Can you increase your persuasiveness when presenting your ideas to customers?
A powerful idea that might be of help originally came out of the 1940’s and involves “pencil selling” as a way to get your message remembered and to help you maintain control of your sales presentation.
“Pencil selling” simply means using a blank pad or sheet of paper to capture your strongest points being discussed with your customer or prospect. The pad is kept on the table between you and your customer as you present your ideas. As you walk through the major steps, points or ideas being presented you write down the key words or issues you most you’re your customer or prospect to remember.
Numerous studies on idea retention have identified a message delivered both verbally and visually is retained multiple times longer than if it is only spoken. Having the three to five major points being discussed written down and in front of your customer can also help you in summarizing your suggestions as you prepare to ask for the order or get some other type of customer commitment.
“Pencil selling” also is a great way to help increase your control during a sales call. Bet you have experienced this situation…You are in your sales call presenting your ideas to a customer or prospect. In the middle of your discussion their phone rings. And showing your importance to this client what do they do? Of course they answer it! And then after maybe only a few minutes of talking they hang up, turn back to you and then ask “So where were we?”
If you have been capturing your major points on paper as you have been talking then it is easy for you to summarize by touching the paper and saying “We had talked about these three reasons for this application working for you and we were just about to begin discussing…”
“Pencil selling” is a proven idea that can help you increase your persuasive presentation skills, help improve your control over your sales call and to improve your customer’s retention of your ideas. Could increasing your use of “pencil selling” help you sell more this month?
Jim Pancero