Attunement: The hidden sales tip

In class we learned about an important skill in selling called attunement.  This phrase can be easily defined as adjusting your own personal actions, choice of words, and impression to the people you are surrounded by at the moment.  But what does this mean as a salesperson? In the selling role, you want to be sure of three things when using attunement: (1) Increase your power by reducing it, (2) Use your head as much as your heart, and finally (3) Mimic strategically.

1. Increase your power by reducing it

In a relationship, for it to be successful you don’t want one person to care more than the other.  So why should it be any different in a sales experience? When the seller is taking charge, and is holding the power of the conversation, it will be hard to try attuning to the other persons point of view.  You don’t want this as a seller because you want be able to see the conversation from the other persons perspective, which is very important.  A very important thing to think about is “those with less power are better perspective-takers”.  This is a great thing to think about whenever we are thinking about attunement.  A final thought on this subject would be to not come off too strong because it will be a negative experience for the customer.

2. Use your head as much as your heart 

When in sales, it is always good to have a big heart and have compassion for other people.  But you also want to have a big brain and try to always be closing the sale.  But, you don’t want to push too hard because that is counterproductive.  You can say the same thing when it comes to being too empathetic towards a potential client.  Either way, the results of the two situations are the same…..no sale.  While talking to a client, you have to learn how to read them, or read the people around them.  Once you get a good feel of the person(s), attunement just became a lot easier.

3. Mimic strategically

This can also be thought of as the chameleon effect.  Basically what you are trying to do here is, subtly mimic the other person in a way that is not obvious.  The last thing you want to have happen is the other person thinking that this is a technique used in order to close the sale.  The key word in this is subtly, and it is the most important part of it.  When done correctly, this can be seen as a sign of trust between seller and customer.