To Make More Sales, Try
Making More Friends
C.J. Hayden, MCC
"Learn to love, respect and enjoy other
people."
-- Dale Carnegie
In 1936, Dale Carnegie published "How to Win
Friends and
Influence People." Since then, his book has sold more than 15
million copies and is widely credited as being the first book in
the modern self-help genre.
The core of Carnegie's simple philosophy is that one
of the
greatest human needs is to feel important. If you want to win
people over to your way of thinking, they need to like you. And
the way to get them to do that is to take an interest in them.
When learning how to sell better, we often hear the
advice to ask
questions and listen to the customer. This advice, though, is
frequently given in the context of using questions to gather
information helpful to the sales process, and to listen for clues
that will help you convince the customer to buy.
What Carnegie suggested was that the true path to
being a
successful salesperson, leader, or well-liked individual was not
to focus on your desired outcome, but to put your attention on
the other person. Here are Carnegie's six ways to get what you
want by making people like you:
1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person's name is to that person
the sweetest
and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk
about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
6. Make the other person feel important -- and do it
sincerely.
Notice the emphasis on being genuine and on
sincerity. Despite
the fact that Carnegie was talking about how to persuade people
to adopt your point of view, this really isn't some sort of
manipulative sales technique. It's a recipe for making friends.
This idea wasn't just a personal theory of
Carnegie's. To write
his book, he interviewed the most successful people of his day,
from Clark Gable to Franklin D. Roosevelt. He studied the
writings of philosophers from Confucius to Benjamin Franklin, and
the lives of famous leaders from Abraham Lincoln to Henry Ford.
Carnegie spoke with many professional salespeople,
and also with
many of their customers. Here's what he discovered: "Thousands of
salespeople are pounding the pavements today, tired, discouraged
and underpaid. Why? Because they are always thinking only of what
they want... The world is full of people who are grabbing and
self-seeking. So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to
serve others has an enormous advantage. He has little
competition."
All the great salespeople I know are people others
refer to with
adjectives like "friendly," "nice," and "likable."
When you see
them across a room, you are drawn to them. When you get on the
phone with them, you don't want to hang up. They seem to have the
ability of making you feel as if their conversation with you is
the only thing in the world that matters to them.
And they're not faking it.
What sort of shift might it create in your selling
if you took
Carnegie's advice to heart? If instead of trying to make sales,
you simply set about making friends? Imagine what a difference it
would make to how you dealt with everything from cold calling to
attending networking events.
Picture yourself on a cold call, smiling, talking
about the other
person's concerns, and making him or her feel important.
Visualize yourself at a Chamber of Commerce mixer, getting people
to talk about themselves, and expressing your interest in what
they have to say.
Showing a genuine interest in others not only makes
them feel
good, it makes you feel good. Instead of trying to convince
someone of your point of view, your job becomes to see everything
from the other person's side. Conversations that used to be
challenging sales situations can instead become opportunities to
make new friends.
If this approach appeals to you, here's what to do
next in
Carnegie's own words: "So, if you desire to master the principles
you are studying in this book, do something about them. Apply
these rules at every opportunity. If you don't you will forget
them quickly. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind."
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C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients NOW! Thousands of
business owners and salespeople have used her simple sales and
marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free
copy of "Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You'll Ever
Need" at http://www.getclientsnow.com
