In the last blogs we have been talking about the highly effective dummy curve technique, where playing the dummy pays off big time when it comes to sales. By playing the fool and disarming your prospect’s concern, you can get him to reveal his pain and establish trust with you. In this blog, we will finish this series on the dummy curve with some math.
One very effective technique is to strategically cheat when it’s time for you and the prospect to “do the math.” Hobbyists often make a mistake in the second phase of the dummy curve, mainly because they want to show off. Believing they are on their game, the salesperson decides to quickly calculate a discount or some other metric to impress the prospect. However, they are letting the little teacher part of his Child personality to make them feel good, but instead they are making the prospect feel bad.
If there are math to be done in your sales discussion, I encourage you to let the prospect do the math. He struggles a bit, but not too much. You don’t want to appear stupid or weird, but be sure to ask the prospect for help. Once again, use Lt. Columbo as your role model. Do you remember how he asked for the pencil and paper? Columbo always fought on purpose to disarm his suspects and gain his trust. This “dumb” detective always caught his killer.
So, be Colombo and fight on purpose, letting the prospect feel good that you can help them, especially with math. Never forget that people feel empowered when they help others. People let their guard down and feel even better. Prospects will feel more comfortable and continue the conversation with you as you use the third stage of the Dummy Curve to move through Sandler’s sales submarine.
THE FUEL THAT POWERS THE SUBMARINE
Playing dumb with the math part of your discussion is the icing on the cake for the dummy curve technique. Keep asking questions, too, and you’ll uncover more and more information, eventually leading to heartache for the prospect. The dummy can even be considered to be the fuel that powers the Sandler submarine. By burning that fuel efficiently, you can better identify what exactly the pain is, or you may discover that your prospect is not in pain at all and may disqualify you. That is also a victory. I encourage you to try the simulation techniques I’ve shared with you before confidently disqualifying any prospect. Leads that don’t appear to be qualified are a great practice ground for mastering the dummy curve. Who knows? Some of them might even become customers. Wouldn’t that be awful?
In our next blog, we’ll start a series on another wonderfully effective technique called Negative Reverse Sell.
