I’m back, and still sharing lessons in sales and negotiation I learned from Than Merrill and Andy Tanner. There’s one more exercise we did that I’d like to share. This one is about working with a skill that comes in really handy when we are trying to convince others to buy a house we have for sale, become a private money lender to our company, work with us as a contractor, or any other time we need to persuade others.

Easy to remember, important to do!

It’s based on FABE (fay-bee is how they counter-intuitively pronounced it). It came from Susan Williamson, originally. The idea is that you need to share these things to convince someone of the benefit of a product or service:

• Features: What does the item have or do? This item has…
• Advantages: How this differentiates the item. What that means is…
• Benefits: How the item can help YOU. What that does for you is…
• Evidence: Proof that your claim is true. This is true, because…

It’s a good idea to practice this with your elevator speech you give to potential buyers, sellers, or lenders.

In our case, everyone at the table had a bag with an object in it. The objects were fairly hilarious, including wax lips, Preparation H, a pair of clean white men’s undies, etc. You had just three seconds to look at your object, then present the FABE for your item. It goes without saying that this required creativity, especially in finding evidence for some of the items. But everyone gave it a good shot.

I did better on this one. I was rather excited to discover a clear, flat glass “stone” in my bag. Well, as a crafter, I knew of so many uses for that! I conveyed my genuine excitement about my item in listing its transparent, smooth features, the advantage that it has no sharp edges to injure children or pets, and the benefits that it is a blank slate for whatever you want to do with it—cover it with sparkles, make it into a magnet, put it in your terrarium, or skim it across a pond. As evidence, I pointed out how many have already been sold in stores.

The winner on our team was, of course, my dear partner Russell, who sold the heck out of a Pez dispenser. He just whipped through the FABE, then went back in for more. At the end, he said, but wait, there’s more! There are TWO candy containers with the dispenser! It was too perfect. I did come in second, though! Both Russ and I conveyed genuine enthusiasm for our product, which helped. We didn’t just list advantages and features, we acted as if they were amazing new discoveries.

Naturally, we don’t want to “over-act” in our businesses, whatever we are doing. But it IS important to not only share the features, advantages, benefits, and evidence pertaining to your product or service, but to sincerely believe in it. If you don’t, maybe you need to rework your offering to where you really are proud of all it can do for someone.

I hope that by sharing some of the things I’ve learned with you, I’ve helped you make some positive changes to your own business practices, or at least got you thinking about it. Call us at 512-807-8777 if you want to chat more. You can always contact me on Facebook, too (Sue Ann Kendall).

We did a lot of interesting exercises in the two-day intensive sales and negotiation class I just took. I liked them, because not only were they fun, they provided good insights into our strengths and weaknesses as communicators. I already wrote about the “sell a book to a stranger” challenge, as did Russell. Another member of the class also has promised to share her story soon. Today I’ll share what I learned in the “who gets voted off the boat” exercise.

Only six people fit on a boat!

For this one, each of the eight people at our table was assigned a profession. We were given a scenario where we were in a plane crash and had a lifeboat that only held six people. Each of us had to make a short presentation on why someone with our profession should make it on the lifeboat. There were landscapers, lawyers, janitors, an airline pilot, and such. I was the librarian.

I figured the librarian, with the ability to research anything, and all the knowledge of books she had read, would be a cinch to get on the boat, so I wasn’t really worried. When my turn came, I said that with me on board (with my trusty solar-powered cell phone), anything we needed to figure out I could help with. I also made the point that, on those long and lonely days and nights floating around in the ocean, I could tell stories to distract the others, pass the time, and preserve their mental state.

Others made very good cases for themselves, as well, some better than others. Some resorted to making up new skills, like the lawyer who happened to be a former Navy SEAL. Convenient. When we voted, we voted for one to be sure to keep, and one to vote off. I voted to keep my partner, Russell, who, in his trainer presentation mode, had made a very good case for his profession of teacher, and I voted to leave the landscaper, whose skills I just didn’t see were helpful.

I was surprised at the results. It turned out that the airline pilot won. Apparently, they have leadership skills and survival training. The pilot won in lots of groups, but almost every profession (other than lawyer) won at least one competition.

All this knowledge was not enough.

As for me I was left off the boat. One of the team members said I did a great job, but that they thought the bit about telling stories was not helpful at all. A couple others agreed. After we talked about some of the others, another team member piped up that they thought I was right, that the psychological needs of people stranded in the ocean were important, and that the stories could be very useful for maintaining sanity. Well, yeah, that’s why I said that. But, I was shivering on the shore by that point.

What did I learn from this? The experience really drove home something that was mentioned often in the training. When you are trying to sell something to someone, you need to focus on what they believe they need, not what you think is a selling point of a product. In selling a house, a great playscape in the back yard is not a desired feature to a retired couple, so you’d focus on the lack of stairs, instead. It’s really important to figure out what the other person desires BEFORE launching into any sales pitch.

If I’d been able to talk to the team about what they felt was important about someone to include on the boat, I’d have focused more on my data retrieval skills and less on story-telling. Just because I was right didn’t mean the others were interested in that set of skills.

This is why it’s important to build rapport with the person you are selling to or negotiating with. You need to find out what they are interested in or care about, and most important, what THEIR desired outcome for the transaction is. Then you figure out how to make getting them what they want fit in with what YOU want, so you both win.

I felt better knowing that our instructor, Than, had been voted off the first time he did the exercise. He and I agree that you can learn more from being voted off than from being voted on. I was persuasive, but I didn’t meet the needs of my audience. Lesson learned!

I have another exercise that I learned from to share in the next few days, so check back in soon, or subscribe via email, so you won’t miss a post. Want to chat more? Phone 512-807-8777!