Personal Presence!

“What I don’t like about Sandler is that it strips out the personality of the salesperson, it becomes all a bit of a straight jacket. I believe the real power is in the personality of the salesperson. Not a fan!”

My old contact had sat in hours of Sandler training at his old organisation and I had missed out probably the most important piece of the Technique triangle. “Personal Presence” is the top vertex of the triangle. In my defence, that’s a hard bit to train in a big in-house class which is still struggling with the basics, but the ex-Sandler student is right: without Personal Presence, any sales system is going to be reduced to a formula or worse, a soulless script.

So, what is Personal Presence? Sandler defined it as another triangle, this one with energy and communication at the bottom and Character at the top. Character drives the whole Sandler Technique.

What defines Character? In my training I suggest it too is a triangle. Integrity and Accountability on the bottom and Charisma at the top. That suggests that the whole Sandler system relies on Charisma. To be successful in revenue generation we must have charisma. In The “Charisma Myth” Olivia Fox Cabane defines several different charismas. The one that works best for the Sandler sales system is “Focus” charisma.

Luckily, this is a type that can be learned, acquired and developed. You don’t have to be born with it or wait for circumstances. If you want to be good at Focus Charisma, concentrate on the person in front of you as if there were the only person in the Universe. Listen, really listen to them as a whole person. You don’t have to agree with them, but you do have to make it clear you understand them.

That means using your whole self and a lot of concentration. When you are a buyer if you feel that someone really understands you, is really listening and really wants the best outcome for you, then you cannot help wanting to work with them to reach the right solution. Consequently, as a seller, if you deeply understand your contact, as a real person, you delay being in “solution mode” for as long as possible and are determined to get to the right solution with them, you will be demonstrating powerful Personal Presence.