When I started my first home business I remember having a mental block. I had a very hard time taking the order. I didn’t want to feel like I was pressuring anyone. I don’t think that I’m the only one who feels like this… Maybe you feel this way too?
The bottom line is that if you don’t ask for the order then you will never get it. People very rarely come running at you with their money. If you want to become successful you will need to take some initiative. So the question is… How can you do it without being “pushy”?
The answer is that there is a very big difference between pressure and tension.
Pressure is something that is applied from the outside. It is when someone is trying to “talk you into it”. It makes you feel uncomfortable and if they are successful and getting you to buy, it is only because you want the pressure to stop. If you’ve ever said… “ok, ok, fine, I’ll buy it”, then you have experienced pressure.
Tension, on the other hand, is something that builds within. When you build tension you make your prospect come to you. You show them the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Then you show that your product/service is the bridge that will get them there.
Here’s how it plays out. You get your prospect informed and at the end you ask them the question… Are you ready to get started?
Then comes the silence. This silence is going to be EXTREMELY uncomfortable for you. You will want to jump in and do something. It is very important to recognize that the uncomfortable feeling is not shared by your prospect. The prospect is feeling tension. They are NOT uncomfortable. They are thinking. They are going through the options and making a decision. Your job is to keep quiet and let them come to you.
There are two common mistakes…
- You can either apply pressure… “come on… you know you want it… just get started”.
- You can let them off the hook… “why don’t you think about it and get back to me tomorrow”.
Both of those options are going to create serious problems. If you apply pressure, then the second they leave your house and get in the car, they will start thinking that they got “sold”. If you let them leave and “think about it”… they will likely talk themselves out of it. The longer you take to make a decision to do something that you know you need to do, the less likely you are to do it.
All you need to do is let the tension build and then pass them a pen. If they make the decision to start then you know that they’ve made the decision for the right reasons and they will be teachable and much more pleasant to work with. If they decide to say no, then you can scratch them off the list for now and move on.
