Wouldn’t it be great if you could apply tried and tested sales techniques to gain buy in from your team. Imagine how easy it could be to implement a change if all you had to do was sell it to them like a professional….but of course, your not a professional sales person, your a manager, or maybe a supervisor…

Selling to your team…

Everyone goes through a ritual when deciding to buy.
It could be buying a shirt, laptop, or new car. It could be “buying in” to a new concept or work program. These rituals are individual, and depend on context, but fall into two linked systems.

The Convincer Channel: Seeing, hearing, reading, or doing

The Convincer Mode: Automatic, consistent, set number, or set time

Or put another way;

Looks Right Convincer
Looks right people are convinced when they like what they see. They need some kind of visual representation of what you are offering. With physical products, this is easy – show them the thing, the picture, or the model. If it’s an idea, you can show a diagram or graph.

Sounds Right Convincer
How things sound convinces sounds right people. They are particularly sensitive to the qualities of voices. News presenters for instance have an authoritative tone. They can often detect hesitancy or desperation in someone’s tone.

Feels Right Convincer
People with a feels right (or kinesthetic) convincer usually need to do something or do it with someone, to be convinced. They need to feel the right sensations. If you are selling to them, make sure they get some hands on experience or try it out. Listening to you rave on or seeing lots of pictures is not going to do it.

Makes Sense Convincer
A makes sense convincer is not a primary representation convincer but a conceptual one. It comes from the auditory digital representational system. They need to understand or make sense of their world in a logical way.

The two systems are linked, because the specific Channel will need to be experienced using the Mode. This means that in a given context (buying a car), a person may need to drive it (doing), three times (set number), and wait 2 months (set time), before they convince themselves to buy it.

As this example indicates, there are many different combinations of Channel and Mode. A great salesperson will attempt to discover exactly how a person purchased a similar item last time, then perform the same actions, in the same order, for thesame time. As much as we would like to think we are resistant to this sales technique, few people can resist this sales method.

As a supervisor or manager, we can have tremendous results if we discover and use our team members Channels and Modes.

Convincer Channels

In order to buy, information needs to come to the person through the best Channel (or combination of channels). The way to discover this channel is to chunk down to find the way a person has been convinced of something similar to what you want:

Q: “I notice that you are really buying in to the new safety program. What was it that convinced you?”

Possible responses:
“I needed to see the class material. You can read about it all you want, but I had to wait and observe the class to be sure that I wanted to support it.” (Convinced by Seeing)

“I wanted to hear what the instructor said. And, once I was in the class, listening to people talk about their experiences, I wanted to support it.” (Convinced by Hearing)

“I read all the promotional material and it looked good. When we were in class, going through the book, it made a lot of sense to me.” (Convinced by Reading)

“The listening and watching videos part was useless. Once we got to the part where we had to answer the questions and fill in the boxes, it started to make sense to me.” (Convinced by Doing)

It will seldom be this simple, as many people have dominant traits, but other traits fit in the mix. It is quite common for people to need two traits, in the correct order, to be convinced. If given two or more traits, you can chunk down to determine which one is most important. Concentrate on the most important one, but also pay attention if the order is important. Some people need to hear from others before they see it. Others want to see it first and then go read about it.

Finding Their Convincer Channel

To find out what someone’s convincer representation is, ask questions like;

Why did you decide on your last car?
How do you know someone is good at her job?
What do you think about when buying a new outfit?
How do you know I care about you? (Important to know in a relationship)

The simplest way of using the convincer channel when delegating or looking for buy-in is to use the EXACT SAME words back at the person when requesting something from them:

“I need you to see this project to completion. I want to observe the finished product next Thursday.” (Convinced by Seeing)

“Here is a project for you to complete. I want to listen to the finished product by Thursday.“ (Convinced by Hearing) [Note: the use of ‘hear’ and ‘here’ is a Milton Model application, where two words sounding the same have different meaning]

“I need to read your take on this project. Don’t write me a book, but I want to go through it Thursday.” ( Convinced by Reading) [Note: the brain ignores the “don’t” at the beginning of the book sentence]

“I need you finish this project to answer the questions we have and check the box for completion. It needs to make sense by Thursday.” (Convinced by Doing)

If you want to look in to this further try searching VAK test, or contact us for a template.