COLUMBO
If you've watched much television, you've seen the world's most famous dummy at work in the national television show that featured detective Columbo. He made the dummy fashionable. Remember how he would enter the scene just to ask the "occasional" dumb question? And who could forget his dress and behavior? The well-worn trench coat. The hand-to-his-head movement that helped him look a little "slow". His obsessive note taking. The constant struggle to make sense of anything. Columbo planned it all, of course, to lower his prospect's guard. Consequently, the suspect always spoke frankly. After all, they figured< what would it hurt? What could this dummy do with their information? But after a series of deceptively dumb questions, the detective always caught the guilty party. No one escaped Columbo, the most successful dummy of all.
Imagine Columbo as a sales person. See him sitting in front of a prospect and watch how he responds:
Prospect: "Your competition is cheaper than you."
Columbo: "Looks like I won't be getting your business then,
huh?"
Prospect: "I haven't placed an order with your company in ten
years."
Columbo: "Let me ask you this. What am I doing here?"
Prospect: "When can we get started."
Columbo: "Don't know. Let me call the office and see if
someone down there knows when we have an
opening."
At every step, Columbo "dummies up" and struggles with his response. Chances are, that's going to be hard for you to do. No one wants to look foolish in front of a prospect. It goes against the grain, doesn't it? But go ahead. Start to struggle a little. After all, selling is merely acting. If you try it – realizing that it takes practice to perfect the Dummy Curve Technique – you'll soon discover that selling is not only more enjoyable, but more profitable too!
- The Sandlar Sales Institutes
7-Step System for Successful Selling
You can't Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar
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