The successful outcome of your next sales presentation will be determined largely by your ability to do two things very well: develop rapport with your prospect and adapt your sales message to engage his or her preferred learning style. The learning-style theory was developed back in the early 1970s and has proven to be an extremely powerful communication model that every school teacher, parent, manager and sales rep should have in his or her toolbox. Simply stated, the learning-style theory promotes the concept that people have a natural preference, based upon their dominant sense, for how they choose to learn and process information: visual/seeing, auditory/hearing or kinesthetic/touching.
Unfortunately, far too many sales reps unknowingly undercut their sales effectiveness by failing to recognize the need to engage their prospects' learning styles. For example, if a sales rep determines that his or her prospect is a visually based learner, it's up to the sales rep to make the adjustment and incorporate more colorful graphs/charts, brochures and other visual aids throughout the presentation.
It's easy to quickly and accurately determine your prospect's preferred learning style by simply paying attention to his or her most commonly used words and phrases.
Visual-based learners might say:
"I can certainly see your point."
"That looks good to me."
"Do I make my point clear to you?"
Visual-based learners like pictures and prefer to get their information in writing.
Auditory-based learners might say:
"That sounds good to me."
"I hear what you're saying."
"That rings true to me."
