Don't Shove Your Prospects Down a Rabbit Hole

Former students of mine, without naming names, have gone on to attempt to teach criteria elicitation. For what it's worth, this synthesis of a very complex body of knowledge down to one question, is absolutely fine if you're not interested in working with high end and affluent clientle.

This one question, when asked over and over is simply going to annoy people to the point where they won't want to work with you at all. The line of questioning -- 'What's important about money? What's important about that? What's important about that?' -- is not going to work. It is figuratively shoving your prospect down a rabbit hole and it is completely ineffective.

I've noticed when complex material gets watered down for the masses to understand, it becomes next to useless. It is my pleasure and I am grateful that my clients are sophisticated and understand the value of really delving deeply into the heart of persuasion. It's the difference between learning something from an expert, say at a prestigious university to taking a Learning Annex course -- you're not going to get the same quality. Condensing things to this point depletes it of its real value.

The big frame is: what's the point of all of this?

If you are using criteria elicitation to make a quick sale, you've missed the point.

We're not looking for a Band-Aid approach here or a short cut. We are genuinely in search of the model of the world of our prospects so that we can enter their model of the world (figuratively).

Once we're there, we bring our criteria in the back door and we get in there and expand their model. That is where persuasion takes place.

Criteria focuses on what they need and want.

We have no business selling to people if we don't know will be valuable to them.

Persuading is becoming a master of communication, not just a memorizer of a few patterns.

That doesn't cut it. That never has cut it, it never will cut it, and if you don't have a full on commitment to mastery, you're not going to cut it. Sooner or later, you will become irrelevant.

If you are at the top of your field today, it is because you have made a commitment to it.

Fields that deal with selling, require a full on commitment to mastery of communication, psychology and how the two interrelate.

I contend that criteria is an entry point. If some want to water it down to fit in as a "new fashioned" sales technique, it will probably work sometimes, but it won't have the power behind it that actual persuasion has.

You know that when you start asking people questions which you don't care about the answer to, it's as bad as saying, 'So, if I can show you a way to save energy, time, and money today, you would be interested in moving ahead with it, wouldn't you?'

It's ineffectual, but there are still people out there who will do it.

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Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of wealthy prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.

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Don't Shove Your Prospects Down a Rabbit Hole

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