often as being negative or difficult.

We are all different – some of us are naturally assertive and some of us are not. Salespeople tend to be quite responsive, but sometimes we lack assertion. An example of this is during negotiations.

When customers put us under pressure to reduce prices or give discounts, we find it difficult and uncomfortable and worry about damaging the relationship with the buyer.

There are four basic styles of behavior and these are determined by the way in which people relate to one another.

How can you ensure that you approach people in the correct way?

“Knowing About Social Styles” developed by Merrill and Reid, is a theory which I have discussed in several of my articles and it is very useful to have a thorough understanding of it when negotiating. In the Social Styles Model there are four basic “styles”, or preferred ways of interacting with others.

Merrill and Reid believe that a person’s social style is a way of coping with others. People become most comfortable with that style, in themselves and others.

A person’s social style is measured in relation to three behavioral dimensions:

• Assertiveness

• Responsiveness

• Versatility
The Assertiveness Scale

Measures the degree to which a person is seen as attempting to influence the thoughts, decisions or actions of others, either directly by tell behavior or by questioning – i.e. ask behavior.

‘Tell’ behavior: Is risk-taking, fast-paced, challenging.

‘Ask’ behavior: Is co-operative, deliberate actions, minimizing risks.

The Responsiveness Scale

Measures the degree to which a person either openly expresses their feelings or controls their feelings. The ends of the scale are “control” and “emote”.

‘Control’ behavior: Is disciplined, serious and cool.

‘Emote’ behavior: Is relationship oriented, open and warm.

The two scales combine to give a two-dimensional model of behavior, which will help you to understand how others perceive you. The dimensions of behavior will also help you to plan how you can deal more effectively with people of different social styles.

Tomorrow, “The Four Social Styles And How You Should Negotiate With Them”

News:  This time next week, we will be preparing ourselves for the fourth day of the Sales & Marketing Online Success Conference - it promises to be a great day …

Day Four Thursday May 12th

Only 20% of Sales Leaders Succeed – Their Secrets Revealed 
Presented at: 12:00 – 12:30 EASTERN
by Linda Richardson
Founder and Chairman of Richardson

Successful B2B Sales and Marketing Alignment 
Presented at: 12:45 – 1:15 EASTERN
by Christian Maurer
The Sales Executive Resource

Lemonade Stand Successful Sales Strategies 
Presented at: 1:30 – 2:00 EASTERN
by Diane Helbig
President of Seize This Day Coaching

Driving Sales Success using Business Model Frameworks 
Presented at: 2:15 – 2:45 EASTERN
by Bob Apollo
Founder and CEO at Inflexion Point

Ultimate Cold Calling Success Secrets
Presented at: 3:00 – 3:30 EASTERN
by Wendy Weiss
The Queen of Cold Calling™

4 Modern Fundamentals for Sales Success 
Presented at: 3:45 – 4:15 EASTERN
by Michael Griego
President and Founder of MXL Partners

5 Ways to Have Fun Successfully Prospecting for New Revenues 
Presented at: 4:30 – 5:00 EASTERN
by Lori Richardson
Founder and President of Score More Sales

You can discover the agenda for the entire five days here ….

Generally top achievers expect to be successful and as a consequence they usually are. They are driven by a ‘have to’ attitude not a ‘want to’ attitude.

If we have no concrete goals and we have been succeeding in spite of ourselves, just think how much more success we could enjoy if we set our sights on a definite path and had a specific time-frame in which we expect to reach our destination.

Setting Goals Keeps Us Focused:

What you should know is that goals give you three distinct advantages, which help you succeed:

• Goals keep you on track
• Goals let you know when and what to celebrate
• Goals give you a focused plan to work with

If nothing else, goals let others know what they have to aim for in order to keep up with your standards.

Effective Goal Setting:

It’s important to remember that goals are maps; they will guide you towards your success – the more detailed your goal setting the easier it will be for you to reach your destination.

When you are in the first stage of goal setting you also need to remember two important factors – i.e.

• The goal must be better than your best yet – but it must be achievable.

• Goals should be based on productivity not production.

Keeping these two rules of goal setting firmly in your mind will help you to form and stay committed to what is really important to you.
 
Time Yourself – By Months, Years & Decades:

• Always begin with long-term goals and work backwards. Your long-term goals are probably the most difficult to set anyway, so if you set those first, you accomplish the tough stuff right up-front.

• Long-term goals should be five-year projections and three areas you may want to consider when you set them are personal accomplishments, status symbols and net worth.

• Medium-term goals are usually three year projections and the same criteria can be used – but again think productivity not production and consider the activity that will be necessary to achieve success.

• Short-term goals will demand most of your attention and these are usually a twelve-month projection although you can set ‘immediate goals’ which have a 90-day projection.
 
Setting a Well Balanced Diet of Goals:

It is essential to set personal as well as career goals to keep your life well balanced. If all your goals are connected to your commercial life, you will have trouble taking time out for family and friends because you will always be pushing towards the next career goal.
 
Remember:
 
Work smarter not harder. Setting personal goals gives you after business.
 
Put Your Goals in Writing:

Once you have formulated your goals it is time to make your final commitment to them by putting them down in writing. This is undoubtedly the single most important step in goal setting because until they are inscribed somewhere they are merely wishes and dreams.
 
Remember:

The moment you start moving forward towards a goal is the moment you start to succeed.
 
In Summary:
 
Even though you do not need to set goals in order to reach some level of success, most people who fail to set goals reach a plateau and lack either the motivation or the direction to go beyond it. They are unable to move upwards to a higher achievement status.

And yes, goal-setting does require us to climb out of our comfort zone! 

News: 

We are now just days away from the very first online Sales & Marketing Success Conference …. here is Day Three’s superb agenda:

Day Three Wednesday May 11th

Shaping Your Environment – The Key to Sales Coaching Success
Presented at: 12:00 – 12:30 EASTERN
by Dave Kurlan
CEO of OMG, Inc./ Kurlan & Associates, Inc

Presentation Success; how to build and deliver presentations that get heard and get results
Presented at: 12:45 – 1:15 EASTERN
by Debbie Fay
CEO of Bespeak

Unleash The Focus Factor: The #1 Factor for Personal and Professional Success
Presented at: 1:30 – 2:00 EASTERN
by Steven Rosen MBA
CEO STAR Results – Performance Coach

7 Habits of Highly Effective (Social) Salespeople
Presented at: 2:15 – 2:45 EASTERN
by Craig Rosenberg
Leader, Focus Expert Network at Focus

Why Most Messages Fail (And What You Can Do To Succeed)
Presented at: 3:00 – 3:30 EASTERN
by Tom Hakel
CEO of GoldMail

Successfully Unlocking the Social Network to Close Deals 
Presented at: 3:45 – 4:15 EASTERN
by John Golab
Head of Enterprise Business at Xobni

Success is A Continuum
Presented at: 4:30 – 5:00 EASTERN
by Jonathan London
President of the Improved Performance Group

Do please remember that we are raising much needed funds for Red Cross’s efforts after the Japanese disaster(s)

You can download the full agenda ….

Generating leads is an important sales activity that plants the seeds of growth for sustainable business development.

A lead is purely a name that you could refer to as a SUSPECT because their potential to buy is unknown. Before you can qualify leads to determine whether they have the money, authority and desire to buy your products/services you need to generate them!

When deciding upon which lead generation methods work best for you and your organisation, it helps to have clarity on the type of customers that you’d like to attract. This means creating an Ideal Customer Profile that can begin to provide direction to your lead generation activities.

The following questions will stimulate your thinking when it comes to developing an Ideal Customer Profile:

● What size of organisation would you prefer to deal with?

● Typically, how many people will they employ?

● What market sector(s) do these organisations operate within?

● Who specifically will be buying your products/services and what are their titles?

● Where geographically would you like these organisations to be located?

● What does your organisation offer that is unique?

● What types of organisations will be attracted by this uniqueness?

● What do your best customers possess that you would like to replicate in others?

● Which of your existing customers were the easiest and quickest to convert?

● What similarities do these customers possess?

● Are there any specific criteria that prospective organisations should have in place, so that your products/services can be optimised?

Having a well-defined profile of your ‘ideal customer’ can prove to be invaluable when determining which methods to use for lead generation, and improves the effectiveness of marketing initiatives.

You may also discover that the process for asking for referrals becomes easier and generates a better response, because you are providing the person with a tighter specification of what you are looking for – this concentrates their thinking towards the direction you have defined.

News: Yesterday, I provided you with details of all the presentations taking place on Day One of the upcoming Sales & Marketing Success Conference and you can be assured that Day Two offers an equally exciting agenda ……

Selling Is At An Inflection Point – How Can You Succeed From Here On In? 
Presented at: 12:00 – 12:30 EASTERN
by Dave Brock
CEO of Partners in EXCELLENCE

Build the Success of Your Sales Team with 3 Simple Steps to Improve Skill and Will
Presented at: 12:45 – 1:15 EASTERN
by Nancy Bleeke
President of Sales Pro Insider

Winning sales in 2011: How to arm today’s BtoB sales force with the tools and skills to compete- and win
Presented at: 1:30 – 2:00 EASTERN
by Michael C. Bird
Chief Revenue Officer at NetProspex

Social Media Strategies for Lead Generation Success
Presented at: 2:15 – 2:45 EASTERN
by Kendra Lee
CEO of the KLA Group

14 Edgy Ways to Break All the Sales Rules and Be Madly Successful Doing It 
Presented at: 3:00 – 3:30 EASTERN
by Dan Waldschmidt
Co-Founder of IntroMojo

Success Tactics to Generate Red-Hot Prospects 
Presented at: 3:45 – 4:15 EASTERN
by Joanne Black
Best Selling Author of “No More Cold Calling”

Improve Your Cold Calling Success 700% 
Presented at: 4:30 – 5:00 EASTERN
by Nigel Edelshain
CEO of Sales 2.0 (LLC).

Please download the entire schedule HERE and then get registering – we need your support

I truly believe that every individual in the whole world is potentially only five or six contact steps away. This ‘five or six degrees of separation’ shows that even an entire population of over five billion people is still highly accessible.

However, for practical purposes, we don’t necessarily want or need to meet millions, or even thousands of people in different organisations, age groups, religions, professions, culture or places. We are just looking to develop a network that will eventually provide us with additional business.

Ideally therefore, we need some kind of filtering or research system that will help us to build a set of relationships of high quality, or a strong network that can find people and resources both efficiently and effectively.

First Steps:
The first step in the filtering process is to establish what sort of contacts or relationships you think may be of value or benefit to you (or the organisation of which you are a part). This is not to run counter to the idea that networking is primarily about giving, but suggests that some relationships are clearly more valuable in the long-term for both sides, given careful thought in the first place. Only you can determine this ‘value’.

You may already know, or be close to, someone very powerful or influential but gain no benefit from association. On the other hand, you may find someone in the street where you live who can bring you great benefit if you build a relationship with them. You just need to know what you’d like to achieve in order to make reasonable assessment.

Networking Pyramid:
When you start to network more widely, you quickly realise that there is a pyramid, or hierarchy of depth or quality in all of your potential relationships.

Pyramid Levels:
At the base of the pyramid are what we call ‘suspects’. These are people who seem open to an approach to offer support. (Remembering my earlier point about giving and reciprocity)

It is usually better to find out more about suspects before approaching them in person. Many are often misidentified and only randomly picked. Only some suspects (when researched more closely) get to the next stage of becoming ‘prospects’

Prospects are individuals who research confirms meet the effective network criteria, and can usually be approached in person. Once again, initial conversation may reveal that not all prospects have been correctly identified. However, the numbers of people at this level are fewer and you can be much more patient in letting time provide an answer.

Contacts are prospects to whom you have offered support and advice and whose assistance or guidance you have requested on one or more occasions. At this stage, you may have discovered only minor opportunities to call, talk or contact one another, but the potential to do more has been established.

Advocates are contacts that are openly promoting or advocating the benefits of networking (with you in particular) to other prospects and contacts. Although this may not mean frequent contact, it is likely to be more frequent than with general contacts in your network.

Partners are the best and most effective networkers than you know, and the ones you most often call to chat to, to ask advice, or suggest ideas or options. By this stage, the relationship has generally reached a much higher level of mutual trust and understanding.

Using the Pyramid to Look For Opportunities:
To begin to discover who might be your network suspects at the base of the pyramid, an excellent place to start is to read for opportunities much more widely.

This means becoming broadly alert to the many opportunities to network that may present themselves every single day. Many of these opportunities will be posted in newspapers, magazines, on notice boards, in advertisements, on the Internet and many other sources.

An increased alertness will count for little unless you have a well thought through perspective on what you are looking for. There is no point in networking for the sake of networking. To an extent, this will depend upon your overall personal networking aims and objectives.

Possible networking goals:
• To increase market share/customers
• To find new ideas
• To learn and develop yourself
• To find a job/work/career
• To find a new colleagues/friends
• To pursue a hobby or interest
• To gain new perspective on topics of interest to you
• To go into business for yourself

Different Kinds of Network:
Every one of these networking goals is a worthy aim in itself, but it is usually the case that only one or two goals of this type will apply at any one time. Consequently, your networking research efforts will be invested quite differently if your goals are broadly around work or career options rather than if they are about starting up your own business.

Hence, although a few people will have very wide and diverse interests and a broad array of interesting contacts, our networking pyramids are built according to our specific goals and interest areas. This is often why we talk about a jobs network, a small business network, an education network and so on.

Networking is not a new phenomenon but with the plethora of sites now specialising in bringing people together, it is certainly something business people should do well. Personally, I enjoy networking very much.

News: OK, we are just one week away from the most ambitious, and quite possibly the most significant online sales and marketing event ever staged. Have you booked your place(s) yet? Here is what’s in treat on Day One - next Monday May 9th ….

Selling Successfully to Crazy-Busy People
Presented at: 12:00 – 12:30 EASTERN
by Jill Konrath
Speaker, Strategist and Best Selling Author of “Selling to Big Companies” & “SNAP Selling”

Achieve More Sales Success by Ditching Your Pitch!
Presented at: 12:45 – 1:15 EASTERN
by Kelley Robertson
CEO of Robertson Training Group

Expect Success – Creating a Culture of Positive Expectations 
Presented at: 1:30 – 2:00 EASTERN
by Kevin Eikenberry
Chief Potential Officer Kevin Eikenberry Group

A Gourmet Life for Personal and Professional Success
Presented at: 2:15 – 2:45 EASTERN
by Ken Thoreson
CEO of Acumen Management Group, Ltd

 5 Must-do’s to Leverage Social Selling for Your Lead Generation and Sales Teams 
Presented at: 3:00 – 3:30 EASTERN
by Koka Sexton
Social Media Marketing at InsideView, Inc

Successfully Profiting from the New Buying Cycle
Presented at: 3:45 – 4:15 EASTERN
by Colleen Francis
CEO of Engage Selling Solutions

How to Successfully Increase your Prices in a B2B World
Presented at: 4:30 – 5:00 EASTERN
by Mark Hunter
CEO at The Sales Hunter

In total, we have thirty six – yep, that’s 36 – of the world’s top sales and marketing gurus giving up their time to contribute to this extraordinary event, so that we can raise much needed funds for the Japanese Disaster Appeal.

Please pay just $5 and come and support us?

You can download the full schedule ….

Active listening is a powerful way of listening and responding to customers that improves mutual understanding. It is the foundation of effective communication and demonstrates real respect.

According to Nancy Kline, author of the book ‘Time to Think’  when you are listening to someone, much of the quality of what you are hearing is your effect on them.

Giving good attention to people makes them feel more important. Poor attention makes them stumble over their words and feel uncomfortable. Your attention and your listening is what is important.

When we are in conflict, we can sometimes contradict the customer, denying their description of a situation. This tends to make them defensive and they will either lash out or alternatively, withdraw and say nothing more. However, if they believe that we are really tuned in to their concerns and want to listen, they are more likely to explain in detail what they feel and why. This in turn gives sales people a much greater chance of being able to develop a win-win solution – and that has to be our ultimate goal in any commercial realtionship.

Your role in the sales situation alternates between sender and receiver of messages. The very best sales professionals devote a large portion of any sales interview to listening, because sincere listening demonstrates sincere interest. Ultimately, good listening is the shortest distance between you and more sales; better sales and faster sales.

How often has a customer said something that you have misinterpreted?

If you accept the view that everyone is unique, then every word has a different meaning to different individuals?

What we say can be different to what we actually mean, because we all have to edit our thoughts in order to communicate them in words. We do this by a combination of deletion, distortion and generalisation

Communication involves four steps:
1. Sensing the message and the stimuli that goes with it
2. Interpreting it (to be sure you understand)
3. Evaluating it (never judge before you understand)
4. Reacting (either verbally or non-verbally)

That’s why it pays to listen with your eyes as well as your ears.

Frequently, a gesture or an expression, will reveal as much or more than words. Therefore, effective listeners seek to understand the meaning behind their customers’ words. This requires giving the other person full attention, and demands conscious practice.