As a salesperson, you've probably been taught that if you want to sell more, you have to have more sales meetings. Nothing could be a bigger waste of your time!
Salespeople tend to get "happy ears," They hear someone who is interested in their product or service wants to meet with them, and they jump at the chance.
They hear what they want to hear, and excitedly set the meeting!
I'm sure that's never happened to you. But if it did, a great way to combat that is negative reversing.
Here's what that might look like normally:
Sally says, "John, I'm really interested in your garage door maintenance plan."
John replies, "Great! Can I come by your place to discuss it?"
But if John was using negative reversing, it might go like this instead:
Sally says, "John, I'm really interested in your garage door maintenance plan."
John replies, "Wow, I'm a little surprised you're interested. I thought you just got a new garage door. Why in the world would our garage door maintenance plan interest you?"
And then Sally begins to share her reasons for asking about it.
When you use negative reversing to combat happy ears, sometimes you get to good reasons. But other times, you uncover that being "interested" didn't mean they were willing and able to invest.
Had you jumped at the chance for a meeting, you would have been wasting your time. When you get rid of the bad sales meetings, you make more room for the good sales meetings. And sometimes, that may even mean less sales meetings overall.
