In our latest blog, we talked about how you can have “Beginners luck” forever, being a mannequin. Well, a smart doll, much like our favorite detective, Lieutenant Columbo. If he ever watched the hit TV series Colombo, you’ll know that he was a master at disarming suspects of him by looking and acting like he was a fool. And Colombo always caught his killer. You can do the same thing in sales by disarming your prospects when you play the fictional seller
master the fictitious curve it takes time and practice. It is a process that unfolds throughout your sales career. As you improve with the use of the fictitious curve Focus will accelerate your growth as you learn to put your prospects at ease and uncover their pain. Let’s take a look at an example of the fictitious curve in action:
Carlos is a salesman and works in the heater section of a department store. Carlos is a college kid who has a summer job in New England. As he may know, New England summers are quite hot. Not many people buy home heaters in July. Carlos patiently waits for a customer to come in, but since he hasn’t had prospects for hours and is tired of standing, he sits on a bucket to rest.
Finally, an old lady approaches and asks: “Do you have heaters?” Carlos gets down from his bucket and says: “Why yes, we do.” He takes her to the heaters and they go through them together. They are reading the boxes and pulling out the instructions. He is learning alongside her, which strengthens her bond and creates a relationship between them. Before long, the lady says, “I’ll take this. Now where do I pay for it, son?” Carlos says, “Well, right over there; let me walk you.” He carries the heater to the register, someone calls out to her, and she goes on her merry way.
Three weeks later, the company calls the department store manager and says: “Hey, your heater sales are up 300% during the same three weeks last year. What’s going on down there?” The manager replies, “Well, we have this boy named Carlos, he sits in a bucket.” Corporate then torts, “Well, send him here to heater school. He’s doing great. Let’s make it even better.”
So Carlos goes to heater school and learns about BTUs, radiant heats and much more, increasing his knowledge of heater products. When he returns to the store a week later, he sits on the bucket again, only this time he’s leaning forward. Another old lady walks into the heater department. Before he can say anything, Carlos jumps out of the bucket and says: “I can help?” “Okay, yes,” he says, taking a step back, “I’m looking for a heater.” “Oh boy, we have heaters!”says Carlos enthusiastically.
Carlos shows her all the products and gives her the dog and pony show, talking about the fifteen different types of leg warmers he has in the store. He goes on and on, layering features on benefits, bombarding the lady with all the information she learned in heater school. He finally stops and asks: “Do you have any questions?“She says, “Only one.”Carlos replies, “Yes, what is that?” She says meekly, “Will it keep a little old lady warm?” Carlos isn’t sure what to say. Exhausted, the old lady walks away and doesn’t buy a heater.
For the next three weeks, Carlos’s sales are very low. As he sits on his bucket, he begins to wonder why his numbers plummeted. “I was doing so well,” he thinks of himself. “Then I went to heater school. When I re-introduced my product knowledge, I did worse. Hmm. I’m going back to what I used to do in the beginning. Ask a lot of questions, listen a lot, and not talk as much.”
Carlos is back to doing some of the things he did before the product training, on purpose, like asking questions instead of giving monologues about the product and features. Suddenly, he notices that his heater sales are up again. Carlos answers the prospects’ questions very politely with his own questions, and in the process discovers the true intent of his questions. Carlos is uncovering the pain. He notices more people linking to him and more people buying instead of excusing himself by saying: “I’ll think about it.” He does even more of these “dummy” things on purpose, and crashes the previous weeks’ goals, at which point the corporate office calls him to congratulate him. Carlos discovers that he is not working as hard and is selling more. Pretty silly, huh?
Oh, one more thing: Stay tuned for more information on Dummy Curve. In our next blog, we will cover the three stages of the Dummy Curve.
