What is authentic persuasion? How do salespeople employ authentic persuasion to make sales and consistently meet their quota? What kind of mindset shift is required? Jason Cutter is a mindset and scalability expert who focuses on helping sales teams be more effective. In this episode of Negotiations Ninja, he tackles the concept of authentic persuasion to help you move past barriers and help more people.
Outline of This Episode
- [1:37] Learn more about Jason Cutter
- [2:58] What is authentic persuasion?
- [6:21] Mindset problems salespeople face
- [8:54] The line between persuasion and manipulation
- [13:29] Salespeople should be the guide, not the hero
- [19:20] Why you should stop stopping
What is authentic persuasion?
Authenticity is simply being yourself. You can’t try to play what you think the part of a salesman should be. Many people end up in sales and think they have to be an over-the-top extrovert dripping charisma. If that’s not you, it won’t work at scale. Instead, Jason emphasizes that you should work from your strengths. Stop trying to be something you’re not.
Persuasion is being intentional. You are going to actively work on moving someone out of their comfort zone to where they want to go to leave them in a better place. When combined with authenticity, it’s powerful.
If you’re 100% authentic but aren’t persuasive, you are a person that people really like, and you build great rapport—and you’re without a job. And if you’re 100% persuasive and lack authenticity, you’re the used car salesman everyone dreads.
The line between persuasion and manipulation
Jason believes that manipulation is an act of doing something to something else for your own benefit. When you want to make a bowl out of clay, you manipulate the clay. The clay doesn’t have a choice, nor do you care what its choice would be. When you manipulate people for your own benefit, you don’t care what happens to them.
The definition of persuasion is vague. But Jason prefers to focus on positive persuasion. The goal is to persuade someone for an outcome that benefits them first and then benefits you. Because if you’re providing value, you should win as well.
If you’re helping someone move forward and get unstuck, and it benefits them, and you’re using strategies and tactics to do it, but they’re still winning, that’s persuasion. But if you offer a prospect a discount on the last day of a quarter, you just bribed them to take action when they weren’t ready to meet your needs. That’s manipulation.
Jason challenges every sales leader: Go through your reports and look at all of the deals you did on the last day(s) of the quarter where you offered discounts to get people to take action. Then look to see if they are actually onboarded and how long they stay as a client relative to non-bribed clients. You’ll see that most of the forced deals are not good.
It’s okay to close deals at the end of the quarter and incentivize people who are on the fence if it benefits them. But pure bribery discounts to close deals to make your numbers? That’s manipulation.
Salespeople should be the guide, not the hero
The fundamental problem is that we are all human. As humans, we are all self-centered. We all think we’re the center of the universe. And in our daily lives, it’s true. The problem is that everyone else thinks the same thing. Everyone thinks that they’re the hero of the story. Salespeople and their companies think they’re amazing. It all comes down to perspective.
If they’re the hero, you become the sidekick—or the villain. You have to work hard to stay out of the villain role. You have to step back and be the guide. Show them how you’ve helped other people succeed. Build their trust. You’re a leader of the prospect instead of a salesperson.
Learn more about authentic persuasion in sales by listening to the whole episode!
Resources & People Mentioned
Connect with Jason Cutter
- Jason(at)CutterConsultingGroup.com
- Cutter Consulting Group
- Watch on YouTube
- Connect on LinkedIn
- Follow on Twitter
Connect With Mark
- Follow Negotiations Ninja on Twitter: @NegotiationPod
- Connect with Mark on LinkedIn
- Follow Negotiations Ninja on LinkedIn
- Connect on Instagram: @NegotiationPod