When it comes to selling a lot more, how open minded are you?

I mean, who’s really going to say NO to that?   Basically just a true hardcore curmudgeon (keeping it PG here) that you don’t really want to be working with anyways.

Most people don’t want to admit to themselves that they are Closed-Minded.   Much less admit it outloud to another person.   Which is the reason you want to ask your client “How open minded are you, in general?” in a way they don’t see coming.   You are a professional salesperson, so you know the way the conversation is going to go.

So, before you hit that part in your sales process that has a high probability of resistance pull out a “How open minded are you?”   Once they admit to being Open-Minded the mental Law of Consistence will make it so they have to at least listen and consider what you have to say next.   Shooting it down would me that they are Closed-Minded as a person – in their own mind.

Where would we use this?

In Real Estate:  If you were working with some buyers and the house they want just isn’t available in the area they want.   Ask them, how open minded they are?  When they say that they are open minded, that is the time to explain a neighboring area that maybe they hadn’t considered.   Or thinking about buying the house without the pool now and putting exactly the right pool in later using equity appreciation.

In Mortgages:  Asking how open minded they are might be a way to open the door to an alternative product like a 15 or 20 yr loan when you can’t show savings going back up to a 30 yr.   Maybe cash-out refinance.   Or sometime in the long distance future when the market works out, adjustable rate mortgages.  haha

Selling cars I might ask about how open minded they are before trying to either upsell to a nicer model to say “you will keep it longer” or down-sell to a cheaper model when I know they won’t qualify by saying “it’s almost the same thing.”

The trick is to ask it before they see what is coming.  Since you do this all of the time, you should know when you are heading into SellSomethingElse Land.   So hit them with it early.

The other option is to use a “Softener” to add some mental subtrifuge.   I love softeners.    They are little phrases added to the front of a question or statement to distract the brain just a enough to sneak in the side door.

For example, “Oh man.  The other day I was talking to my buddy about people now adays.   Let me ask you, how open minded are you?”   Or “It’s funny, I work with people of all types in this job.  Is it like that in yours?  Anways, let me ask you.  In general, how open minded are you?”

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This post is part of a series inspired from the book “Exactly What to Say” by Phil Jones.   It’s really good.   You should read it.

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