Lessons

Lesson Info

11:30 am - Active Listening

With george came out we talked about one of the best things you can do for any sales process is too lif in see how this time I helped you let's talk about listening when it relates to objections on that white board we filled out yesterday the barriers to sail most of them were basically blowing down too concerns you had in your head about what could possibly happen concerns you had in your head about how you might be perceived and specific feedback you've heard from clients that tripped you up obstacles, objections correct so the question is if you're just be active listening isn't all listening listening I mean, what the heck this is just semantics, right? Right or wrong wrong active listening basically means that you're meeting focused on what's being said, which is the hardest thing in the world for us to do right now how many people at home just lost focus on what I said because you're out shopping and this is in your ear and you're like what active listening means it's not a passi...

ve event, which is how we treat it we think in our culture and the way we move today at the speed in which we move that anything that is active means the doing talking is doing listening is passive it's not doing you're just listening there just sitting there and active listening means you do things like clarify para fit paraphrase, what did you say if canada had called me up and said, I want photographs of being my cat from my grandma and I said and she just said shots, and I said, ok, then we're not for you and hung up the phone by not listening, I wouldn't have heard that she means to forty by sixty campus visas that would have killed myself because that's all you want in the world, that's all she wants in the world, encouraging people to elaborate on port anoints clear or here, and we take that a step further when you're sitting in a sale session and the client comes back to you with something that she thinks is a problem that was like, for instance, we don't have enough wall space here's a great example of we're listening concerto that if you were to say to me, you know, tamara, the sun's great, I love these images, but I mean, I don't have enough wall space, I could say, you mean, you don't have any more room on any of your walls for any photographs, or you just don't know where these air go or what exactly do you mean, and I'm not saying it like, what do you mean, I'm saying, what what exactly do you mean? And then you might come back and say, well, you know, I think about where my pictures go there either in the dining room and that that's already full from last year session or I think about going up the stairs and we still have those frame pieces up there from like when the kids were little and when I go up in the hallway we've got that great piece that work that we came back from italy you're getting them thinking and they're visualizing they're home and they're thinking about where these images could and couldn't go and immediately they are reinforcing what they told you initially which is we don't have enough wall space what I might do in that situation is say so when you said on this on the stairs those are all the pictures of when the kids were little now they're ten and twelve so is that are those still the focal point of your home that those images shot from ten years ago? Is that still what you want to be the focal point of your home? So I heard her I clarify fied I asked a question and then and then I asked her a thought provoking question is that what you still want as the centerpiece of your home and this is a really great opportunity for the client to stop and think like dora the explorer or stop and think I guess I don't need the yeah now it would be nice to have something fresh up there wouldn't it? I just yeah, I guess I do have balls makes and then you can sit there and talk about ok, well, what what if you move those into you said you had some open space in your play room but you don't these two go in your playroom what if we move those in your players because they're still viable significant images and we worked with this face for these images now is that something that might be interesting to you? And as you're talking, she is now thinking about it, considering it building new interest envisioning this home with these fresh new pieces in this living room that's been outdated because these prints have been there for ten years and it now sounds more interesting. Do you see that? Do you see how that is active listening and meeting an objection without saying yes, you do have wall space. We're having a conversation give me a name and if you like that all right. Do you have any questions about that as an example? Do you have any questions about that? Is the way definitely have a lot of questions. Okay, I'm the internet, um in general okay, well, you want me to keep jamming for a few minutes and we'll get this okay, so, um so moving on in terms of that part of the problem, of course is that objections aren't just produced by clients if I am waiting for client to say I don't have wealth enough well, space and my mind set is this trips me up every time I can't stand it when they say that and then she says it and my response is of course where did what what proactive thing did I do to solve that issue? Nothing if I'm thinking I want to push these prints on her, she just told me she doesn't want them on her wall then I'm not going to go to that next step and say, how do we solve this together? I'm going to let it go instead of giving her the opportunity to get energized, excited about new work on her walls and a new interior decoration kind of feel that's that's actually the exciting thing for people, right? Well, fresh things in my home like I want to give that as an experience if you're fine that your objection is actually coming from you at least notice that put it aside and actively listen to them because that really tripped you up there was the same thing that usually trips you out there that was yourself, but all right let's talk about the pregnant pause there is so much research out there about the power of silence about deliberate moments of silence. It's stunning if you think about music, musicians think justus much about the silent parts of music as the music, because especially in classical music and very impactful music, it's sometimes often such a big part of notes it's when the note doesn't be right, there's a lot of thought about that, and I think the power of taking a small break and letting something sink in can be really significant also may be awkward, but it stood out, right? Like I'm hammered and hammered and hammered, and suddenly I'm not you know what the pregnant pause does, don't you? It makes room for the birth of a sale. It was horrible, it was so bad, but in an instance like that where I'm talking to the client and she says, I don't have enough wall space and I say this and we have this dialogue, we talk about the fresh new pieces and I say, you know, might that be room for fresh new pieces that could go on the wall? And then she looks up at the images on the screen and she's thinking about it? Yeah, yeah, that would be good, I've given her a chance to process. Instead of doing, you think that might be good to go up on the wall and have some fresh new pieces? I mean just think about it, you want to think about it, I think that might be something you want to do because, you know, I could do that for you, I could do that for you this way I'm just launching into the solution and I didn't give her a chance to own it as much as this could be her idea she's buying into it more she's, more excited, it's less selling and it's more her vision. I wanted to be her vision because she's going to live with it let's, talk about another pause, les um, well, sexual boss, the transition bozz, what do we think about this pause? Do you know the transition pauses when I speak very quickly and I keep speaking quickly and I don't stop and then you say something and I immediately say something back and I keep going and then you say something and I meet lee say something there's, no gap between what you're saying and I'm saying for you to stop and think that I actually heard what you said, sometimes we rush our response so much, it sounds like interrupting, and often the intention is really positive we want them to know, and I got this this I learned the best tip in the world on this when I was doing when I was taping, capturing life, you better photography. I learned that if I give two seconds after some time when I've screwed up, when I say something, I delivered the wrong words. If I wait two seconds, then the editing room has time to be able to slice it, and they need two seconds of silence and said me running on and doing it again. So if I say, and then another great thing that block so another great thing back in the editing room, they have a chance to do something with this footage, but if I just kept going, they don't, and it was a wonderful habit for me to recognize that as we're going back and forth, if I take a moment, there's very little chance of having a race over you or I'm going to interrupt you. So if you two we have a microphone on me. Teo, you guys just do a normal exchange. Just three seconds of how you would normally have a conversation topic is peter bergen jelly sandwiches. Nicole, have you had any peanut butter and jelly sandwiches today? Jelly sandwiches, I'm gonna have one for lunch, I'm gonna mind has marshmallow on it. Ok good good does you a favor and incorporate two seconds do the same thing but it actually do two seconds and listen like listen to her and listen to her and make it like real for you hi nicole are you having peanut butter and jelly sandwich peanut butter and jelly sandwich today? Yes, I am. What are you gonna have for lunch today? I think I'm gonna have a feud over nearly sandwich of mars marshmallows on it if the dialogue more significant for instance, I could have given you like world politics. Um if but you see how you feel like consider respond, consider respond. The only thing about the transition pauses it it takes off the table the interrupting that we do all the time and I see this a lot in the sale sessions when we're going to go through sales sessions is not uncommon to feel like you want a russian and add your two cents or quickly say something and yet it makes the other person feel interrupted unheard unappreciated it becomes a pretty significant thing so actively thinking ok, I heard what you said let me give it a second and say something back is a great practice toe happen happened to practice practice toe have it by editing so hearing something saying it back is a great have it to practice can you guys fix that in editing for the re watch great all right, so it's all about this over and over and over again listening, clarifying, exploring thoughtfully summarizing, returning to the flow I mean it's a lot of steps but you still have george told me that pen it comes across more naturally when you just think about the fact that I want to actively hear what you're saying so I could actually respond to these objections listening I think we've get done a lot on this clarifying it simply like you say you don't have enough room on your walls what what is on your walls right now just tell me about that so there's no room what is taking up the room? What am I competing against explore this is like so where else could it go in your home let's think about it let's do this together thoughtfully summarize ok, so if you were to put them in the play room now you'd have this open wall space for something really fresh and interesting just to summarize what I do think we just said here today and return to the flow of the conversation okay, good well let's go on and talk about albums got it and here's another really, really good point don't ever overcome all objections you don't need tio in fact, if you don't they feel like that you're really listening and you really care about them you're not trying to sell them and everything if you say to me hey, you know what I know you just pointed out of campus but I think campus pieces look like just rags on a wall if you say that to me I have enough going on here that I don't need to sell you on the nature of canvas I just will tell you about another product I have that you may like better and I'll say great got it no canvas for you done I will never bring up dampers to you again now only eleven I show you that I respect what you're saying I want to be able to hear what you do want an offer a solution for that it's all just connecting, connecting, connecting ok, we're about to jump into pricing and sales you said there are a lot of questions there are kind of going back through what we've gone through that's all right yeah so we'll just start with the last one as far as the pregnant pause briana asked what if you want to keep control of the conversation should you still wait to second it's yes, yes, because you're setting the tone for the direction and part of controlling is controlling the pace of the conversation so if you really care that this is a thoughtful discussion and it's going in a deliberate way and you want to keep it from here to here to here by slowing things down it's often a relief to people they don't have feel like they've got a hurry up and say what they want to say before you cut them off yes so I want to just go back because we have about fifteen people twenty people asking questions about your packaging yeah that you know the back I'm sure yeah so what do you use for the larger prints the eleven by fourteen how much should we spend on it and um any suggestions? Yeah so kind of all of that just ideas for what we use for packaging for packaging the larger prints okay, so that you have a lot of options that depending on what you want to dio aa lot of the labs and the campus the ones you're creating white house architecture is now making campuses and in terms of prints a lot of them will offer some sort of packaging for their prince you can also do things separately for us we also have canvas bags we purchased a long time ago several canvas bags that are just used to present transport and then they're like grocery bags that get returned back in the cycle there's a lot of that out there if you walk through the the show thing it like a w p p irs for instance, you'll see all kinds of options like this permanent packages that people go home with or temporary ones that you can use just for presentation for the frame pieces for the large frame, peace is what we do is when they come back from our framer framer has already secured them in a way, so they basically have done the packaging, which means we've got the cushions on the edge to make sure nothing gets cracked. We've got it all wrapped up, and then we have a nice little just our ribbons, we have the moon ribbons on, we've got tissue, paper and it's just simply putting a bow on it, it's packaged up, ready to go, putting a bow on it for the larger pieces, like eleven by fourteen and up, we have four different box sizes, so these air from floppy prince five by seven under this is like eleven by fourteen, for instance, that they have mounted, but they're not getting framed by us. Then we have the larger boxes for that, um, for the, uh, think before the floorboards, the larger qatar boards, we used to have the can't think the term crash paper, I can't think of that, which was the kind of beige kind of thing that you get at the like of michael's or something, instead, now there's, that super thick, black framing backing, which is not called kraft paper, but it's called what's, that called back of the frame backing the frame black paper thing but it's the really thick one because there's a super thin ones that you could pop it whole through and there's a really thick ones that I feel like you know, museum pieces and that is just it acts as if like I won't won't and we do a nice wrap tape bo and we sarah or our associates or we'll do that on dh then we put our label on everything so everything comes with our label or it's stamped on the idea of we label the back of the prints we label the back with your boards we sign all of our prince with a pencil on the mat board any sort of framed pieces there's a lot of reasons for that and much of it has to do with just the artist showing their work and also ongoing marketing when other people see the work in someone's home for the packaging. Like I said, we have transitioned to all kind of iko packaging and that's just a personal choice about wanting to be a more green studio go paperless and have a lot more green options and so a lot of our ribbons around the ico paper which is that that cardboard but bamboo forest e kind of look you know I'm talking about I don't have the words for these things can you tell you don't order the packaging but when we sit down to make the decisions on them it's the what is that? What is that ribbon call that looks bamboo we raffi it's the raffi cover and that also comes out in the bottom of the package packaging like the actual ordering and the operations and keeping things filled it in stock in my studio I don't do that I helped make the decisions about what to get and where to get it but I'm a terrible person in terms of my towns do not lie in identifying rafi okay I have several questions I didn't answer anything yeah yeah good so I wanted to answer coming this is going back to the slide show I'm just going to ask like four or five of them sure okay. Copy coffee junkie from dallas would like to know if you put all sixty images in the slide show um yes yes ok um everything they see the slide shows everything we're gonna go through the presentation okay md wine would like to know if the show is built into your mentor high level packages where's the animal to show does not is not for everyone the most likely was for everybody. Okay, um let's ask and then kobo ass do you show all the best images in your slide show or is it mostly teaser it's every single image that I'm going to deliver to the client? Okay and then for wedding, when we shot weddings, which, again, I phased out of but having shot a few hundred two hundred fifty weddings, those were the best one hundred images of the day. That's exactly what it always wass the highlight reel. Okay, last one more, um, m four m four d, and I'm saying that wrong. Uh, would like to know what about sneak peeks on social media before the slide show goes up? Is that helpful? I have done that, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that? The biggest thing I think you have to keep in mind is the balance between marketing and sales. If you're the sneak peak, is meant to market your effort to not only show your client, but having to share it, have more people see it in such just don't put so much out there that you, it's going stale, that they, for all intensive purposes, have seen it so many times now that they don't have a desire to buy it. Sneak peeks are fine, but they should be, you know, just a few theo exception, of course, being if they already made a big purchase, and now you're sharing it, which is when I think is a better time to do it, so for weddings, for instance, if they've already with weddings that's priced very differently they bought the whole thing I was already good package that was really happy with on dso afterwards I was happy to share a lot of them on social media maybe one more because then we have about ten minutes till lunch s o a question from stacy tap photo how do you help people to rethink where things go on their walls if you're doing in studio sales and she's from organ if you're doing in studio sales right so you're not at the person's home yeah when I did that example just now I wasn't at her home I was saying tell me about how your home looks you give me the vision you know your home very well like I actually think that's more effective than walking through the home because walking through the home is me saying what I think she lives there she knows what it feels like when she rooms walks room to room and I'm saying she because that's who I sell to it's the she what you know walking through the home and stuff in her mind gets her thinking about yeah I guess I could do that again I do want this to be her idea so for me to say what if you took all those you know you're like ok, well how about this and we're exploring it together yes how do you get this size is like how you know that that wall in her living room is ninety inches, so that goes that, teo, before the shoot, when we're having a conversation, I'm again I'm or about the emotional engagement than the product demo, but finding out what they really want, I don't say go measure your wall so we're in the chute aiken delivered exact like this. I know that when I am delivering the images, a slide show that I have a lot of options in terms of high customer create this, what a crop, what I do with it later afterwards, when I say before we come into our discussion, we just get a sense of your home, that is what I say, and then we were exactly detail ing it out, we know that twenty by thirty that should be about fine, I I actually don't have them coming with exact measurements everywhere, but we will have something where we say, ok, we know we want a twenty by thirty ish we're gonna lock this down, who didn't call me so I know of its many in nineteen and a half by a thirty seven and a half or something if we need to exactly finesse it cause it's a really tight space, go ahead and let me know what that is, but we've already secured the order we know it's about this big that is a great tip I'm really glad you asked that because sometimes we get stuff on if I don't know right here while I'm talking to you exactly what to print for you I have to wait for you to go home before we close this order no we can close this order right now we have a rough idea the pricing is still going to be accurate you're not gonna it's very unlikely they're going to say to me I think it's about a seven by ten and then you call me from home and say it's actually a seventy by ninety way have a rough idea where we are does that make sense that should not stop up the sale I shouldn't have to have you leave before we can confirm that and that is also where again seeing the bigger picture and not getting lost and stuck in the details is significant because if I'm going to sit there and say to you well until you know exactly what it is I can't really do much here but that's all right we roughly know this let's get this down and if it ends up being something where it was the next print up and I charge her for the lesser print I'm fine with that if it ended being something that's closer twenty four by thirty and seven twenty by thirty and that would have been a different price point for instance I'm fine with that that's why you take those little hits for the bigger we closed it? We're done one more quick question we have to keep going. This came up for a few different people, so I just wantedto asked this is from just me who would like to know our ass so they don't view item as a client at the pick up. A lot of people were kind of wondering when they actually get their prints. They don't actually view what you sold them in front of you, you know? So you can kind of use that excitement understand where I'm going with us. I don't like when someone comes to pick up their large print that they just purchase, which is kind of the final product. What you the whole thing that you yeah, but they don't actually view it. They don't know they don't look at it in front of you or you don't go through the exciting oh my god, this is amazing! Yes, no, we dio so at the final time when we're looking at the prince, when they come in to get the prints, if they're not being delivered, were there opening them on packaging saying this, what do you think? Yes, it's absolutely let's, sit down and go through this let's sit down and look for the album real quick oh, yeah. You know, that is the fun part. Yeah. Ok. Yeah. I want to clarify that. Yes, I did. I say something that made you think otherwise. No, I think that maybe the people had maybe interpret that as when, you know, you were talking about packaging the large print and they the woman came your door and you're like, it's, the unseal seal like unc and look at it. Feels okay. Yeah, but they're first view of it. It's ready to go in the packaging, correct. And then u s or if it's in a in a bad a reusable bag that just that you would hold a campus he's ok. All right. That's clear digit. That was good. Yeah. Ok. That's actually, that nice, easier way to go should have toe on tape and the tape again? Yeah. I mean, you're always gonna have again, there's exceptions. Everything. You're always gonna have a client who just says, you know, I'm just getting my husband by he comes in he's like I wanted to say, I'm sure they're good, you know, fine, you're lost.