A lot of professionals who have mastered this will argue that no
matter how good or bad a salesperson is or how bad the product
is, the "untouched CONTEXT," can turn most "no's" into "yeses"
and vice versa.
The context is an easy thing to understand. (There are FOUR
"contexts" going on in any situation that YOU can work within!)
If you ask me to buy a case of wine while I'm in a Baptist church...
I'll think that's a bit odd or inappropriate and probably say "no"
(depending on the SUB-context...which I'll get to later.).
If you ask me to buy a case of wine at a liquor store, I might
say "yes."
That's pretty obvious. If we're in someone's store, that's a pretty
good place to buy something. It's a pretty good place to sell
something. But are you going into the store as a customer or
as a business to business exchange?
In the case of B2B, for the persuader to optimize his chances
of "yes," the client's store is NOT the best place to do business
....at least not always.
Observe...
Some of the Best Salespeople
A few years ago, I visited Nogales, which is a Mexican border town
much like Tijuana or Juarez. I went with my two brothers.
I've been to a number of the border towns over a few decades. You
always have a story to tell. You always run into interesting people. The
experience for me and my brothers visiting the border towns has
always been remarkably consistent and predictable over the years.
That means we have pre-judgments and stereotypes of people, places,
things, based on our experiences which have pretty much over-ridden
what other people have told us about the people in the towns and so
forth.
Had we had bad experiences, we wouldn't have gone back once...forget
12 or 15 times.
Back to Nogales....
When you go to Nogales, you might be a "tourist."
You might be going to buy prescription medications for a fraction of
the cost just north of the border.
You might be going for various hedonic pleasures.
You ARE going for a reason.
That reason is part of the context. It's something you want. I'll
stay away from hedonic pleasures (too early in the article). Instead
I'm going to Mexico as a TOURIST.
I'm a tourist.
Now if I wanted to see super cool stuff, I might have flown down to
southern Mexico and checked out the pyramids. But I'm going to
Nogales...Tijuana.
I'm a tourist and I'm going to buy some neat stuff cheap. That is
the deal. THAT is the INITIAL CONTEXT. It is a predetermined fact
that I'm going to walk through gated security between the two
countries...then go walk around Nogales and buy some Mexican stuff
and bring it back to the States.
The excursion is a bit of adventure...but our story takes us to one
thing we will experience in visiting that day.... there will be negotiating.
Lots of it. All day. Everywhere we go.
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I've been to a number of the border towns over a few decades. You
always have a story to tell. You always run into interesting people. The
experience for me and my brothers visiting the border towns has
always been remarkably consistent and predictable over the years.
