In the movie “Ghostbusters”, Bill Murray’s character closes a deal when he says to the New York City mayor, “You will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters.”  After a long pause, the mayor agrees to work with the Ghostbusters to save the city.  If you haven’t seen this movie clip, be sure to watch it.  

Being intentional in sales allows us to create “magical moments” where everything changes thereafter.   In this clip, the Ghostbusters first explain the consequences of the problem.  Bill Murray then puts the solution in a context about which the mayor cares (registered voters) and then goes silent to let the moment happen.  How often do your salespeople trample their work with too much dialogue?

Magical moments can’t necessarily be planned; they must just happen.  They’re caused by chemistry, emotion, process awareness and the willingness to take a risk.  

So what are magical moments?  They’re points in the process when bonding happens, insight occurs, prospects get emotionally connected to the issue, trust is demonstrated and prospects know you “get it”.  

Intuition helps a lot.  For example, how is the person likely to feel when you first meet?  What can you do to improve the connection?  When you sell to a friend, “your relationship” is the elephant in the room, so acknowledge it, validate its importance and ask if you can agree to put it aside during conversations.  

In a recent meeting, we heard an SVP demonstrate his intimate understanding of the business and how it works.   It was comprehensive, succinct, passionately articulated and offered a vision with enough detail to bring it alive.   My colleague recognized this and commented that his description was the most clearly-articulated message that he’d ever heard.  You could see how much positive impact this had on the SVP physically and it was a magical moment.  Afterward, his peers said that they too were blown away by what he’d said and thanked us for recognizing and acknowledging this.  

Salespeople often go too fast on sales calls.  Sometimes they need to slow down to speed up.   Intuition and the universe talk to us all the time but we don’t always listen well.   When someone says something that impacts us, we know it.  The challenge is do we take a risk and respond.   Risk is a funny thing.  In sales, it’s virtually nonexistent since we typically haven’t closed the deal yet and therefore have nothing to lose.  However, our fear convinces us that we’re in danger and then provides a crazy rationalization for not acting.

Magical moments are always around us.  Your salespeople need to learn to see them and act on them.  The irony is that when we do so, it’s frequently by accident.  Then we’re awed by what happened!  The key is to be intentional.  

Being intentional can be taught and fostered through role-playing and coaching.  To learn more about growing in this area, feel free to contact me.