Have you ever screwed up a sales call? If you have good bonding and rapport and a good Up Front Contract, it's amazing what you can recover from.
If you're familiar with Sandler, you may already know what good bonding and rapport is and what a good Up Front Contract looks like. If not, good bonding and rapport is not about talking about sports teams or family photos. It's all about connecting with people subconsciously through great communication. And an Up Front Contact is a mutually agreed upon plan for the interaction.
Let's look at a real-world example.
A veteran insurance agent who had been in the industry for more than 30 years was meeting with a prospect. He used techniques like mirroring and adjusting to the prospect's DISC style to establish good bonding and rapport. Then he established a good Up Front Contract and made sure to ask about the prospect's expectations.
However, that's when things got derailed. For several minutes, the agent shared with the prospect some common types of insurance he might need to think about. He ended up going into presentation mode way too early!
Finally, the prospect cut him off and said, "I don't know if I really need any of that."
Thankfully, the agent had an interesting response. "You probably don't."
That's not what the prospect was expecting to hear! He was so taken aback that he asked, "Wait, then why did you share all that information with me?"
"Well," the agent responded, "that's really just a place to start."
As the conversation continued, the agent was able to recover, and he got into a real conversation about the pain his prospect was having related to insurance.
It's never too late in an interaction to have a real conversation, but only if you've done a good job with bonding and rapport and your Up Front Contract. If not, it can be a huge challenge to recover!
