To Gain Control, You Must Give Up Control

It is a sound selling strategy to always keep your prospect feeling like they are in control and winning. If they believe you have the upper hand, they may feel compelled to assert their will to your detriment. Generally, the more excited and enthusiastic you are about your offering, the more apprehensive and guarded your prospect will become. They start to question if it is that good for you, there must be something that is negative for them.

Therefore, a good strategy to counter balance this prevailing situation is to get the prospect to sell you. This is where sales becomes fun. All the pressure is taken off you and the burden now lays with your prospect. This sales tactic of indirect negative selling can be perceived as risky, since if your prospect is negatively predisposed and is unfavorable toward your offering, you will tend to get your “no’s” more quickly than you are accustomed. However, having prepared responses to keep the prospect engaged can offset this.

Indirect negative selling relies heavily on the tenet of reverse psychology. What makes this strategy so effective is that prospects don’t expect it and they are taken off guard. Likewise, since prospects are conditioned to discount your claims and so often argue against whatever a salesperson says, you will sometimes find them arguing on your behalf and they won’t even be aware of it. However, due to the sophistication of prospects, do not count on this.

The most important reason why you should employ indirect negative selling is because it levels the playing field by getting your prospect to self-discover their own motivations and reasons to change independent of your own sales agenda. Therefore, the trust factor increases exponentially.

The following are a wide variety of indirect negative questions and statements. Because they take your prospect to ground zero, you should be as nurturing, non-threatening and neutral in your tonality as possible in order to keep your prospect comfortable and in the belief that they are in control:

• “What makes you believe your boss will approve this?”
• “You’ve done well in the past without this, why change now?”
• “What makes you believe now is the right time to change?”
• “We are expensive. We may not be worth it… unless you have problems in the following areas…”
• “Based on what you told me, I don’t know how you will be able to cost justify this.”
• “I know you are very busy, but time is never the real issue. The real issue is you may not believe it is worth your time… and it may not be.”
• “Unless you are willing to share with me what your problems are in a face to face meeting, assuming you have any, it will not make sense for us to have a serious conversation about you considering changing suppliers.”
• “You’ve been using XYZ for 5 years and you are happy with their service, why do you want a quote from us?”
• “We are definitely going to be more than ABC. Does it still make sense for me to quote? Why?”
• “When ABC comes back with a counter offer and I guarantee you they will, it will probably be 20% less than ours. Would there be any reason why you wouldn’t just stay with them?”
• “I’m surprised you called our company based on the circumstances you just shared with me. What were you hoping that we could do differently?”
• “If I were you, I’d stay put with your existing supplier, based on what you’ve shared with me so far.”
• “So far, I haven’t heard any reason that would support you changing. Am I way off or what is it that I am missing?”
• “I assume you are no longer interested.”
• “It sounds like even if someone could help you, you wouldn’t be interested at this time.”

Indirect negative selling is effective in creating trust because you aren’t viewed as nonobjective, biased, and one-sided. The prospect feels comfortable because you aren’t selling anymore and you are empowering them to make decisions unencumbered by your own sales agenda. The element of reverse psychology provides an environment where dialogue and freedom of choice are respected.

The harder you hold on to your product knowledge and your beliefs about what it can do, the harder and more entrenched your prospects hold on to their own beliefs about what is right and best for them. Salespeople too often have a goal of getting a “yes” at all costs. “No” is often avoided like the plague. The result is a lot of pretending on all fronts: the prospect pretends that they are interested when they are not, and the salesperson pretends that they can sell to them when they really can’t. Fear of delivering a “no” can cause a neutral prospect to turn into a resistant prospect. If you have an attitude that, under all circumstances, prospects want and need your offering you will lose all objectivity and trust.

By asking subtle negative questions that are contrary to your self-interest, it allows you to build trust and lets you discover the truth quickly. When you ask overly predisposed positive questions, you are perceived as needy and weak. Salespeople who constantly seek agreement will rarely experience agreement without conditions. Prospects will see you as a salesperson who is only interested in them, only if they buy. You invalidate not only them, but also yourself and your offering. By making ”no” an acceptable response, you give your prospect permission to be less vulnerable and more open in examining their problems and their consequences. Meet prospects where they are, for better or worse.

Going for ”no” and asking tough questions takes all the pressure off the salesperson and the prospect and allows both parties to maintain their dignity. Aggressive sales behavior promotes defensive prospects, which in turn encourages salespeople to be more persistent, which breeds greater annoyance on the part of prospects.