Rating Qualities

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Concrete Examples
Insider's Take

Consistency Selling
Powerful Sales Results. Every Lead. Every Time.
Weldon Long | Greenleaf Book Group © 2018

Best-selling author Weldon Long asserts that you can get sales prospects to commit to your price,
make timely decisions and agree not to solicit competing proposals – all by using his proven
“consistency-selling” process. By age 40, Long was a high school dropout and three-time convicted
felon. Since then, he’s written two books – The Power of Consistency and The Upside of Fear
– and developed a psychologically powerful selling system for salespeople and sales managers.
Long, who’s taught his psychology-based sales system to thousands of sales professionals over the
years, tells you how to use it to eliminate objections in advance and close new business. He offers
detailed, practical advice for salespeople who wish to improve their closure rates and earnings.

Take-Aways
• A random sales process always delivers random results.
• In contrast, a “consistent” sales process delivers consistent results.
• The “consistency selling” method, which is based on Robert Cialdini’s “consistency principle”,
follows four steps:
• “Build a relationship,” “Investigate the problems,” “Sell your company and your solutions,” and
“Conclude the sales call.”
• Salespeople control the sales process. Prospects control the results. So salespeople must focus
on their process, not their results.
• Clients feel at risk when they worry that buying from you will turn out to be a mistake and
when they don’t yet trust you.
• To gain trust, offer a strong guarantee and communicate a “signature story” about a satisfied
client who used your guarantee.
• Demonstrate “high character” and “high competence.”

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 • Assess your prospect’s situation to learn all the problems your products can fix. The more
problems you can solve, the more money you’ll make.
• Successful salespeople have a “prosperity mind-set.”

Summary

A Consistent Approach Generates Consistent Sales

Many salespeople find that their sales tallies go up and down. These results seem totally random,
but that’s the logical, inevitable result of sales activities that are also random. Random selling
methods can’t deliver consistent sales results. To achieve steady sales, you need a consistent sales
process, which means engaging in the same reliable actions during every sales call.

“Consistent sales activities produce consistent results.”

Consider the “consistency principle” developed by psychologist, author and marketer Robert
Cialdini: “Private declarations dictate future actions.” This means that people are, generally
speaking, internally consistent; they will take actions that match the messages they tell
themselves. Similarly, what people say to others – or what prospects say to salespeople – dictates
their subsequent actions.

“You can make a living in sales by finding what people want and need. You can make a
fortune by understanding the emotions that are driving the purchasing decision.”

Successful salespeople consistently get prospects to say, up front and in public, that they don’t
need numerous proposals from different vendors, that price isn’t the controlling criterion for the
sale and that it’s not necessary to “think about it” further when it comes to your sale. If you can get
prospects to state these assertions, you will make more sales.

Process Versus Results

Selling consists of “the sales process and the sales result.” The sales process is the total of your
actions to sell to someone: calling on prospects, determining their sales needs, making
presentations, and so on. You control the sales process. Your prospect controls the sales result. He
or she either buys from you or doesn’t. Staying focused on the sales process, not the sales results,
will reduce your worries and increase your sales.

Minimizing Your Prospect’s Risk

Your sales process does not need to be complicated. It needs to be consistent. Whatever your
process turns out to be – and everyone’s is unique – make this part of it: When you are with a
prospect, look for the problems that your product or service can solve for the prospect’s company,
and say aloud that you can fix them. Strive to gain the prospect’s trust to minimize or eliminate

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 his or her risk, which comes from the prospect’s worries about making a bad purchasing decision.
More trust and less risk increases the likelihood of making a sale. Less trust and more risk reduces
that likelihood.

“A sales job gives you the opportunity to create…prosperity, but…you must have the
skills, talents and processes that will turn the opportunity into money.”

When prospects think about whether to buy, numerous questions enter their minds.
These questions all come down to how much risk they might incur if they make the wrong
purchasing decision. When risk overwhelms prospects’ thinking, they fret along these lines: “I
want more bids/proposals, I want a cheaper price” or “I want to think about it.” You want to
eliminate these thoughts from your prospect’s mind. The more risk you extinguish, the less likely it
becomes that a prospect will pursue those worrisome thoughts.

The Three Ways to Mitigate Risk

Incorporate three risk-reduction methods in your selling routine:

1. Provide an ironclad guarantee – The best guarantee is a “risk-reversal” guarantee.

Author Weldon Long’s air conditioning company offers prospects a 100% financial guarantee if
they become unhappy with their purchase anytime during the first year.
2. Make a “signature story” the bedrock of your selling process – Use your story to
demonstrate how your ironclad guarantee eliminated a prospect’s risk in the past. If you can,
get a signature story in writing from a completely satisfied customer.
3. Encourage the prospect to trust you – To earn trust, convincingly demonstrate “high
character” and “high competence.”

“The more you stay focused on diagnosing problems and finding solutions for your
customers, the more you will generate sales through high service.”

Minimizing or eliminating risk is only part of consistency selling, which follows four steps:

Step 1: “Build a Relationship”

Relationship building occurs over the course of your initial contacts, meetings and deliberations
with your prospects. You want to be liked – but never desperately. Salespeople’s neediness always
backfires with prospects. To get your prospects to like you, make it clear that you like them. You
can work to develop this factor – as your client can’t tell that you’re working on it.

“Building a relationship with your prospect always begins with getting them to like
you and identifying commonalities…The best way to accomplish both of these is with
questions.”

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 Ask simple questions to establish common ground with your prospects. A viable
relationship depends on showing that you’re a person of high character. To demonstrate, you can
tell an amazing – the more amazing the better – signature story that shows how well your firm
treated a client in the context of its 100% guarantee. Go into the details of the guarantee. If your
firm doesn’t provide an ironclad guarantee, offer the prospect your personal guarantee that he or
she will be satisfied. For example, you might say, “I will personally move heaven and earth to
resolve any issue to your satisfaction.”

“Prospects are more informed and sophisticated than ever…Whether or not they bring up
price or competitive offers or any other issue, they are thinking about them. Ignore that
at your own peril.”

Ask prospects if they’re willing to select your company conditionally based on your promise to
achieve the desired outcome and to guarantee total satisfaction over rivals who “might tell you
anything to get your business.” Get the prospect to make this affirmation publicly.

If you have adequately explained how your guarantee eliminates the prospect’s risk and if your
signature story is sufficiently compelling, you have a strong likelihood of getting the positive
answer you want. Plan to use third-party experts to demonstrate that your firm and its offerings
always satisfy your clients or go beyond your industry’s commercial standards.

“Consistency Anchors”

Consistency anchors are public declarations that the prospect makes early in the sales process
because you’ve persuaded him or her to go public about specific sales issues. For example, you
want your prospect to declare that price shouldn’t be the controlling factor in the purchase
decision, that multiple bids won’t be necessary, and that he or she won’t need a long decision-
making process about whether or not to buy.

“On every sales opportunity there comes a point where it’s time to fish or cut bait, and if
you go beyond that point, you are playing a fool’s game.”

During your conversations with your prospect, constantly ask questions to prompt him or her to
issue statements that will lead to a purchase. When you bring up these issues proactively and get
the prospect to put them to rest in public, he or she will be unlikely to raise these objections again
during the conclusion of the sale. You want to make sure that the prospect’s last public statements
to you don’t leave the door open for future delaying tactics, such as saying they need multiple bids,
a lower price or more time to think.

“‘No’ is a perfectly acceptable answer. It’s the ‘I don’t knows’ and the ‘I’ll call you next
Tuesdays’ that will destroy your income-earning potential.”

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 Consistency anchors are an essential component of the “consistency-selling process.” Sales success
requires getting prospects to make public declarations early on that align with buying from
you later. If they change their story later, for example, during the close, hold them accountable
for their previous commitments and public statements. Gently insist on consistency. This
shouldn’t take much persuasion.

“Human beings are uncanny in their ability to smell a rat and…run in the opposite
direction. The last thing we do is write…a check.”

According to the consistency principle, people want their past statements and current statements
to be consistent. When correctly utilized, consistency anchors get your prospects to agree in
advance to a three-part story, which unfolds as follows:

1. Connecting with a reliable, trustworthy and competent firm is a more crucial requirement than
securing multiple competitive proposals.
2. When considering a purchase, the cost isn’t the most important criterion.
3. It won’t be necessary to extend the decision-making process on this sale. The prospect can
quickly make a “definitive decision.”

Step 2: “Investigate the Problems”

The more problems you uncover and solve for prospects through your offerings, the more money
you will make. During this sales step, demonstrate your competence as an astute analyst of the
prospect’s problems. By exhibiting competence, you enhance the prospect’s trust in you. This is
essential. You can’t sell to people who don’t trust you.

Step 3: “Sell Your Company and Your Solutions”

By this point you have developed a strong relationship with your prospect and thoroughly
investigated the problems his or her company has that you can solve with your offerings.
Now explain compellingly why your offerings are the ideal solutions to these issues. Always ask the
prospect’s permission to offer your commercial recommendations. Conduct a product or service
demonstration that shows the effectiveness and value of your offerings, as well as your and your
firm’s inherent trustworthiness.

Step 4: “Conclude the Sales Call”

Before discussing the particulars of this crucial step, note the phrase “conclude” the sales call, not
“close” the sales call. The reason for this phrasing is that no matter how great a salesperson you
may be, no one can close 100% of all possible sales. But you can conclude all sales, one way or the
other. In consistency selling, the old ABC (Always Be Closing) approach has little relevance. In the
reverse of that sales principle, featured in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, you should spend 90%
of your time and energy cultivating the relationship and only 10% of your efforts on closing.

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 “The higher the risk, the harder it is to say yes; the lower the risk, the easier it is to say
yes.”

Leverage your prospect’s previous consistency and anchor statements to bring the sale to a
successful end. After you formalize your commercial recommendations for solving your prospect’s
problems, ask the prospect for the order. Also ask for his or her continued trust. Be bold, brave
and direct. Put your request in these terms: “Will you trust me?”

“A ‘prosperity mind-set’ is [vital] if you are serious about creating wealth…in your sales
career.”

Remember that prospects without consistency anchors are highly likely to raise the common
objections that the price is too high, that they need alternate bids and that they need more time
to think about buying. Avoid this by proactively getting your prospects to agree to consistency
anchors. Getting them on the record in advance forestalls these common objections. Committed
prospects won’t bring up these issues during closing. They will want their final declarations during
the closing to be consistent with their earlier declarations.

“To temporarily change your sales results, focus on your actions…to permanently change
your sales results, focus on your thoughts.”

Proactively address any weaknesses, real or otherwise, that prospects may perceive. Get rid of all
“excuses, justifications and objections” to secure a “final decision” from your prospect when you
are together. You want a yes, but a no is acceptable. You want a definitive answer. What you don‘t
want is ambiguity in the form of “irrational hope.” In sales, ambiguity is always the kiss of death.

“You have 100% control over how well you do your job, and…0% control over how well
the prospect does their job.”

Organize your appointments so your prospect makes this all-important sales decision in your
presence. Once that is done, the prospect is more likely to volunteer a yes instead of a no. No one
wants to reject someone face-to-face. If you employ consistency anchors to eliminate standard
objections before the prospect raises them, you will successfully conclude a large number of sales.

“The Prosperity Mind-Set”

Your expectations about your sales performance will determine the sales you make. If you think
prospects care only about price and your product isn’t the low-price leader, you won’t expect to
make sales. Your negative thinking shows a negative mind-set and will become a self-fulfilling
prophecy.

“You can’t make someone care about something they don’t care about.”

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 Instead of this negative mind-set and the poor sales results it ultimately delivers, adopt a positive
mind-set – or, more specifically, a prosperity mind-set. To illustrate, if you think that prospects
need the superior quality that your products or services deliver and that they will pay for this
increased value, you increase chances of selling to them. To support your prosperity mind-set,
keep your specific income and sales goals in mind.

Focus on the Process

You can always control the sales process, but you can never control the results. Smart salespeople
focus on the process. As you talk with your prospect, steadily ask questions that encourage
him or her to make statements that point to buying. Then the closing – or, more accurately, the
conclusion – will be an easy, stress-free conversation between you and your prospect. Consistency
– plus the prospect’s regular declarations of intent to buy from you – will lead to sales success.

About the Author

Motivational speaker Weldon Long wrote The Upside of Fear and the best-selling The Power of
Consistency. After walking out of a homeless shelter in 2003, he began working in sales. Within
five years, he built his sales company to more than $20 million in sales.

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