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6. Inside Sales Tactics: Protect Yourself and Make Informed Choices
29 Plays1 year ago
Join Brian and Paul in this eye-opening episode of the Exposeco podcast as they reveal the strategies and psychological tricks salespeople use to close deals. Learn how tactics like building rapport, eliminating objections, and creating urgency can influence your decisions without you even realizing it. Whether it’s a scratch-and-dent pitch or a “call to the boss” maneuver, discover how to identify these techniques and protect yourself. This episode empowers listeners to slow down, take control of the buying process, and make smarter, more confident decisions.
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Transcript
Introduction and Topic Overview
00:00:15
Speaker
Good evening. Hey, this is Brian from Exposed Co. I'm with here with my co-host, Paul. Paul, how are you doing tonight? Good. How are you doing, Brian? I'm doing good. I'm i'm enjoying this the season. It's a Christmas season, and so we've got holiday lights everywhere around me. Tonight, we've got this really interesting topic. Last week, we had talked about can we trust salespeople, but tonight, we're going to dive into some of the things that people are going to hear when a salesman walks through their door.
Building Rapport and Humanizing
00:00:44
Speaker
So what are the common sales tactics? Paul, can you help us out here? Definitely. there's
00:00:49
Speaker
huge long list of tactics that salespeople use, right? There's formal trainings, there's just the genuine guys that have great personalities that end up being able to transform that into a sales pitch.
00:01:03
Speaker
or build a relationship and and be ah a decent salesperson just based off of personality. But I think tonight what we'll do is kind of dive in a little bit in the personality side but also the the skilled train side as well. And you know, common sales tactics are first and foremost is you've got to like the person in your house. So you got to have a personality to break down barriers. You've got to be able to make people feel comfortable with you in their home. So with that, a common thing for a salesperson to do is to find some common interest in with the person. So they're going to try and they're going to look around your house and see kind of what your interests are based on what they can see.
Conversation Manipulation Techniques
00:01:47
Speaker
I mean, if you have family with kids, they're going to talk about their kids, they're going to ask them the ages, they're going to have, oh, yeah, Johnny, I i had ah him at
00:01:55
Speaker
talking about your life and getting them into different weather is the soccer what not there really doing whatever they can to. create a humanization. they They want to humanize themselves. Because when you when a salesperson comes to your house, you are already on the defense. You're kind of you're nervous. You don't know what to think. So this a good sales guy's tactics is to break down that barrier, make that you feel comfortable. And the way to do that is generally build a relationship. And how you build a relationship is you're able to spark a conversation, keep the conversation going.
00:02:34
Speaker
but What people don't realize is an extremely good salesperson.
Eliminating Objections Early
00:02:39
Speaker
They will work that conversation in a direction that you have no clue that it's going. They will manipulate that conversation to be able to actually create an outcome at the end of the day for you to have no reason to say no to them when it comes to their project that they're going to propose to you.
00:03:02
Speaker
And I've actually, I've gone through the training, so I know exactly how they do it. It's an extremely effective tactic to be able to work through the different ways to to break down those barriers. Common term in sales is objections. So when somebody throws an objection, they're saying no, it's a negative thing. You don't want objections. You want people to be agree agreeing upon what you're trying to sell them. A good salesman from when they get started talking to you in the home,
00:03:32
Speaker
they'll be manipulating that conversation and they'll be getting rid of objections up front. So they will find the things that you're going to normally i' be able to object to at the end of the meeting and they're going to eliminate those
Awareness of Sales Tactics
00:03:48
Speaker
objections up front. So that way they don't have to deal with them at the end. It's a lot easier to get rid of them up front. Let me give you an example. If somebody came to your house and I'm the sales guy and said, are you looking for the most quality system or are you looking for the cheapest price? The common thing would be I'm looking for the most quality system is I'm not looking for the cheapest price because people think of cheap as not good, right?
00:04:12
Speaker
So that's eliminating an objection at the end to where if you if they say, hey well, why aren't you going with the system today? And they you can't say, well, I'm looking for a cheaper price because you've already told them.
00:04:27
Speaker
that I'm not looking for a cheaper price. And there's a long list of different items that are common that people say, like another one would be the the question you'd ask is, is there another person that needs to be involved in this decision? There's, it's a really big decision. We want to make sure everybody is aware of the decision that's being made and the, and also the design that we're coming up with. And if the person says, Oh, no, no, no, no I'm the decision maker. I'm the only one. So at the end.
00:04:55
Speaker
It's common for people to say, well, I need to talk to my wife or my spouse or my my husband. And that's for a salesperson to be able to, they just eliminated that excuse because you just told them that you will be the one making that decision. So those are two, I mean, those are two pretty big ones actually, that are common things for people to be able to get out of being stuck in a conversation.
00:05:18
Speaker
but They don't have being able to overcome the expose code objection of I won't, I can't be making this decision because I have exposed co looking at my quotes and they will help me make this decision. So that's why we're here. Yeah. and I love that. Actually count three of those tactics. Like you mentioned.
00:05:38
Speaker
three there because people probably don't realize the moment a salesperson walks in the door and as soon as they start talking about something unrelated to the reason why they're there.
00:05:50
Speaker
they are already starting to sell to you. like They walk through the door, they see you know a sign on your wall for your favorite sports team, and they start, oh, you're a Padres fan. Oh, you're a Packers fan, whatever that is. That is actually a part of their spiel. They're beginning to warm you up. Oh, you watch football. I watch football. Not just warm you up, but they're creating rapport with you.
00:06:13
Speaker
And like, as you know, you have to realize that that is actually part of the sales pitch because they're getting comfortable. That's the surprise to me, I think, because I think that that's friendliness. Like that's, that's what I like from people is to be really warm and friendly. And I i like to be around people who are interested in the things I'm interested in, but isn't it ironic when salespeople come through our door, they're suddenly interested in the exact thing that I'm interested in, whether it's fishing.
00:06:40
Speaker
whether it's ah sports or or if it's like kids, stuff like that. you know and It's already beginning. So that's tactic number one that I think people should be aware of the moment a salesperson walks in. There's already an agenda and the agenda is being achieved the moment they shake your hand, look upon your walls, notice your clothing,
00:07:02
Speaker
They begin to mirror your demeanor, your style, your pace of talking, all of those things are all meant to make somebody feel comfortable. And that's something that people are just aloof to because they don't realize how how fine tuned the salesman can be.
00:07:18
Speaker
And then the second thing you said was they'll already begin to eliminate your objections without you even knowing it. They set you up in the beginning. That's so that's so fascinating. ah It seems like a hard thing to do. I would imagine like there's quite a bit of education that goes into that sales process. Prepare a salesman to be able to say, let's eliminate the potential objections, like the cost objection, like the spousal objection. I mean, I just think that's fascinating. I think everybody needs to know that there is a lot at stake to veering off topic and and ah with a salesman because they're going to they're not just having a great conversation, they're remembering what you're saying because they're going to use it later.
Sales Training and Techniques
00:07:59
Speaker
so that you feel trapped in your own words. Yeah, it's crazy because it may take a lot of training up front to to get all those handling those objections up front. But the fact is, is these guys are doing this every single day for their job. So when they're doing it for their job every single day, they're living and breathing conversations with people.
00:08:19
Speaker
and they have this thing memorize like the back of their hand so when they roll up to your house they already have an agenda of exactly how they're gonna steer this conversation there really they get to be really good at it believe me i know and they.
00:08:36
Speaker
Literally from the way they they stand at your doorstep, that's all trained. they the Where they park, that's training. They know exactly where to park. They know how far to stand away from your door. You don't ever stand on the platform. You stand a couple steps down.
00:08:51
Speaker
You always stand, I always stand with one foot below one step and one foot above the other one. Just it's it's a really, you wanna be in a non-confrontational demeanor. So you wanna be as soft as possible when they open up that door. So there it's crazy how much thought goes into every single step of the whole process. And people don't realize that. People think that it's just a contractor coming to your house. And there are just contractors that come to your house, but, and they may have zero sales training like that.
00:09:20
Speaker
But if you're having large companies come and give you quotes on replacing your air conditioning heating system or any other home service, likely those salespeople are well trained because those organizations don't produce what they do without having some type of structured sales training. And that's kind of what you're going to experience is you're going to have the most talent coming out of those organizations.
00:09:44
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, there's there's a lot to it. And this is like you said, there's a definite need for people to have a locked up excuse, a reason to say no. And sure, people can have that backbone. And I think a lot of people do have that backbone and say, I'm not gonna make a decision today, but you still want to have somebody else to look over your thing, even if you are that person.
00:10:07
Speaker
But if you're not really that person, you kind of know yourself, you're not really that great at telling people no, you feel bad, you know, a little bit guilty at disappointing people, because that's a salesperson, a good salesperson, I think would make you feel a little bit guilty, like you wasted their time. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not a salesman myself, but I i could see it being used. If that's the case, then you definitely want to be able to say, Hey, I've got a company. I've got, I've hired a team of people.
00:10:37
Speaker
to help me discern this process of buying this heating and air conditioner. like I want to make sure I'm making a good decision and i and I trust you, but I also want to have another set of eyes on this. So what i what we have is I've hired them to look over my proposal. So just can you can you give me my proposal and we'll get back to you. Like that is lightning.
00:11:02
Speaker
Totally. and I think it's trust but verify. right so trust but verify and If the salesperson has nothing to hide, he's going to be totally okay with that. It's just going to confirm what he sold you.
00:11:16
Speaker
what he's told you, he should have no qualms about it because he should be confident in what he's actually given you and that it fits with what you actually need and he's going to be able to explain that out and make sure that that's accurate and he's not overselling you
Common Sales Tactics Exposed
00:11:33
Speaker
on anything. If he doesn't want to give you the proposals because you got a lot to hide. All right, so let's let's go right down the scenario that Okay, we hired ExposedCo. We got the contractors there, the the clients there, and they' they're going over everything.
00:11:48
Speaker
And then the contractor pulls the, oh, uh, I understand that you hired this company, but here's the, here's the issue. I can offer you 15% off of this right now. And in fact, I have one of these units in my warehouse and it's got a little ding on the side. It's not going to affect performance, but I can't sell it to you as brand new. So I have to discount it, but you got to buy it now. This is the thing you've got to buy it now. What about that sales tactic? What do you do?
00:12:14
Speaker
I mean, that's, that's a extremely common sales tactic in the industry as well. The industry is filled with open slots that they're trying to fill up with people to be able to keep their guys working. So they'll throw out discounts all the time to make that happen. But the reality of it is if they're willing to do it now, they're willing to do it later. And the only time that they're not going to be willing to do it is probably during their busy season, which is going to be either summertime or wintertime.
00:12:41
Speaker
depending on where they're at. There is some obviously places that people run their heating and air all year long, but if people are throwing out big discounts to get you to sign up, a lot of times that discount will stay valid even if you have somebody else look over your stuff. So what's the truth of that though? Is there is there really ah a unit that's nicked up in a warehouse? Is it really true that like this is only available for if I sign this paper in the next 25 minutes or whatever? No, that's a kind of a dirty sales tactic that I think is used quite often. There's people that will use any trick in the book to be able to get you to sign on that dotted line. An urgency, that's they got to find ways to create urgency and being able to throw out. I mean, of course, somebody could have a ah scratch and dent unit for sure. That's definitely a thing.
00:13:33
Speaker
but it's a very, very rare thing. And the chances of it showing up at your doorstep is pretty dang rare. I'd be super skeptical on the person that's offering that. And the sign now, if they're doing ah price increases, price increases usually happen at the beginning of the year. So if you're getting price increases, I mean, COVID was a definitely an anomaly. There was a couple of price increases that happened throughout the middle of a year and different quarters and such.
00:14:03
Speaker
but that was pretty rare. Normally you're seeing ah only a price increase once a year. So people throw that out there too. Rebates are ending. If people are offering rebates, they are either paying for those rebates or they're just doing internal discounts in their company to make them look like rebates. And that's a common tactic as well as like labeling a discount or rebate. You can read through that one by asking them who's actually providing the rebate and how is it being done? And if it's the manufacturer that's giving the rebate,
00:14:33
Speaker
that person or that contractor is actually paying for that rebate through that manufacturer. So it's all a big scheme. It's just like 0% financing. If somebody's giving you 0% financing through a bank, well, they're paying for that percentage rate because the bank doesn't loan money for free.
00:14:54
Speaker
There's no banks that do that. And if they are doing that, they're getting paid somehow. And it's usually through the back end of the loan, through the service provider or the equipment manufacturer, but it's like most often the service provider that's paying for it.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, that is so, oh my gosh, you're blowing my mind here with this. You are blowing my mind. This kind of goes back to a part of our earlier conversation with the scratch and dent. You already know this, and I don't know if our listeners know this, that when somebody offers a scratch and dent,
00:15:27
Speaker
like let's say an air conditioning unit, the reality is even if they do have a scratch and dent one in their warehouse or whatever, the likelihood of that scratch and dent one being an actual match for what that person needs is like it increases the odds where super unlikely. so Here's the reality is you would probably never want to buy a scratch in that one because what you need for your house or for your apartment or for your condo, whatever it is, is going to be a unique fit. and There's not like you know one size fits all AC units. You need a specific size. You need specific things about it. so
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah, that and that just dawned on me about how sleazy that is. As soon as you hear, yeah, well we've got to scratch and dent one of these. i would My ears would perk up because I would feel a little like I trust less that because the likelihood of that matching is just so much smaller.
00:16:25
Speaker
there's There's also, I mean, a tactic that we haven't touched on and I think is really important. It's called the close from authority. So what that is is basically the salesperson goes, you know what, I know that we're trying to fill up the schedule. So what I'm going to do, and I don't do this very often. And the way they do is be really smart about it is they'll eliminate your objection before they make the phone call. They'll say, my boss is super busy. I don't want to call him unless you're really serious about getting this done. Like, is is that even an option? Because I'm not going to call him if you're not interested. But I mean, a lot of times I can get him to definitely get a good deal. But I just don't want to call him if you're not really interested in taking advantage of that.
00:17:04
Speaker
Wow. Getting a verbal commitment from them saying, oh yeah, yeah, no, no, call them. Paper pressure, oh my gosh. So that's ah definitely a common sales tactic. And you're basically getting the person to say, oh yeah, call them. And at that point, the salesperson knows that that's a deal. That's like a 95% chance that you're going to close that deal and then make the phone call. And then they're calling so another sales guy who is trained to be able to take these phone calls and that basically is gonna play a script and say, oh, Susie, you called at the right time.
00:17:44
Speaker
I mean, I really need to keep these guys working tomorrow. um I've got one more slot to fill, one more. If you want if you're willing to take that slot, I can knock 500 bucks off today. How does that sound? Oh, geez, that would be amazing. Then closes the deal. Or, yeah, I wasn't as not much of a discount. Oh, okay. Well, what were you thinking was a discount that would make it so you'd make that move to fill my schedule? It would really help me out.
00:18:11
Speaker
and I know my guys need the work. There's so many different, they can go pretty far with it. But that's a common sales tactic and it's called the close from authority.
Slowing Down the Buying Process
00:18:20
Speaker
They use it on service services as well so like you'll get a tune up guy that will come in and tune up your system. and say something's wrong with it, and they'll turn it over to a sales guy. And that sales guy will actually close them on selling a new system. So there's a lot of like scary things out there that people have no idea that are happening to them. And they go from doing $49 tune up that they see at Home Depot
00:18:46
Speaker
to buying a $20,000 heating and air conditioning system in that same day. That's a common thing in the industry. So if you are not aware of it, you can definitely be taken into that situation real quick by hiring the wrong guy. Yeah.
00:19:02
Speaker
And what we're trying to do is just slow people down. Just slow down. We don't, you know, as expose code, we don't expect you to understand or we even be prepared for all of these tactics. What we're trying to say is just slow down. Let us help you. Let us help you make good decisions and not feel pressured by some Salesman who calls the boss and it's actually the other salesman across the line who's feeding you. Oh, man, that that gives me like the heebie jeebies and I'm feeling for Susie right now. I'm like sweating for her just thinking about it, you know.
00:19:38
Speaker
you You said exactly right. Slow down. and Us as Americans, we we're always moving. Everybody's always got something going on. They're always busy. They want convenience. They want to just get it done and be done with it. That's the majority. I would say there's obviously there's some people that are very analytical, the engineers. and Those type of people but the sales guys they feed off that they love that they want that mentality they want to keep pushing the ball down the road and ah get that that deal closed and get that system installed and yeah I think the biggest slogan that we can ever come up with is slow down slow down we've we've got you we've got your back.
00:20:18
Speaker
Let us look it over. Let us help you to make sure that you're not getting into something and you're just not making a big mistake. Exactly. Cool. Jeez. My mind is in a bunch of pieces in my brain. I'm going to just say that this has been so helpful for me and I hope it's helpful for our listeners. Get to know ah your salesman and get to know their sales tactics and hopefully this, this has been helpful.
00:20:43
Speaker
Just know that Exposco, we got you. If you don't want to mess with that, just hire us. Let us look over things. Let us slow you down. Let us do our job and support you and to be firmly in your corner. Paul, this has been a great conversation. Thank you for taking the time with us tonight. It was fun. Love it. Awesome, buddy. All right. Appreciate it. Look out for our next episode here. All right. Have a good night, everyone.