The Power of Connection: Building Rapport That Closes Deals

Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishma Aide, the host of the podcast that I'm making today's recording at home. So I expect to hear some noise in the background because the kids at home and they are watching Teen Titans. Now the goal of the podcast is solving business problems. So if you have issues with customers, issues with sales, issues with marketing, issues with your side hustle, something is holding your business back,

or you have issues with your career. If you happen to be a career salesperson, then this is the show for you. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, or any player of your choice. And if you'd love to connect, then call, SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Today on the podcast, we are going to look at another call review and that's from one of my 3 Musketeers. But today we're going to be looking at a call from Elise because looks like I've been talking about most of the calls that we've done with the boys and you know, all equal opportunity over here.

So let's just have a look at the call. So talk about a call that she made. This is a call review opportunities for improvement, you know, stuff like that. So let's see. OK, let me try and give a summary of the call because this was a while ago. So she called the customer in Abuja. I'm not going to say which part in Abuja. And then they had the conversation and the fellow said he wanted AI think A10KV solar installation.

And OK, the guy said he wanted 10KV solar installation. I can't remember the budget price. He said maybe 5 million or something like that. I can't really remember but because this was a while ago. But anyway, I made a note of the things that she was able to do and some of the things that I wanted her to improve. Now, even though a lot of you listening to this podcast right now are not involved in the solar sales, there are some things that you can learn from this call, particularly when we talk about qualification and discovery.

Now, if this is your first time listening to the podcast, qualification and discovery just means the part of the sales conversation where you're trying to figure out who is this person that I'm talking to? What does this person need? These questions are very, very important because that is what allows you to tailor your proposal to personalize your pitch and to make a well targeted and well tailored sales pitch. Because lots of times those of you who you know run around and who make pitches every day, the reason why your pitching is not effective is because you're just preparing the same pitch for every single person you run to.

Like, OK, there was a time in one of the other podcasts where I complain about these guys who go around selling male performance, male performance pills, if you can, you know, catch my point in Abuja. Now, those guys, they go around and the pitch is always the same. It doesn't matter who they talk to. If they talk to a young man like me, it's the same pitch. If they talk to an 18 year old boy, it's the same pitch. If they talk to a 65 year old man, it's the same pitch.

Now, regardless of whether these products work or not, and to be quite frank, even if you need some male performance tablets, I doubt you should be buying from people who walk up to you in the street. So let's remove all these other issues aside. So assuming these things work, your pitch to an 18 year old boy should not be the same to a man who is between 40 and 50, and should not be the same to a man who is 65. It'll be nice to have a conversation first.

Know who you're dealing with. Know the person's amorous history, if we can put it that way. Figure out what the person's needs are, what else? Cardiovascular health diet is also important. You know, all these sorts of things. So you can make a tailored pitch to say that OK, Baba, based on what you said, now you know, you're 6570 year old man, but you still want to enjoy yourself. No, no problem. This product can help you enjoy yourself.

But you take it like this, you combine it with this diet, you do this, you do this. Based on that, you should be able to achieve XYZ results. So if your pitch is tailored to Baba, who is between 65 and 75 and who still wants to play like he's a young man, you know, now that the pitch is tailored and relevant, you stand a greater chance. Then if you're talking to the 40, to the 50 year old man, different pitch. If you're talking to the 18 year old person, different pitch,

different sales pitch. Now, these are the things that make your pitches, your proposals, your presentations much more effective. So regardless of whatever industry that you're involved in, whenever you're having a conversation with a potential customer or potential client, we need to be trying to figure out who is this guy? Who is this babe? What do they want? What are they on about? What is the problem that they have?

Are they running away from something or are they running towards something? Do I have a product or service that can meet that need? Do I have the inventory to be able to meet that need and to make them happy? So that is the idea. Now though, some good stuff that LC did. In fact, not just LC people in the, in that particular company that they do that. I'm impressed. You know, they always ask for a customer pin, of course,

respectfully so that they can use Google Maps to have a look at the roofing layout and stuff like that. And I think that's really, really interesting, really nice because the other solar people I know actually book an appointment and go to the house first, you know, to have a look first. But this is also an interesting way of getting to see what the person's roofing looks like from the top before you come up with a plan.

And I also heard, I think people in solar cells in America and roofing repairs, yes, roofing repairs in America, they also do the same thing. You know, those say, Bros, OK, no problem, Drop me a pin. I'll use Google Maps. I'll be able to see your house view from the top. You know, you give me some kind ideas, you know, before I show up so that I mean, that part is really good. And you can see that this one is trying to figure out the extent of the problem and whether you can provide a solution.

Because like I learned people who live in, was it because they sent me detached or something? I can't remember. Anyway, those houses where you know, that people who, you know, different flats depending on where the flat was built and how the flat was built. Let's say somebody lives in the middle floor trying to come up with an adequate solar solution, you know, where to place the panels might be a problem. So asking questions like this,

you know, around their house or their housing needs, absolutely really important to try and figure out what it is that is going on. Then she also discussed the customer's current setup because it turned out that the customer already had solar, so the way she took looked at it was OK, are you looking at a brand new system? Why are you considering an upgrade? It's good to ask these sorts of questions because you know, brand new system.

You can now ask, OK, what's the problem with the old system or what is deficient with the old system? Because now you know what kind of solutions you're recommending to make sure that the problem they're running away from doesn't happen again. OK, is there an upgrade? All right, no problem. Why is this one deficient? What's the problem with the back of time? I be, The thing is giving only 10 hours a day and you're trying to get 24 hours per day, you know, and have all those sorts of conversations.

Then the fellow brought up in the conversation that that side where they live Transformers back up like 3 times. And of course sound is normal. Because you guys know when I was living in my old house, you know, before I moved here, you know, it was almost every like 3-4 months. You know, I was telling you guys in the podcast, like, you know, it has happened again and robbers have come and they have cleared the whole transformer,

as in they remove everything. Like those guys are brutal. I don't even know how they work. They don't leave one single wire. They just remove everything. And they will now have to report to Nepal. Of course, they'll say the official process is that we have to requisition, requisition and last anything between 3:00 or four months, some places even six months. And then you say you don't want corruption to happen in this country.

You know, how can you run something like that, something that's necessary as Nepal people have come and cleared the transformer, We're trying to figure out what's going on. We're trying to get this thing replaced. You now come and tell us that somebody should be living with that light for three months at the quickest and then six months. They say corruption shouldn't happen anyway. I'm not going to admit on the air, you know what we do to solve these problems when those problems used to occur.

But let's just say we had to take matters into our own hands, not only refurbishing the transformer but also security as well, you know, beef up the place by ourselves, flood like the place by ourselves, barbed wire the place, cement the place, padlock the place, everything, the place by ourselves. Something that's supposed to be government responsibility anyway. So basically what I'm just trying to say is this kind of thing is normal in some parts of Abuja.

You know, transformer is there. You know what? Transformer don't blow then because the transformer has blow before. It takes three or four days to fix, boys. And how come I just harvest the thing like organ transplant? So it happened to the guy like 3 times. Then they also live in a area that is prone to lightning. So they've been lightning struck a couple of times. And so LC went straight into talking about panels for panels for protection, home protection,

equipment protection. And that part was good. And I told her, OK, you know what, these guys indicated this kind of problem, this company has this sort of solution because it's not all solar companies that has this sort of solution. So it's good that I mentioned it, but I told her, you know, before you went into we have a solution to the problem, you should have leaned into the whole thing first. Like lightning your house how many times equipment was destroyed?

Oh, like what's a deep freezer TV charge? Yeah, sorry, Sir. I'm sure buying brand new TV. I'm fixing the whole thing was a problem because the guy was, you know, talking. He was flowing and the guy will be talking that, yes, OK, Imagine we had to get brand new flat screen TV's in the whole room. Each one was 1.8 million, you know, as the person is talking and talking and talking. See, funny thing is, the more you get people to talk, the more rapport you're building.

And I think that that was the key take away that had for Elsie on this call. Like we shouldn't take an order. Take care. Mind you, when we're talking to people. Hello, what is your order? How can I help you? We can't fulfil your order. Are you ready to pay? This is our account details. That is too transactional. So remember, because whenever people are trying to get, are trying to solve their problems in Nigeria, in fact, in the whole world, people are usually talking to two or three vendors.

You're not the only person that they're talking to. So you need a certain way to stand out. People should be able to see your text message or receive your phone. Can be like, oh, is that nice girl that I spoke to last week, you know, so I have to be building rapport. Tell you, somebody says that, you know, equipment damage leaning like, oh, sorry, Sir. Sorry. I hope nobody was hurt during the cause. The guy mentioned he's a family man.

I hope nobody was hurt. So no, no, no, nobody was hurt. The house is earth, so that's no problem. OK, We thank God. So you said some equipment got damaged. What exactly got damaged, Sir, the deep freezer. I'm sure Madam was really upset about that. Now remember the episode where I spoke about implication and E pair of questions when you talk about the implication of their problems and then what they're going to achieve if you solve those problems.

These are ways that you can lean in to now close the deal later. If you're bringing it to the fore, bringing it to front of mind bringing it up now now now in the guys mind as I have this conversation that look every single time this problem occurs, you damage your deep freezer compressor is 80,000 for the deep freezer. You've had to replace 2 TV's, Wi-Fi was not upset, was not happy. Food in the freezer. Food in the freezer spoiled.

You are not able to iron uniforms for your school children because the internal panel in the house, if you use blow, you know, when you dig into all these things, you know the pain like you're making it, you're bringing it to the customer's mind. I'm making it very obvious why something needs to be done about the solution because sometimes the problem happens and people don't realize that it's a big deal because I haven't consciously thought about how big of a deal it is.

So this is also part of the process that you need to go through when you're doing qualification and discovery. If you'd like to know some more about it, when you're list done listening to this episode, just Scroll down a bit. Maybe for the last two or three weeks. You don't have to scroll to the beginning because so far I have over 1200 resources available on the podcast. Now that's if you check YouTube. So to say you should scroll to the beginning.

You know, that's that's unnecessary homework, but you'll be able to see a podcast episode that has spin in the title that is SPIN. Or you can just go to YouTube and then just Google, you know, Tavish and my spin and a podcast episodes that I've made talking about the spin qualification framework will come up. And then apart from that, you'll also see other sales trainers who have made episodes, have made videos about spin.

So it's something that is good to to learn about. So you don't just have to be in solar sales, whatever sales. And you can always look for these kinds of questioning. So I think was good. She mentioned protection panels. But I just told her next time before you flow in to say I have the solution, when somebody says I have the problem, don't just go and say, you know, this is the solution. You dig in and say, oh, you have a problem.

Sorry. Oh, how do you think it happened? Yeah, was like this was like that. Oh, sorry. What happened? This happened. That happened, Kai. Sorry, Sir. You know, it's like that. It normally used to happen to our customer like this, like this, like that there from there. That's how you now sliding So for our customers, I had this of issues. The person that lived in lucky this is how we did it. The person that lived sorry 1

moment yes, I'm just getting all these useless promotional messages. So sorry. Another one of those messages has come through. I'm trying to exit the thing from my damn screen. OK, so it's gone after moving from the screen. Let me just be sure that this audio has not cancelled out. So that's how you slide into the solution and say, oh, sorry, Sir, it normally happened to a customer like that, blah, blah, blah. So there was this guy in Lucky.

This is the way they had the problem, blah, blah, blah. This is what we did. We now did protection panel, industrial class, this that and you know, to be able to prevent profanity for these, these, these, these, and then for other customers, we did like this, we did like this. So Sir, those are three options. Any of these three can work. And apart from the cost of the solar, this one has an add on. They're not too expensive, they can cost anything between 750K

to about 350K. But either way, they'll protect your home, they'll protect your system. And Sam, I hope you wouldn't mind us looking at one of these as an add on by the time we start talking budget. Are you OK with that, Sir? Then you hear what he has to say. You know, he was surprised how Nigerians will be thinking in their mind like extra 300K700K to say no, no, no, let's only talk so like again and no problem. By the time the team blew up again, at least, you know, you told them before they was to call you to come and fix it again.

So of course, you've done your own bit. You have already educated them. And the person says, Oh yeah, sure, we'll have to consider that as well. So OK, no problem Sir. I'm making a note of that. When we get back to system requirements and budgets, I'll bring that up again. Would that be OK, Sir? Yes. And then the conversation flows. So, you know, by the time you add it at the end, it's not going to seem like a price gouging or something because the thing has caused problems before where for some companies this kind of system is necessary.

And so you just put it there as best practice. But The thing is, you didn't tell the customer because the customer is not educated. They'll feel as if you're just throwing extra things in just to be increasing the bill anyhow. So for some of these, excuse me, highly technical sales, you suppose like you should be talking about these things, you know, bringing them up, getting feedback, be sure that the customer understands and get some soft agreements that at the end of the day, this won't be part of the total package at the end.

So that part was good. So the opportunities for improvement now because overall was a very productive call, was a good call. Let's see. OK, one area I told I was to confirm budget because the guy said tank heavy or something. See, I'm not technical so I'm just making some of this stuff. I mean I'm not like I'm making it up. I'm running from memory. So you guys say, you know, tank heavy or however many KVA his budget is 5:00 AM, you know, so that kind of thing, you have a discussion, you get feedback on the budget.

So OK, so you said you'd get us out their budget or some 5 million and how comes? Oh, that's just one of the options that I saw on the advertisement or really Sir, because actually, but what you said now with the 10 KVA, we'll probably be looking at the minimum of XYZ panels. So Sir, even though you have selected 5 million for your budget, in all honesty, size going to be looking at most likely something between 10 million and 6,000,000 for a solution that is going to protect your home and provide the power that you need.

Is that an investment you're willing to make? And then keep quiet and then you hear because if somebody says you know 5 million in your head, you know that is closer to like 10 AM, you continue to talk. At the end of the day, the person will say that's too expensive. It's more than I can provide. My neighbor did his own for 4.7, my sister did her own for 3.2. You now start hearing all those stories. So The thing is front load this thing, if there's a story here,

the story now don't wait until you talk. You build rapport, you same proposal. You get emotionally invested there. Now start hearing story. So gain feedback on that now. So sorry. Yeah, you selected this based on some rough mathematics. In my head is looking like between this and this, is that a problem? Is this OK? Is this beyond more than what you're willing to invest? Are you OK with this investment? And we have to look for stylish ways.

You can't have somebody. Can you afford this now? Because you know this Nigeria, you ask can you afford this now is an insult. And of course we don't insult anybody. So yeah, that's one thing you could have done better that is gaining some feedback on cost then rapport building. Like I said, rapport, rapport, rapport. You know, too many of us, we take this thing as if our order takers. Hello was your was your order. How can I help you?

You know like how people in Mr. Biggs or anti hand jobby or tasty fried chicken. Dude, hello. How can I help you? How many rice do you want pimpim? How many more am I pimpim? How many cook pimpim? OK, your total is 15,000. Something something something. Are you paying by cash or POS Now that works in order taking spaces. So if you work in anti hand jobby, that's your job. Good morning Sir. Good morning Ma. How can I serve you today?

You want rice? How many rice? You want more and more? How many more? Nothing works, but when you're now in a complex sale, you can't be talking like that or something that requires a certain level of personalization. So even as a fashion designer, that can be your attitude. Hello. How can I help you? What do you want? Peplum. Is it red or black? Come, let me measure you. OK. Your amount is 75. No, we need to look for ways of building rapport with the people because in building rapport, we stand out.

We form an emotional connection. We try and figure out what it is that the person is trying to solve. Like the mommy that wants peplum, if you talk to her and you figure out that she's celebrating her fifty wedding anniversary, but she's conscious of her stomach, so she's looking for a design that will hide it. That's why she said peplum, you know. But if you don't ask, you will know. And if you ask because you build rapport and now you know, you cannot advise mommy.

I understand peplum because you know, you want to hide your midsection, but actually, mommy, the Browning of peplum is that peplum is going to push out. So we now make you look as if, you know, emphasize it more. So mommy, let's do it like this. Let's look at this option. Let's look at this option. So build rapport with people, get along flow with them would allow you to ask much more detailed, much more personal questions so you can make correct recommendations.

Because if somebody shows up, you have an order taking attitude. And she said, peplum is OK, no problem, mommy, we'll give you peplum. Come, let me measure you what color red back or blue? And then she goes and at the end of the day, she's looking at the pictures and she's like, ah, see my stomach. She will now think that you the tailor, you the fashion designer are a useless person. You, you will defend yourself by saying, ah, I designed exactly what she asked for.

No build rapport with people. It gives you room to ask more questions and to make detailed better recommendations at the end of the day. So like in this case now when the guy was talking about the whole house and everything, when they were talking about load capacity, you know how many batteries they need and stuff. The guy was like, the AC doesn't have to be on all the time because my daughter blah, blah, blah. Well, my son, no 1, he wants the AC on all the time and LC just continue with the conversation.

So after that, without no, you build rapport. And then we had an interesting conversation after, after that, the whole team, because my, I said, that's the part of the conversation where you can say something like, yes, it's normal. Now that's what you know, you, you are daddies now. That's what our daddies have to do. So that's what I came up with on the fly. Then she won't say no, she was another sales person. She will say no, no, no, I can never say that.

No man is my father. No man is my father. I can say something like, well, that is the job of your father. I said, OK, no problem. But sure, you understand that when somebody drops something like this, that the daughter is nice and doesn't waste energy and the song waste energy, There's a way you can chip in something to build rapport. It doesn't even have to be like, you know, this whole thing of that's what daddies are for or you are daddies or, you know,

you can't even say like how I put it, like, ah, congratulations on me. I can't wait to get to the level of you are when your children are are teenagers. You know, the man will laugh. He said, don't worry, that time is coming. How many children do you have? So I mean, I only have two. How old are they? This and this, you know, and then you start building small rapport now say, ah, I remember when my children were that age.

That's that's the sweet age. That's when they still like you and everything. But my son, he just locked himself in the room. Now just be blowing AC and be playing Fortnite all the time. Guy never comes out of his room, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, you talk like that small building of rapport the next time you call the guy again. So of course, I also told them, let's be frank, it takes a while before potential customers will store our number, especially for all these high ticket items.

So the next time you call the number again, even though he didn't store it once, he hear your voice, remember, ah, that nice little, that nice lady from Lagos that we had a nice conversation about. And then you're flowing, you're standing apart from other people because you build rapport when I give you maps to be making some strong, strong recommendations. So building rapport really, really important. That's why I told her and the rest of the team, be curious.

Whenever somebody drops something, be curious. Oh, NEPA, has lightning has struck your house before? Ah, yeah. Sorry. How many times has it happened? Three times already this year, Chai. Now how? Sorry. So what? How are people going to solve that problem? What have you been doing to solve the problem? OK, these are the problems I caused. The equipment was damaged. Be asking Oh my daughter is this da da, da da, my son is this da,

da, da da. Lean in, be curious, question, you know, ask question, compliment, you know, whatever sharp, but be curious about every single Nuggets that they drop. The more that we get customers talking, potential customers talking, the more the opportunities that we have for building rapport. So yeah, that's it. OK. There's one thing she missed though. He mentioned that he had a 3.5 KVA, then he had a 5 KVA and then he had a 10 KVA.

And that's where she now spoke about are we doing upgrade on your system? But would have been nice to know what's up like, oh Sir, you've had three KVA 510. I say yes, over like how many year period over the last 10 years? OK. So I hope you don't mind my asking like, how come were you just doing upgrades or is it because of all these other extra issues with the lighting and the transformer that maybe you're trying to solve the problem here?

What he has to say? So somebody drops a nugget like that about their history regarding your solution, ask you might uncover something that might be useful towards the final proposal you're going to give. Now make sure that you stop this problem once and for all. So that was just it overall was a good conversation. Sorry, I couldn't remember more of the details because, you know, this was a while ago, this was sometime last week.

But I just thought there's some Nuggets here that could help other people, regardless of your profession to learn how to handle customer conversations, OK, not customer prospect or contact conversations because a customer is somebody who has paid you. This guy has not paid yet. Hopefully he'll pay soon. So yeah, things I learned about how to handle those sorts of conversations. So that's it. And that's all for today. Remember, if you'd love to connect, you can call, SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140.

Thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you next time. Same place in your headphones or in your speakers.