Not every salesperson has a natural gift to quickly bond and develop rapport with prospects. Many try to succeed by ingratiating themselves with frequent contact, entertaining prospects, being responsive, reliable and helpful. However, what if you don’t have the luxury of the preceding and you are faced with a reluctant and guarded prospect who resists your sincere efforts?
To effectively manage and build genuine business relationships, you can no longer rely heavily on just personal connections. I have many clients who have salespeople who are perfectly delightful, engaging and likeable people, whom clients really like, and who don’t buy from them. Then I have clients who have salespeople who are a little rough around the edges, socially awkward and only moderately engaging who are top performers in their respective industries. What is the difference?
The difference is that people buy from people they like but what is more critical is that people buy from people they believe understand their problems and can build rapport based on their ability to identify and isolate critical success factors, independent of their own sales agenda. They also have the expertise and patience to allow the prospect to discover their own issues, helping them navigate their own outcomes, priorities and conclusions.
But, in order for prospects to be comfortable enough to share and explore their deeply rooted emotionally charged problems, the salesperson will have to create a non-threatening and safe environment. This skill set is critical in today’s market because relationships are so much more challenging to establish because of time restrictions, perceived commoditization of products and stricter rules of accountability.
We will explore here the strategies to differentiate yourself and build a business relationship built on trust, confidence and shared vision. The strategies are called OK/Not OK. To employ this non-intuitive and unconventional relationship building strategy, you will have to take your sales cap off and step into the realm of non-selling. To effectively execute this non-selling posture, you will have to make available to your prospect the opportunity and the freedom of choice of saying “no” to you. By making “no” an acceptable answer and conclusion, you will have to have the confidence and internal fortitude not to be emotionally invested in making the sale. The combination of reverse psychology and playing the role of a change agent who is objective, neutral, unbiased and taking on the posture of a third party observer at the selling event are important elements of executing the strategy of OK/Not OK.
Noted psychologist Dr. Eric Berne pioneered OK/Not OK. The power of this strategy of developing strong relationships between people is often underestimated and misunderstood. In layman’s terms the theory states that the way in which you make someone else feel OK about themselves is by personally down-playing your own position, so you will come across as less OK. This elevates the prospect’s own self-worth, therefore making them more comfortable with you. This is one of the most difficult concepts for salespeople to accept, or at least experiment with. The reason it is difficult to grasp and imagine for most salespeople is because it threatens the core and the traditional idea of their reason for being. This theory debunks and usurps the classic definition of a successful salesperson: very confident, always being positive and enthusiastic, never accepting defeat, cheerful, diehard persistence, chatty and always projecting a winning personality.
To underscore the pervasiveness of how OK/Not OK plays out in our society, we need not look any further than our media. Our entire media culture thrives and prospers on this theory and manipulates it to enhance its audience. Why was society as a whole riveted with curiosity and suspense for many years with O.J.’s, Martha’s, and Britney’s fall from grace and personal problems? Very simply, as tough as our own lives may appear and as difficult our struggles are, for a scarce moment, we felt better about our own circumstances in relation to the rapid fall of the celebrities who allegedly had everything. What subconsciously goes through our minds is, “I thought I had it bad, this guy has it a lot worse.” For a moment our life’s problems pale in comparison and we see future hope. The examples abound in daytime television and our fascination with reality TV.
Because most sales interactions have friction and conflict inherently built into its process, most buyers are constantly feeling pressure and having their positions being invalidated and diminished by perceived classical manipulative tactics employed by salespeople. When a prospect feels inadequate, what goes through their mind subconsciously is, “I think I need to feel better than you so I can neutralize my own inadequacies.” So they look for a salesperson whom they can demonstrate their will with, and for a moment feel more OK about themselves. Therefore, anything you do to reverse the expectation and anticipation of this negative stereotype will serve you well and enhance your position as an understanding, genuine and inquisitive salesperson. Moreover, by appealing to this positive reinforcement that many buyers crave and find lacking, you will enhance your stature by making your prospect feel more comfortable in sharing valuable information with you that they may, under normal circumstances, hold back.
Salespeople unfortunately enter most sales transactions with the heavy burden of being guilty until proven otherwise, unlike in a court of law. In sales, there is no Geneva Convention for salespeople. Since they utilize traditional sales strategies that put most of the emphasis on themselves, their company and their offering, they usually invite a lot of skepticism and resistance early on in the sales transaction. To exacerbate these heavy burdens for both parties, salespeople and prospects alike bring to the table and add to the mix their own unique version of insecurities, fears and general lack of positive self-esteem. You can start to see where this can potentially get ugly and become a clusterfest. The theory of OK/Not OK tries to level the playing field by having the salesperson take the first step by offering a gesture of goodwill that will hopefully begin to lighten the load that the prospect invariably brings to every sales transaction.
Prospects need a scapegoat. We as salespeople temporarily offer ourselves up to help them feel better about themselves. It is basic human nature, and prospects are no different, especially when they have to deal with people/salespeople they don’t initially always trust. They have a strong unconscious need to find someone they can make into a scapegoat so as to alleviate the burden of their own inadequacies or “Not OK-ness”. This is a universal psychological truth that can be a huge advantage for salespeople to employ to break through the burden and barriers of building relationships with initially leery and doubting prospects.
Prospects generally resist change whey they feel they are being controlled or manipulated. For many prospects, the only way they can initially get their needs (OKness) met is by controlling the way they interact and respond to salespeople. So grant them the privilege of control by coming across as less OK and comfortable so that they can feel more OK and more in control.
Going back to Dr. Berne’s original premise, the way you make someone comfortable and OK is you personally come across as being less OK or not as comfortable. This concept is so ingrained in our society that it is why many of us still love going to the movies. Remember when you were a kid and you went to the movies with your friends? Why did you love to see Batman and Spiderman movies and cheer at the end of the movie when the villain was defeated? Because for a brief moment, you realized that as tough as it was being a little tyke, you did not have it as bad as the villain and at that moment, your own burden had been temporarily lifted.
Prospects appreciate when salespeople don’t try to control them, when they honor them by treating them with dignity and respect and don’t try to forcefully make decisions for them. By giving up control, salespeople can take the high road instead of the muddy road of co-dependence in which they foolishly try in vain to control the prospect.
Salespeople unwittingly compromise their position and make prospects feel invalidated and threatened (Not OK) when they do the following:
- Make premature assumptions of being able to help a prospect who hasn’t shared whether they even want the help.
- Offer declarations of superior product performance and applications before understanding the prospect’s specific needs.
- Use technical data and expertise to impress a prospect with your breadth of knowledge, when in reality you are invalidating and diminishing their knowledge.
- Salespeople, by making an affirmative outcome (yes) the only acceptable answer that they will take, force the hand of the prospect to mislead them and stall them because of their guilt in rejecting salespeople.
- Spend 80% of their time talking and not listening, which sends the implied message that “I am more important than you”.
- Jump the gun and finish the prospect’s sentences and thoughts.
By putting the professional needs and emotional needs of your prospects first, you enhance trust, build rapport, demonstrate empathy and create understanding. This is the basis of relationship building.
Here is a specific fictitious example of how struggling and employing OK/Not OK builds rapport and how it can give you a huge completive advantage:
Once upon a time, there was a product manager for a point of purchase company who was filling in for a salesperson who couldn’t make it to an industry trade show. This person was green and inexperienced. Since management was in a bind, they decided to throw him to the wolves and let him experience baptism by fire at the trade show. Whenever a customer came into the booth, this person would ask them a lot of questions since he really didn’t know anything. He would admit upfront that he was new and not technical, but he would be more than happy to help them as much as possible. By the end of the show, he closed five deals without knowing anything. So management in their infinite wisdom decided to promote him into sales and have him go to their own in-house intensive product training university. Since this person was so successful without any technical expertise, the rationale was, imagine how successful he would be with some expert product knowledge. In this month-long class, he learned everything there was to learn about their product line. Management was keen on letting loose this newly minted trained seller, so they let him be lead salesperson at the very next show two days after graduating from the product training university. So as soon as the first person came into the booth, this amateur turned pro was all over them with technical data, engineering plans and the latest supporting product research. By the end of the show, no sales were made by their superstar.
The moral of the story is the best way to be a professional is to learn to be an amateur again. The amateur, incorporating OK/Not OK, takes a non-threatening, non-selling posture by asking a lot of questions and assuming nothing.
OK/Not OK is a very useful strategy to honor your prospect and allow them the space to feel non-threatened and comfortable. Once prospects reach this comfortable place, they are far more likely to share their deep-rooted emotionally charged motivation as to why they want to consider changing. By asking objective non-biased questions, you not only help them discover their own answers, but you create a critical bond and trust that can facilitate a profitable business relationship.
The epitome of OK/Not OK and the archetypical example of someone who plays it to perfection is Peter Falk in the old classic TV show, Columbo. Detective Columbo incessantly made his suspects comfortable and OK by purposefully appearing a little less OK himself, coming across as a little disheveled, a tad confused. Arriving at the scene of the crime in his beater, he allowed his suspects to feel in control, optimistic, feel invulnerable enough so that they would drop their guard and incriminate themselves. He was truly the master of getting his suspects to do a Freudian slip by getting people relaxed, comfortable and appearing very non-threatening. If you have seen the reruns, one cannot forget the classic Columbo arriving at the crime scene, seeing the victim with a dagger in their heart lying on the ground, and within hearing distance of the suspect, asking the attending officer if that was the victim and commenting that it looked like he was stabbed to death. He leans toward the suspect and states, “I know you are very upset, this must be traumatic for you. We’ll do our best here.” And as he is leaving, turning to the suspect, who is feeling comfortable and in control, and asks a simple but clever question as the perp slowly starts to dig his grave.
Although Columbo is a homicide detective in the LAPD, which has a brash reputation, he is anything but this. He is not imposing at all. He is humble, approachable, susceptible, non-arrogant and makes all of his suspects feel invincible and totally OK. “There is something friendly, non-threatening and disarming about Columbo’s floundering approach,” says Charles Green. The Columbo of sales embodies Dr. Berne’s Theory of OK/Not OK and the idea that the meek shall inherit the earth. Anyone taking on the Columbo persona would have nothing to prove or defend, is OK in being subordinated, promises you nothing, makes no pretense of being able to fix all problems, openly shares their concerns from the prospect’s perspective, totally takes on a non-selling posture, challenges politely why the prospect wants to change and is always crediting the prospect for their good ideas.
The best characterization of Columbo is in a short chapter in the book The Advisor by Charles Green. It embodies perfectly the ideal salesperson:
“Their style is informal, flexible, casual and unrehearsed. Professional, but playful. Their gestures are non-threatening, quietly puzzled and appear confused when the suspect contradicts himself but never corrects them until he gets all the facts. They appear over-qualified and under-qualified at the same time. They appear overwhelmed with people who have a need to show their intelligence and superiority, neutralize expectations, quick to point out their limitations and influence, cede control right way, remain neutral and honor his suspect‘s alibi. They seem under-whelmed with the idea that they are a master detective. Their manner is very studiously understated. They use humanizing touches calculated to put their suspects at ease; ask to use the bathroom, request ashtrays for their stinky cigars and wear the anti-uniform to have their suspects feel superior.
“Consider the typical client and what their perspective is. They are intimidated by your expertise, which far exceeds their own. They’re uncomfortable sharing problems that are causing great pains. There are many things at risk, higher costs or benefits and things to be lost and gained. They don’t want to appear stupid by asking inane questions. And there are the trappings of the meeting that cause more insecurities: these people look successful, we can’t afford this, or, they are very impressive, I’m not sure if we can learn it as well as them.
“Columbo‘s genius is in getting people to drop their guard and their inhibitions. The biggest barrier to capitalize on Columbo’s wisdom is Pogo’s dicta: ‘We have found the enemy and it is us.’ It is our inability to be the professional equivalent of being beige, background music.”
A way to always keep your prospect psychologically OK is to learn to not be special. The problem with being special in sales is you can only be special if someone else isn’t. That someone is normally the prospect, who in turn demands to be special. We spend our whole lives trying to be special (OK) and when we meet with prospects, we experience a clash of determined wills as to who will win the prize of being most special. It is human nature to make ourselves special (OK) by making others feel less special (Not OK). In sales, it is imperative that we temper our need for recognition, validation, to truly be heard and listened to so that it doesn’t compete and overshadow the need to serve our prospect’s exact same needs. We project an air of self-importance and arrogance when we don’t listen, talk too much, make assumptions, come across overly enthusiastic about our offerings, don’t appear humble or put the prospect’s needs after our own. Often by being right, we inevitably prove our prospects wrong. Prospects love to rebel and resist authority. When we don’t come across as the ultimate authority, nothing to prove, no pressure to act and nothing to lose, prospects tend to drop their guard and open up. As Leonardo da Vinci stated, “Those who truly know, have no reason to shout.”
Being “Not OK” and taking on a non-selling posture is the end of our hard-won Bigness (OKness), but actually it is also the end of smallness. We are simply transitioning from ‘me’ to ‘you’. Most salespeople struggle with this, because doing it differently than what they are used to would negate all their ego’s hard-earned accomplishments. It would unravel their status. It would call into question their goals and they would simply feel cheated. However, if they could only come to terms with that which they work so hard in achieving, being trustworthy, believable, and authoritative, being easy to get along with, they would see they achieve the exact opposite effect. Salespeople get in this vicious cycle where they make their prospects feel wronged (Not OK) by the salesperson being right (OK). And the prospect corrects the slight by making the salesperson wrong, because they are ultimately in control and want to feel right (OK). They ultimately do this in code by saying, “send me a proposal; send me some information; call me next week.”
Salespeople sabotage their position by putting themselves on a pedestal and being the center of attention. They would be better received by making themselves vulnerable and susceptible. By expressing their imperfections and discomforts, it only humanizes them in areas that are typically viewed as dehumanizing. Moreover, by being defenseless, we learn to absorb some of the inevitable slights and inequities that come up in sales. It is human nature that if a prospect goes after us and attacks us, we defend ourselves and counter-attack. When we are defenseless, we go with the flow, we listen, ask questions, let them win, let them vent, be empathetic and patiently wait for a possible opening, or by going Not OK by saying, “We probably aren’t a good fit for you”.
Our need to display our superiority (OK) is aptly shown in the following story from The Heart of the Enlightened, edited by Anthony De Mello:
Once upon a time, there was an inn called the Silver Star. The innkeeper was unable to make ends meet even though he did his very best to draw customers by making the inn comfortable, the service cordial, and prices reasonable. So in despair he consulted a sage.
After listening to his tale of woe, the sage said, “It is very simple. You must change the name of your inn.”
“Impossible!” said the innkeeper. “It has been the Silver Star for generations and is well known all over the country.”
“No,” said the sage firmly. “You must now call it the Five Bells and have a row of six bells hanging in the entrance.”
“Six Bells? But that’s absurd! What would that do?”
“Give it a try and see,” said the sage with a smile.
Well, the innkeeper gave it a try. And this is what he saw. Every traveler who passed by the inn walked in to point out the mistake, each one believing that no else had noticed it. Once inside, they were impressed by the cordiality of the service and stayed on to refresh themselves, thereby providing the innkeeper with the fortune that he had been seeking in vain for so long. There are few things the ego delights in more than correcting other people’s mistakes.
David Sandler said, “Sales is a Broadway play, played by a psychiatrist.” In sales, you are like an actor in a play. You put on the mask of your character (salesperson) and you play out your role. You ask questions like you have thought of them for the first time. You act surprised when a prospect describes a problem that you have heard at least a thousand times. And as a psychologist, you touch your prospects in a unique way by taking them through an emotional journey of self-discovery where they re-experience their pains. We are like a traveling psychologist. We want to get our prospects talking enough that they will eventually do a Freudian slip, where they self-reveal their true motivations which may or may not support our selling proposition.
OK/Not OK is about trying to get your prospect to change their ego state to a less demanding posture. All clashes of personalities or personal conflict emanate from “I’m OK” and “you aren’t OK”. Prospects who take an attack posture feel personally deprived. By not evening the score, the salesperson temporarily makes the prospect feel better about themselves and thus they are generally inclined to be more open. Any form of flexing one’s muscles is simply a coping measure or a defense mechanism driven by insecurity.
Salespeople constantly have to massage the ego of their prospects to keep them at bay. It is important for a salesperson to be aware that prospects who harbor feelings of superiority use it as a mask to hide their own deep feelings of inferiority. And of course the same holds true for salespeople.
The more you surrender your own sense of self-importance, the more important and special your prospects will feel about themselves. Salespeople can avoid many problems in sales when they remove themselves from the center stage. You can only feel special in relation to others who you consider less special. So in sales, having an overly defined concept of self will entice you to exert your will and your identity. This becomes a problem when your prospect shares the same desire.
When our egos are in charge of a sales call, trust and rapport are difficult to establish. Salespeople should be the first to yield and provide concessions or a gesture of goodwill. Something as simple as, “I can see why you may not be interested,” will go a long way in getting prospects to come down from their perch.
The Tao philosophy is similar to the strategies of OK/Not OK. The Tao says if you want to level the playing field, let the other person be strong and have the sense they are winning. So when they sound like they are interested, withhold your zeal, when they sound uninterested, withhold your pressure. Only when you attempt to meet people where they are can you try to get them to drop their defenses and consider changing. The way you gain control in the sales process is to be the first to give it up.
OK/Not OK requires you to take a posture of realizing you are never responsible for the negative feelings of your prospects. It is very liberating because you don’t have to respond to their negativity and take it personally. OK/Not OK is a great way to break down the barriers of mistrust.
Since salespeople are a target rich category, because they can be perceived as sitting ducks by insecure prospects, they need to always be working hard to keep their prospects feeling Ok. Salespeople with a healthy dose of self-esteem realize that power and control is so often a weakness disguised as strength. The real wit tries to make others feel a little more superior (not too much) and the halfwit makes others feel small.
OK/Not OK theory is reinforced by I Ching Chinese philosophy. Those who are a little weaker attract the stronger and in the process become strong themselves. The natural order of balance is achieved.
