If You Don't Have this Skill, You're Going to STRUGGLE in Sales

Sales Is Energy Matching

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Most people think sales is about saying the right thing. It's not. It's about matching the energy of the person across from you so they feel truly seam. Stick with us because this subtle skill might just change everything. Hey, Lacey. Yes. We are talking about a skill that I think is one of the most important skills. I think we both agree. One of the most important skills in sales. And it can sound a little slimy if we don't explain it the right way. So we want to make sure that that's what we're talking about today is how to do this authentically.

Lacey 0:30

Right? And it can be done authentically. So we have to change the way that we're thinking about it.

The Lunch Story Gone Wrong

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah. Get us started here. What like what made you think of this episode specifically? Is there any reason why you want to talk about this today?

Lacey 0:41

Well, let me start with a really funny story, really quick. So years and years ago, I had a business partner, and we went out to lunch with a real estate agent, and we were working on some skills together. He was an incredible mortgage professional, okay? Like really good at loans, structuring loans.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

New stuff. Yeah.

Lacey 1:03

Really good. Not the greatest people skills. And so we were working on some of that together. And, you know, I told him, hey, like, if I ever do like this signal where I'm moving my fingers like this, like lay on the plane, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could see like what was the situation.

Lacey 1:17

So we're sitting at lunch, and I'm sitting there, the real estate agent's sitting there, and he's sitting there and he's talking, talking, talking, and I'm paying attention to the real estate agent, and she's kind of looking around. He's not taking a breath and talking. She even picks up her phone and kind of looks at it.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

And he's just filling every possible like.

Lacey 1:35

Yeah, and I do the little like finger roll, like, and he doesn't even see me. So I even kind of kick him under the table. And I kid you not, he stopped. And he said, Did you just kick me?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

And I'm like, Oh my gosh.

Lacey 1:50

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

He didn't know the signal.

Mirroring As Respect Not Manipulation

Lacey 1:52

He didn't. And so this skill is so important. And no doubt. It can change everything for somebody who really like with or without knowing your your you know, your full craft. Like he knew his full craft, but he didn't understand how to read or mirror. So we're gonna talk about mirroring today.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

He didn't know how to get the message across. Yes. So it landed with the individual.

Lacey 2:14

With the individual, you know, and and people, they don't all process information the same way. I mean, that's just the truth. And really, really great communicators, they don't change the truth. They just change how they deliver it.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

And that piece, because they don't change the truth, they just change how they deliver it.

Lacey 2:30

They just change how they deliver it. And mirroring, when I tell somebody you need to learn to mirror somebody, you'll get people who are like, oh, well, that's not authentic, or that's slimy. Like it's you're just doing that to close somebody. They're like, and that does sound dirty, that does sound slimy, it doesn't feel authentic. But I disagree. I I mean, I really think that mirroring is not manipulation, it's respect. And what I mean by that- Yeah, tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

I I never thought of it as respect, but I actually like when you say it, it does click.

Lacey 2:57

Okay, so let's talk about I have a client come in my office, and my client is very calm, very reserved, not very excited about things.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah.

Lacey 3:08

And if I come off in a performance style, so excited about mortgage and charts and everything, and just super pumped and all of this, the guy's looking at me like you're crazy.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

It'll probably make them more anxious if they're already anxious coming in.

Lacey 3:21

Uncomfortable. I'm not respecting who he is.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

The state his mind is in at that moment, right? And I think that's a big soft skill as well. Like we're talking about mirroring, it's not just who they are, it's who they are in that moment. Because people do show up in different ways in different moments, and if they're anxious, if they're scared, if they are excited, that same person could have come in excited. Yep. Right. And you need to be able to adjust and be a little bit more excited. Exactly.

Read Pace Volume Body Language

Lacey 3:44

If that person comes in very excited and you are dull and you're like, this is a how a mortgage works. Bringing them down. Yeah, you're bringing them down. So I do see it so much more as respect. I don't feel that it's a slimy thing at all if you really understand why it's so important, you know, why that skill set. Now, I've done a lot, and I know you have too, around disc, right? And there's tons of personality profile. Yeah, there's tons of pro personality profiles. That's just something that our industry has done for years, and so you know, I I I know it pretty well. But you know, D I S C and it it allows you, so I I'm not gonna go into that, but study that or or find one.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Or any of them, right? There's Enneagram, like there's so many different ones, and really it's just about being able to identify quickly people know your type, and then also like what somebody is, not necessarily a high D in a disc profile, but I need to be able to figure out pretty quickly what emotional state they're in. Yes, like where who they are as a person. So you have a way better chance of and I think closing is one way to put it, but connecting is another, and that's what sales is all about, right? Like the human experience is all about is how how do you connect with people. So this is not even just a skill set for sales.

Lacey 4:56

You're right. How do we read people quickly? You know, first is I always look at their pace of speech, like how I mean, pace of speech will tell somebody pretty quickly if they're nervous, if they're excited, if they're scared, if they're happy, like all of the things. So pace of speech, their volume, their energy. And I it doesn't take long for any, like for you if once you start working on this skill set for you to start identifying that, you know, I I went to a class once and and the the instructor sat there and we just had to call out words on what we saw, depending on how what he was doing. And he didn't say anything. It just teaches your mind quickly how to start reading someone's body language. When someone's nodding with you while you're speaking, they're engaged, they're following.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah, keep going.

Lacey 5:41

Right? Keep going. You can learn some of that stuff, and it's a quick learn. It doesn't actually take that long, but you do have to learn to read people quickly.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Absolutely. Probably one of the most important things most, I think, in sales. Yeah, I think so. And just in the human experience, probably one of the most important things is knowing how to read people and how to adapt. Yes. In real time, how to adapt. You can't deliver everything the same way.

Decision Makers Without Dismissing Anyone

Lacey 6:05

Well, and so you said, you know, in human and and in the world and then in sales. So I'm gonna talk about just sales for one second. Yeah. Because the other piece that we got to add on to this if we are talking just sales, is not just able to be able to read them, but you also have to be able to identify who makes the decisions. Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

And that person there's a husband and wife there, right? Yeah.

Lacey 6:24

Or two brothers by like who's the primary decision maker. And then it doesn't mean you only cater to them, because that's a that's a big mess. People only cater to them. And maybe the wife or the other husband isn't the main decision maker, but they need to feel heard and seen too.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, absolutely.

Lacey 6:41

You know, and and so so that that's on the sales side. Like, yes, you need to know who is making the decisions, but it's just as important to make sure the other person is.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, you don't want to take you don't want to take who you've decided maybe not be the decision maker, is what I'm hearing. You don't want to take them out of the equation and just focus on that person because they are gonna go home and that person's gonna feel really dismissed. And even if the person you've been really engaged with is like, oh, that was great. If they go back home and one of them's not comfortable with that situation anymore, and they make that clear, chances are they're probably gonna go a different direction. Different direction.

Lacey 7:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah.

Lacey 7:13

So, you know, it it a hundred percent. And it's not it, this is something that, you know, as you learn and you start paying attention, you'll do it in all different atmospheres, right? Like you'll do it in like the other day, I was sitting in the airplane and the person next to me, I could tell, you know, was scared and anxious about flying.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

That's because you're around it all the time because your husband's deathly afraid of flying, right? You can pick up those signs real quick.

Lacey 7:39

But I can mirror, you know, I and once you start paying attention to the other person, like it's not, yes, like disc is great to know about yourself, but what's so great about it is you can identify quickly, you know, how that other person is feeling and and all of those things. It starts to happen quickly. It starts to happen, is it subconsciously where you're when you're not, I didn't want to say that wrong, where you're not even realizing that you're doing it. Absolutely mirroring is it's not a slimy thing. Like this is such an art form. And I have seen some people that are so incredibly good at it. I've I study, but who will literally match the way you're you're sitting and it is so nonsolent, like you don't even realize it.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Do you think that that is a learned you think that when you see it, you think that's a learned thing, or that they just naturally something that comes natural to them?

Lacey 8:29

I think they have learned it.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Yeah, I agree.

Lacey 8:31

I think it's a hundred percent a learnable skill set.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Yeah, definitely.

Lacey 8:34

But the reason they're probably like that is because their parents might, you know, they might have grown up around that and they would see that happening or whatever, you know. But for me, like I didn't know how powerful that was until I started practicing it, until I started realizing, man, people will leave a meeting and be like, this was so great. Thank you so much. Right. And that meeting is a little bit different than the next and the next. And so when you're training a new loan officer, right? Like, yes, there's a process and there's something that we go through every single time, but it will be different. And you you have to know, like, I will change what I do. This will be different depending on who's sitting on the other side of that desk.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

And that becomes really tough for somebody who is just learning in any industry. It becomes really tough because they want the script, they want the plan. Yes. And the plan, it's kind of like is it Mike Tyson said, or somebody said, like, you can have the best plan in the world until you get punched in the face. Right. And that's basically what happens. You get into a situation and you're like, oh, I've got this nailed, I know everything. Yeah. And then they punch you in the face with a Debbie Downer or somebody that is like an engineer that only wants to talk about like graphs and spreadsheets. And you have to figure out how to deliver information. It's emotional intelligence, I think, is that it's 100% emotional intelligence.

Lacey 9:48

For sure. And that's another thing you can learn and get deeper in and learn those skills. But mirroring is a is definitely a big piece of emotional intelligence. But it's just a very simple tactic of really paying attention to who you're talking to and how you would deliver it differently if you did stop and think, how would they best receive this?

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Right.

Lacey 10:07

Right. And you do that by those first few seconds of how you identify who you're talking to, what is sitting on the other side.

When To Name The Emotion

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Do you think, do you think there's value in actually speaking that? Like when you're meeting with somebody and you maybe you you're picking up that they're feeling a little anxious. Yeah. But it's not actually been like recognized. Do you think one skill set for people trying to pick this up is to actually just be like, you know, I I hopefully you hopefully you don't take offense to this. I'm feeling like maybe you are feeling a little anxious about this. And I just want to check. Like, is that is that how you're feeling right now? Like just to check in with them, it do you think that actually asking their emotional state? If you haven't quite picked up on like if you haven't mastered this skill set, yeah. Right.

Lacey 10:51

Or to make sure you're not like I think it's a hard question to I know what you're asking. I think that's a hard question to answer. Because, for instance, like if my husband's anxious, me asking him if he's anxious doesn't go well. Right, or whatever. So I don't know if that really would be. I it my mind's going quickly back to a meeting I had yesterday, and the wife kept saying, I'm so sorry if this is a stupid question.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Gotcha.

Lacey 11:17

Right. And I said, Well, can just stop for one second. I want you to know there are no stupid questions. Period. Ask all of them. There's nothing. And I'd much rather you ask us. Right. I'd much rather be that source for you.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Or leave here with these questions that you had that unanswered.

Lacey 11:32

So I want you to ask all of them. There is no stupid question. Trust me, I've done this for I've heard them. Like they're not bad at all. So you're giving permission to allow me to understand what where like what you know and what you don't know, so I can help fill that. So there's don't don't don't worry about that, please. And so, you know, being able to identify, like I could quickly and I could see quickly that she was a little worried about asking these questions. Like, maybe she should know that. And I wanted to disarm that quickly. I wanted her to know, I don't want you to ever feel like that. There are no questions you can't ask. You know, and at the end, she's like, Thank you so much. Now, you did you did ask a question about, you know, can you ask these? I will tell you, before I even meet with clients, so this is just a little pro tip. We always ask what's the most important thing for you for this meeting. Yeah. And that I get to see before we even sit down, right? And that gives me a glimpse. That gives me an understanding before we go in there what they're looking for. But the mirroring piece is so important with the pace of speech, right? Like if you have somebody that's slowly nodding and thinking through, you can see them like making you don't need to speed up and go faster. You need to slow down a little bit. So mirroring their pace, mirroring their volume. You know, if somebody's really, really quiet, soft spoken, you don't need to yell. Like that's a huge, like they're gonna leave there, like, ugh, what was that?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Right.

Lacey 12:52

You know, their energy. We've already talked about that, man. When someone's excited, get excited with them. Like, I love that you're so excited. Tell me why you're so happy here.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Being excited makes me excited, right?

Lacey 13:01

Yeah, or you just being able to do that. And this isn't like hard. I mean, I promise it really isn't, but it's just being very conscious when you're going into any type of meeting on how you can mirror that because that is how the person is going to receive the information best from you. You're not changing the truth, you're just changing how you deliver it.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yeah, I love that. The reason I asked that question is because I was thinking about it a few instances. I was trying to rack my brain as we were talking about are there instances where I've actually just called out what I'm like seeing? I think I see something, but they've not spoken it into existence yet. But I I feel some anxiousness, some tension. Yeah. And I'll just kind of stop what I'm doing. I'm like, for a second, like I just I feel like I'm picking up, are you feeling like scared about this? Are you feeling anxious? And that has worked really well. Like, I feel like that's disarming. Sure. With without putting them on, I'm not trying to make it defensive. I'm trying to give them freedom to tell me how to do it.

Lacey 13:53

Well, the more context you put around it, that makes more sense. Yeah. Your question earlier, I that makes a lot more sense.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Yeah, I'm not asking it in a way that would put them on the default. Like, boom, yeah. Are you anxious? You know, it's like I'm no, do I need I'm trying to read the situation. I just want to make sure because if there is, I want to make sure I can whatever I can do to make you less anxious if you are feeling that way. Right. I think if if this is something that maybe you struggle at, rather than take a guess of their emotional state, I do think there can be power in just coming out and asking it in a way that doesn't feel like alarming or like you are accusing them of anything.

Daily Practice And Immediate Results

Lacey 14:25

Right? Yeah. I think the most thing that you can take away from this podcast is number one, just start right away being very aware. Being very aware of anywhere you're at or any meeting that you're in. Are you paying attention to the other person? Even if you're not like, let's say you go into a room and you're not even speaking to this person, like pay attention to their body language, pay attention to their energy, pay attention to their pace of speech, their volume, and just start learning that skill of reading somebody. And that's where it's gonna start, that detention piece. Like, go back to that story in the beginning. Like he was still good at at his skill, but he never paid attention to the other person on the other side of that table. And that person was not listening to anything he was saying. That person had tuned out, like done, because it wasn't matching, it wasn't for him. You know, like the information wasn't what that person needed.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Yeah.

Lacey 15:10

Because he didn't pay attention. So I think the skill set starts with paying attention and you can learn more. Like I said, when you asked, it's definitely something you can learn. This is a skill set that you can get better at and better at this.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

I think Chat GBT would be a really great resource to act as a, you know, act as we did some of that just prepping for this podcast, right?

Lacey 15:28

And emotional intelligence. You said that. This is so much like emotion. Yes, it is. It's a part of it, it's a piece of it for sure. And you can get real deep into emotional intelligence, and it's a beautiful thing to learn for just life in general and sales, but the mirroring piece, the mirroring piece inside of a sales meeting or a conversation with somebody will completely change the outcome of that meeting.

Share It And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 15:50

I agree a hundred percent. If you take one thing away from this episode, literally like commit the mirroring piece, trying it every day, getting a little bit better at it, you will see results immediately. Immediately. Yeah. Guys, if this resonated with you, we would love it. If you would share it with somebody, please. Please. And thanks for sticking around. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you very much. We'll see you next time.

Lacey 16:08

Bye, guys.