I was working in a call center for a short period of time and sold the accessory package for Ron Popeil’s Rotisserie Oven. When I first began at the call center, I had a difficult time with this type of selling. I was much better at face-to-face selling, so this was very different. It was more of a “one shot” closing over the phone of a product. There was one individual at the call center (whose name is John) that was knocking them dead. He was out-producing everyone at a ratio of two-to-one. After working there for a week or so and struggling (this was before I tried the modeling techniques) I decided to interview and record John and see what he was saying to close so effectively. I had just read about “Modeling” people and I had previously heard of the concept of “find out what successful people do – exactly – and do it and find out what unsuccessful people do and don’t do it.” so I took the recording of John home and studied it.
At first, I only copied his script, which was basically the same as everyone else’s in the call center and tried to use it. I did a little better than before but still not as well as he was doing. I then took two tape recorders and placed them side by side. I listened not only to what he said but how he said it “exactly.” When he breathed on the tape, I breathed. When his voice went up, mine went up. When he spoke softly, so did I. I tried to model every one of his nuances while tape recording myself saying the very same words. I then played it back at the same time as the tape of John’s voice. When my voice sounded the same as his, I tried it on the phone with live customers. The results were phenomenal. My sales immediately shot up.
By adding closing techniques, anchoring, and embedded commands I became the number one telemarketer in the company and was promoted to Corporate Trainer. It wasn’t until I Modeled John’s nuances precisely that this worked. I think sometimes people feel that if they just say the same words as another person, it will work for them as well as it did for the person, they took the script from. If that were true, everyone would be successful, because they all would be saying the same words. It’s not just “what” you say – it’s “how” you say it that makes the difference.
During my interview with John, I also discovered that he came across as a very caring individual over the phone. He unknowingly applied the concept of “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” When I asked him why he felt he was so successful, he asked me if I had ever tried the product. I told him no. He said try it and then get on the phone. A couple of us at the call center tried the product, which was designed to enhance the flavor of the meat you cooked in the oven, it really tasted good. So, another lesson learned was that “you have to believe that what you are selling really works and will benefit the customer” before you can sell it with conviction. In other words, “know your product.”
Precise modeling is not easy to do, but it is well worth the effort. As the Corporate Trainer of this company, I used modeling to train all the people at the call center and currently teach it at every sales seminar I conduct. Robert Dilts book titled ” Modeling With NLP” is an excellent resource to learn the techniques of Modeling.