{"id":1481,"date":"2008-03-24T15:00:34","date_gmt":"2008-03-24T20:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/the-power-of-seven\/"},"modified":"2008-03-24T14:59:38","modified_gmt":"2008-03-24T19:59:38","slug":"the-power-of-seven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/the-power-of-seven\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power Of Seven"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Selling Power&#8217;s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sellingpower.com\/article\/display.asp?aid=SP2985444\">How Much to Present to Your Customer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Experience shows that to the human mind there is something peculiarly satisfying about seven pieces of information. Seven questions, seven benefits, seven anything define the optimal attention span for most people, regardless of education or intelligence. Is it coincidental that we talk of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the seven fat years and the seven lean years in the Bible, the seven days of the week, the seven primary notes on the musical scale, and the seven subordinates who represent the ideal span of control for their manager?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Did you know that?\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t.\u00a0 Further into the article:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Some customers are practiced at setting you up to overwhelm them and to bore them. They ask you quickly for all sorts of information they don&#8217;t want or need or even understand. When you play their game and flash everything on their interest screen at once&#8211;boom!&#8211;you&#8217;ve blown it. They are overwhelmed or bored, and you&#8217;ve lost them. What went wrong? You failed to qualify them. You failed to present your answers slowly and in detail and to confirm that each point is truly significant to them. You failed to ask opinion questions.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to what he or she asks you for. Recognize that other salespeople responded to the requests and probably spent a lot of time doing so. Briefly present the information the customer needs as a matter of courtesy; then move on to fill his or her interest screen with other items that may really make a difference.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You notice how so much of selling requires empathizing, listening and adjusting?\u00a0 This is one of the subtle, critical points about good sales hires.\u00a0 The stereotypical fast-talking sales rep is not a lock for a successful sales hire.\u00a0 Show up and throw up is not a selling strategy.\u00a0 Integrating a strong listening ability with 7 selling points, pain probes, value propositions or the like is the better strategy.<\/p>\n<p>The article is an interesting read if you have the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Selling Power&#8217;s How Much to Present to Your Customer: Experience shows that to the human mind there is something peculiarly satisfying about seven pieces of information. Seven questions, seven benefits, seven anything define the optimal attention span for most people, regardless of education or intelligence. Is it coincidental that we talk of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the seven fat years and the seven lean years in the Bible, the seven days of the week, the seven primary notes on the musical scale, and the seven subordinates who represent the ideal span of control for their manager? Did you know that?\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t.\u00a0 Further into the article:&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/the-power-of-seven\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,9],"tags":[142,459],"class_list":["post-1481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-sales-techniques","tag-sales-technique","tag-seven-points"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-nT","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":546,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/01\/ad-format\/","url_meta":{"origin":1481,"position":0},"title":"Ad Format","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 4, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I saw this section in a sales ad this morning: Day to Day - At a glance The section contained seven bullet points explaining the tasks of a typical day in this role. It was a quick read section that provided enough insight into the position to pique the interest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Employment Ads&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Employment Ads","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/employment-ads\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":582,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/01\/7-deadly-sins-of-salespeople\/","url_meta":{"origin":1481,"position":1},"title":"7 Deadly Sins of Salespeople","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From SM&M - The Seven Deadly Sins of Salespeople: 7. Chattering 6. Gourmandizing (never heard this word before) 5. Inactivity 4. Obliviousness 3. Shallowness 2. Presumptuousness 1. Ignorance You will need to follow the link to read the description of each \"sin.\" It is well worth the time as the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":161,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/07\/the-truth-about-lies\/","url_meta":{"origin":1481,"position":2},"title":"The Truth About Lies","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Interesting article - The Top Seven Signs That Someone is Lying to You - that provides clues to look for when talking to others face-to-face. The article is a quick read and well worth your time. An excerpt: No eye contact. Generally, if someone is lying they will not look\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1196,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/09\/tough-hiring-data-to-spin\/","url_meta":{"origin":1481,"position":3},"title":"Tough Hiring Data To Spin","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"September 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Time to suspend the recession talk for one more week. From CNNMoney.com's Unemployment claims down: WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in seven weeks, an unexpected sign of improvement for the job market. The Labor Department reported Thursday\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":752,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/03\/the-day-your-new-employee-will-leave\/","url_meta":{"origin":1481,"position":4},"title":"The Day Your New Employee Will Leave","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"March 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In a recent article from Workforce Management on new employee retention, 7 months seems to be the magic number when it comes to retaining newly hired employees. Office Angels interviewed 1,400 new recruits on this subject. Here are some of their findings. In the first seven months the workplace is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Retention&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Retention","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/retention\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1445,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/02\/the-71-rule\/","url_meta":{"origin":1481,"position":5},"title":"The 7:1 Rule","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"February 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting article here from CNNMoney.com titled 8 ways to be a better boss.\u00a0 The article focuses on coaching which is a task that many sales managers avoid to their own detriment.\u00a0 There are some excellent points in the article and this tidbit of which I was not familiar: 2.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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