“I realized it was reciprocity that was the secret to his success when negotiating, he started to give me something for free at the beginning and it was something of value, even if I didn’t want it” – Jason Cahill in today’s Tip 405
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Jason Cahill on LinkedIn
Ceridian
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Jason Cahill is back with another tip. Jason works in Commercial Sales at Ceridian and is responsible for their South Western Ontario territory in Canada. Here he is:
Jason Cahill: Hey everybody! Jason Cahill here for another daily sales tip. I wanted to talk today about reciprocity. When I was in construction sales, I used to do deal with this land developer and he had a very interesting reputation for being extremely fired up and aggressive and a bit of a bully. And I was very nervous about dealing with them. But the first time I met him, he’s also a lawyer by the way. He had an office, a very small office. We made an appointment. He rushed out to greet me. He’s very short guy, big giant dog in the corner, beautiful office. And he would rush out to greet me, say hello, shake my hand really vigorously, guide me into his office, very professional. And he would ask me if I would want some tea. And I said, “No, I’m okay.” He said, “No, I’m going to make you some tea. Please sit down, what kind of tea would you like?” And I said, “It doesn’t matter. Black tea is fine” and he would make it, but it had all this stuff out for tea. It’s like this big process. He had, you know, different mugs and the water and how he was making this thing and he would ask me general questions like, “Hey, how’s it going?” You know, the weather, blah blah blah. Just a little, some small talk. And he would make this tea and it would just be like this big presentation. He would sit it in front of me, place it very gently and kind of like present it to me. I sit down across from me at the table. I would sit at the end and he would sit at the head of the table and he would fold his arms in front of themselves and say, “Okay, that’s great.” And then he would just launch into me about how my price for the interior was too crazy, I must be on drugs. Like you would just tear a strip off me yelling at me and just saying all this stuff. And I would just be sitting there holding the tee, just looking at ’em. Trying to figure out what I was going to say. And by the end, you know, he kind of directed the conversation. I’m like, okay, well, you know, we’re gonna move forward and we’re gonna fix this and we’re going to do a lot of business together or blah, blah, blah, and, you know, just positive note. And I would basically, he would usher me out. I would get up, I didn’t drink my tea and I left and I came back to my desk and I realized like, okay, I got to get all this stuff done. And I started to start working on these things and crunch the numbers and I realized “Wait a minute, why am I doing that? You just yelled at me for a half an hour” and I couldn’t figure it out at the first, I was like, well, no, maybe it’s because it’s position and you know, it’s business. I want to do right by the customer, but why am I going the extra mile for him? And a few extra meetings after that I realized he had this whole process of like greeting me and taking me into the room and then making tea for me and presenting the tea and then started to launch it every single time. And I realized it was reciprocity that was the secret to his success when negotiating, he started to give me something for free at the beginning and it was something of value, even if I didn’t want it, but it was the way he presented it that really set the stage for him to start asking me for discounts and demanding things like that. So I realized that this was the case. Then I started to incorporate that in my own sales cycle side. When I go to a meeting on-site, I’d bring coffee and I bring cookies and I say, well listen, you know, I need this for the afternoon because I’m a coffee junkie and I will fall asleep too. So I need it. You need it. And I make coffee for everyone. I asked him, what would you like in your coffee, sugar, green, milk? How can I make it for everybody? And I send it out. It might take an extra 10 15 minutes, but I set it out for everybody before the demonstration or the meeting and I, and then we start talking about the product and pricing and things like that. But I created reciprocity and then I started to realize, well, if I do that, how can, how else can I incorporate that into my sales cycle? And we started to do things like video. What can you give to people for free that everybody has but everybody feels valuable and it’s free knowledge. So I started doing webinars of sharing best practices and things like that, which costs us nothing. Video is free and using it right now. So I just thought I’d give that quick tip. Maybe not quick tip, but a tip on reciprocity in sales and how important it is to start reciprocity early and how it’s important to set the stage in order to negotiate later with your customers. Thanks a lot, guys.
Scott Ingram: If you’re a practitioner like Jason who regularly listens to this podcast. We’d love to hear one of your stories. What did you recently learn from a customer visit? A successful call you made? It could be anything, or maybe you’re more inclined to share something you learned from that time you fell on your face for our new #SalesFailsSaturday feature. Stay tuned for that tomorrow and you can learn more about Jason and find a link with details on how to submit your own tip at DailySales.Tips/405, oh and you can see Jason in the video version of this tip on that page well.
Thanks for listening and be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip!