Enthusiasm has the power to attract people towards you and to motivate them to buy your products and services. It also can result in repelling people and losing sales. Enthusiasm is essential when selling, but you must make sure that your enthusiasm is helping rather than hurting sales.
So why does your enthusiasm sometimes attract prospects, and yet at other times repel them?
The reaction you get to your enthusiasm is a reaction to what your enthusiasm is focused on. Suppose that you are really enthusiastic about your products, your services, and your company. When you speak to a prospect, you enthusiastically tell them how fantastic your products and services are, how superior your support is, and how great your company is, and so on.
Now put yourself into your prospect’s shoes and listen. All you can hear is someone enthusiastically talking all about themselves, i.e. how great they are and how great their products are. All you can hear is me, me, me. So what has all this got to do with my situation? He obviously doesn’t care about me or is not interested in me. In fact, this entire conversation would be exactly the same whether I was here or not. So how can I escape this conversation fast!
In this situation, you had a negative reaction to your enthusiasm because it was indeed focused on you. Your enthusiasm will accelerate losing the sale. Acting this way, the more enthusiastic you are about your products and services, the faster you will probably lose the sale.
Now switch the focus. Suppose you are really enthusiastic about helping your prospect solve a problem and getting what they want. You talk enthusiastically to your prospect about the results they are going to obtain. Now put yourself back into your prospect’s shoes and listen again. What you are now hearing is someone who enthusiastically cares about helping me. Your feeling is that you want to hear more.
In this situation you will get a positive reaction to your enthusiasm because it is focused on your prospect. Your enthusiasm will accelerate making the sale. Behaving this way, the more sincerely enthusiastic you are about helping your prospect, the faster the sale will be made.
Now you might be saying to yourself: If my enthusiasm can lose sales, maybe I should play it safe and not be enthusiastic at all. Wrong! – just as miss-directed enthusiasm can lose sales, so can a lack of enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is critical when selling because it transfers to the prospect, and you should not try to sell without it.
If your conversation is correctly focussed on your prospect and on the results they will obtain, but you show very little enthusiasm, your prospect will mirror your level of enthusiasm for helping them. So make sure you are prepared to be enthusiastic before every sales conversation. If for some reason you can’t, there is no point in having the conversation, as you will do more damage than good.
Before every sales conversation, you must make it a habit to get reconnected with your enthusiasm for the positive results you know that you can deliver. Read your case studies and testimonials and think about the great results you have previously achieved. Then as soon as you start the conversation with the prospect, channel all your enthusiasm towards helping your prospect. Your sincere enthusiasm will transfer to the prospect because you just reminded yourself of the proven results achieved with others.
So what is the message? Be sincerely enthusiastic about helping your prospects get what they want and your sales will increase and accelerate. When enthusiasm is focused on your prospect, it sells.