Do prospects “ghost” you?

There is a “right way” to do sales. There absolutely are processes and techniques that will get you better results.

But sometimes, even though you’re doing everything right, a lot of prospects are still “ghosting” you.

In our Aviation Sales Fundamentals Courses, we use our 5 ”Ps” Checklist to evaluate sales pitches and role-plays. But sometimes a salesperson can do everything technically perfect and still not have rapport with the prospect or make a convincing close.

Why?   The answer is usually  the salesperson’s mindset.

I’ve noticed that the people getting ghosted are the ones that skipped over or didn’t spend as much time on the MindSet Units in our courses. They are people that either think they already know this stuff, or think it isn’t perfect.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw-NTlr4n34[/embedyt]

Quick story about a chef named Trevor. (This IS relevant, I promise!)

On the Hell’s Kitchen – reality TV show,  Chef Gordon Ramsay would have a bunch of up & coming chefs compete over a 12-week job interview, one of these people would become the executive chef of his Las Vegas Restaurant.

Trevor was one of those chefs.   And he was struggling – he was doing everything right, but NOTHING was going his way.

He was stressing way too much, and putting way too much pressure on himself.

Everything was hard for him. He did better on individual challenges, although you could see was under way too much pressure to be truly creative and exercise his skills.

But he struggled most on the challenges where he had to work as a team.

Of course this a competition – so EVERYONE wanted to win, and was under a lot of pressure outdo their peers. But Trevor had the MOST trouble.

Nobody would follow his instructions – they’d either pretend they didn’t hear or they’d overdo whatever he asked them to do.

I felt terrible for this poor guy.

Chef Ramsay would rant at him “I need you to be a leader” and Trevor would respond by getting more adamant about telling people what to do. And completely baffled that he couldn’t get their support.

A leader, with nobody following, is just a guy taking a walk, right?

And a salesperson is really just a leader. You’re leading people into making a decision that’s going to be an improvement for them!

When Trevor would do these little “journal entry” videos, where he would just talk to an interviewer away from the other competitors,  he was always complaining about his teammates and how much they drove him crazy. Everything was somebody else’s fault.

When the others did these “journal entry” videos, they would talk about how they needed up up their game on this factor, or find a way to help someone on their team, and how they really wanted to win but they wanted everyone to do well, and they had won just by getting on the show and getting the publicity.

So, where was I going with that story?

Leadership is competence + character.

Some people say you can’t teach character – and maybe you can’t, but you can learn it and develop it and work on it.

Trevor had competence, but he didn’t have the character to win.

We’re reading Primary Greatness – the 12 Levers of Success by Steven R Covey right now in our Book Club, and I know a lot of our super tactical people are just rolling their eyes about doing a mindset book.

I worked at Franklin Covey a million years ago when I was a single Mom, and I was reading all the books because I had to for work . . . and because I was teaching Franklin Covey classes. But I swear, some days I just had change my thinking from: “Man, this sucks” to  “What can I do to improve this situation? Even if I didn’t create this circumstance or it’s not my fault, how can I help this person who is being a total pain the tail so that we can get them past this stage?”

It’s a constant struggle to maintain good character. I like to spend a little bit of time before every sales call, or even Office Hour with a current client, and get in the right frame of mind and do the research I need to:  “How can I best help this person?”

• Some fantastic examples of really strong character in the aviation industry – these folks work in the real world, and know about time constraints, competition, and all of that. And yet they always hold to their principles:
• Doug Goldstrom SSC
• David Santo and Deidra Wilson at AeroStar Training Services
• Annamarie Buonocore of Inflight USA
• Gene Clow of Great Circle Aircraft
• Peg Mills and the whole team at Turbines Inc
• Sherry Chaput at Avion Trace
• Jeremy Cox –Jet Values Jeremy
• Larry Hinebaugh – Business Aircraft Records
• Tim Genc – FAPA
• Arthur Ramey Jackson of Arthur Jackson Aviation

How do clients know you have good character and a good mindset?

Not by telling them “You can trust me, I have your best interests at heart!”  (In fact, that would send a red flag!)

People are smart – they process a LOT of information from word choice, body langauge, voice inflection, and a thousand other things that I don’t have time to learn to fake.

Can good character be faked?  Not for long, and not unless you have a tremendous amount of talent.  The reason people like Bernie Madoff make the news is because it is SO rare for someone to get away with being deceptive for any length of time.

As Warren Buffet says, “It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, and seconds to lose it!”