Meta Selling: Helping People to Buy a New & Better Way

Introduction

Helping People to Buy, A New & Better Way

None other than the preeminent genius, Albert Einstein, said:

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

Yet this is exactly the way we try to address challenges in selling.

Let’s say a prospect is ducking your attempts to make contact, a perennial problem, right?

You sent emails, you phoned. You left voice mails. You texted. But in return, you’re getting zilch, nada, nothing, no results. You’re being ghosted as it’s called in dating, mating, and social media.

What will your sales managers do day in and day out from that point? They will probably ask, Hey, how are you doing with that Goodman account?

Can’t reach him.

Keep trying! is the totally feckless advice you’ll hear.

In other words, keep doing what isn’t working in the hope it will suddenly work.

Your CRM system, perhaps Salesforce, will nudge you in the same direction, to relentlessly follow up. I’ve used systems that are programmed to get you to make a minimum of 12 follow-up attempts before you can justify returning the prospect to the general database.

You may have heard a customer’s stall that you know in your bones makes the person not worth another ounce of your attention, but the software will make you waste 11 more attempts to prove what you already have intuited.

You’ve heard the definition of insanity that says continuing to do the same thing while expecting a different result is a mark of being crazy. If this is the case, 99.9% of today’s sellers are bull-goose loony, as Ken Kesey tagged it, in his celebrated novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

Our prescription for taking a win from a loss is to keep on losing, to do more of what is getting us nowhere.

I call this Level One Selling. It is the traditional way to get an order, or so we’ve been taught. Einstein and I agree: You need to get to a higher, better level to solve your sales problems.

That is Level Two: The Meta Selling Level.

When we Meta Sell, we are actually rising above the typical cut and thrust of everyday transactions. We’re acknowledging and commenting on how and where we are going astray, in the hope of setting a new, better, and more cooperative course with our potential buyers.

Now, in fairness, Level One Selling persists for a reason. The Sales Establishment argues: It works, that’s why we do it! There’s some truth in that, but only a tiny grain of it.

What most sellers are doing works barely enough to justify its continuation and to shut out competing ways to sell that can be far more effective and efficient. Like a slot machine, it doesn’t hook you on losing because it NEVER pays off. It pays on a staggered basis just enough to keep you glued to the machine.

It is perniciously addictive because it makes you inflate the value of your wins while underrating the impact of your losses. B.F Skinner, one of the most influential behavioral psychologists of all time, said: intermittent reinforcement schedules are the most addicting.

Translation: If you sold every single person you talked to, you grow bored. And you’d burn out quickly if you sold none of them. But a little winning, even if accompanied by a lot of losing will make you dial that next number, shoot out that email, or knock on the next prospect’s door. This is our Level One Wiring.

Here are just two of Level One Selling’s directives:

If a customer says no, don’t believe it. Buyers are liars, says a well-known and quite stupid cliché. Your job is to wear them down. They resist because they think that’s their job. No one wants to be known as an easy sale or a lay down!

If a customer resists, use more force! Like Wonder Woman or Captain America wielding their shields, deflect the flack, and answer back with a volley of reasons to buy.

There have been authors that have detected something is wrong with these traditional do’s and don’ts. They’ve tried to fix Level One selling by touting what they call permission selling and consultative selling. I’ll discuss these noble, but-still-inadequate remedies, later on.

Practitioners, people in the trenches, have also taken a shot at devising a better way to sell. I heard one of my clients, while training his office automation salespeople, quite refreshingly say:

If prospects say ‘no,’ believe them!

He went on to ask his initiates: Why in the world would you ever want to talk to someone that sincerely doesn’t want to talk with you?

There is an answer to this question. The reason sellers have been so willing to waste their time is that they’ve tacitly been told that’s what their job description is. They stand around in airports, in office lobbies, killing time. They twiddle their thumbs while on hold when they phone, and stay past quitting time in the hope that a promised order will be emailed in.

If your time is worthless, what difference does it make if you kill it? It was DOA when you were hired.

Certain companies only hire uber-competitive ex-athletes for their sales teams. They instill a take-no-prisoners approach that can be summed up this way: If buyers push you, you push back.

It could be called, Smash-Mouth Selling. Frankly, it’s injurious to everyone.

Let me give you a quick, recent example of doing it a far better, alternative way, using Meta Selling.

One of my clients in Chicago was ducking my calls. I tried reaching him without results. Instead of over-using the same media, the phone, email, text messages, I decided to use a different, far more customized means.

I Google-Earthed his business address and scanned his building and the structures around it. I found there is an Autozone dealer nearby.

Heck, I’ve bought a bunch of stuff from my local Autozone, so they owe me. (That’s what I told myself.)

Anyway, I’m from Chicago, from the same area where this Autozone and my client are located.

I phoned the Autozone and asked for the manager. I told him I’m from the neighborhood originally and I can’t reach my client. I’m worried something happened to him. His phone is not working. Maybe he went out of business, or moved.

He’s two-doors down from you.

Could you please walk over there and see what’s happening? His name is Paul Smith and if he’s there would you tell him I’m trying to reach him and ask him to call me?

Several minutes later, the manager came back onto the line and beamed. He’s there! He said he would call you.

And that’s exactly what happened. Victory! Success!

Why? I literally got above the problem. I solved it from a different level.

That’s the Meta in action. I launched myself into orbit via Google’s satellite imagery and peered down at my client’s situation. I deputized someone, a stranger to me but a neighbor to him to look in on my client and report back to me.

I improvised a new medium of assisted selling in order to overcome the resistance I was facing with conventional, Level One calling and emailing.

Meta Selling acknowledges the fact that we must emerge from the cocoon of constraints in conventional business persuasion, changing the form, metamorphosing, so we can fly above the problems we’re having, fixing them in the process.

I pitched a nationwide school of high fashion modeling. Then there was silence. Repeatedly, I left phone messages. At one point, I muttered to myself, this isn’t working.

I decided to write a letter, that’s correct, putting ink on paper and sending it though the conventional mail. Addressed to the president, the headline read:

Where Did We Go Wrong?

I acknowledged right away that I must have erred in the process of managing their interest in my services. I said, because I’m in sales and marketing I need to improve, as well.

Even more valuable than hiring me I would treasure their feedback. Please inscribe in the lines below how I missed the mark, and I’ll be very grateful.

The president phoned me and promptly hired me to speak at their national convention. It was a delightful and lucrative program.

What did my Meta Communication, Where Did We Go Wrong? say?

It said I blew it—please help me out. Even though I teach selling skills, I guess I’m not perfect at selling. Kindly, make me better!

This is a role reversal. I turned the tables. I took off my expert hat and donned the dunce cap. I became the novice, again.

I extricated us from the traditional sales roles that were failing us. By doing so, we adopted new roles that resulted in a win-win relationship.

People use Meta Communication and Meta Persuasion all the time, mostly without knowing it.

I was standing in the UPS store last week when a woman hurriedly came in, saw the boss and said, I hate to ask you this, but can you please tell me where the nearest FedEx office is?

He gladly revealed TWO nearby locations where she could give her business to his competitors!

I must say, I’ve observed this grouchy guy for years and I’ve never known him to be anything but a taciturn type that is awful at doing customer service. Yet he rolled over and purred for her!

You’re at a grocery store and someone cuts in line ahead of you. You’ll probably seethe at the unfairness. But if he or she asks, May I cut in front of you because I have to get back to my car? typically, you’ll be glad to wave them ahead.

Research has shown folks like you and I will yield our spots, patiently earned, to anyone bearing a because. In the example provided, the line-cutter needed to get back to her car and didn’t have to explain further.

Because is the smart Meta part to the message, in the same way I hate to do this was the Meta message in the UPS store.

When we have enough self-awareness, enough emotional intelligence to know that we could be coming across poorly or at sub-optimal effectiveness, we can volunteer effective explanations in advance:

I’m sorry if I sound a little on edge, but a car just ran a red light and nearly crashed into me!

No problem; that can really be upsetting. You okay?

Yeah, thanks.

The first speaker is aware that he may be coming off a little edgy, sending signals his recipient doesn’t expect to process.

By pointing it out, he is demonstrating sensitivity and quite practically avoiding resistance and conflict. He’s saying:

It’s not you; it’s me, and please don’t think I’m communicating brusquely with you because I don’t like you. You see, based on what just happened to me, I can’t help myself, so kindly forgive me.

Yesterday, I wrote the following note to a business contact that blows hot and cold, seemingly interested in doing business with me one day, but distancing himself the very next day. Frankly, I don’t know if he’s interested or not.

Hello _______________,

I’ve been trying to connect with you but I can’t reach you and I’m concerned there’s something amiss.

How should I proceed? There are two schools of thought:

(1) Desist: Don’t try to reach people that don’t want to be reached. Or,

(2) Persist: You don’t know what’s going on with them, and their silence can be misinterpreted.

Please advise me: Is it (1) or (2)? Or, maybe (3)!

Many thanks.

Best,

Gary

(818) 970-GARY (4279)

What are the advantages in sending this kind of note? Let’s examine the Meta-Messages I’m embedding.

First, I’m saying I’m confused. Second, I’m asking for help to quickly eliminate the confusion. Third, I’m implying this isn’t a good way to do business and he has a duty to help me to determine what’s going on.

If he doesn’t, he’ll be wasting my time and his. I’ll keep calling and writing and he’ll keep avoiding. Where is the productivity in that?

All of this is being communicated, politely. That’s the key. And I have to say I have achieved dramatic results using Meta-Messages in selling.

Don’t underestimate the power in asking for help. One of the best sales presentations I ever used started this way:

Hello, this is Gary Goodman with the Goodman Organization. How are you? That’s good. The reason I’m calling is I have a little problem on my hands and I was hoping you might help me out.

A huge proportion of listeners will respond to this overture with the sweet and generous reply:

Well, I will if I can; what’s going on?

Note, they’re saying this to an utter stranger. I have relatives that won’t give me the time of day, but this example shows how nice many normal, everyday people are when approached the right way.

Now it’s up to me to tell them how my problem can help them to take advantage of the situation.

Normally, sellers don’t talk about their problems. We’re taught to focus on the client’s. But by putting my incapacity out there right away, saying something isn’t quite right with me, I meta-communicate that this conversation is going to go in a different direction than they’re used to.

And this is good and disarming, because people believe they know the sales drill all too well. It has become predictable, but that is a gift if you know how to Meta Sell.

Meta Selling can help you to re-fashion the tacit, customary rules of engagement:

Now that we’ve made contact you might expect me to follow-up with you until the end of time to earn your business. I’d like to, but this isn’t efficient. If I waste our time then my prices go up and ultimately you pay for my inefficiency, and that’s not fair, is it? So, please join with me in making this process leaner & easier. Here’s how. If you’re not interested, please say so right away and I’ll back off. The next best thing to getting a green light is getting a red light. It tells me what to do, fair enough? I’ve just provided a few illustrations in this Introduction. There is far more to come.

These high cash-value techniques will earn you more business and grateful customers. You’ll relate to prospects in refreshingly new and better ways.

Much of the hostile, adversarial sales tension will evaporate.

You’ll accelerate your relationships and bond with your clients as you never have, before.

Specifically, in the material that follows I’m going to share with you my 20-second sales pitch. I’ll challenge you to find the persuasion in it, which isn’t at all obvious. This text is totally denuded of any salesy quality. Yet it is overwhelmingly successful.

It helped me to earn millions of dollars and to sell the smartest and stodgiest people on earth.

It’s a gem of Meta Selling, and you can use it, too. It will save you oodles of time and really cut to the chase.

And I promise you that you won’t sound like anyone else that is competing for the prospect’s business!

We’ll address some of the hardest challenges in selling, from penetrating voice mail and human screening to deciding who is worth pursuing and who is