How To Get People To Like You

You’ve heard it before – people buy people first, and whatever else second. It’s one of the timeless principles of selling and it is as true today as it has always been. If people don’t feel they can work with you, if they don’t feel comfortable or trust you, they will usually not tell you – but they will buy from someone else.

So how do you get people to like you? It might be a potential customer or client, or someone you meet socially. What is the secret? Watch the video to learn the three words that always work.

Whilst these skills are fundamental to selling, they work equally well in management and leadership roles.

In addition, here are three more how-to’s which will help you to build rapport and sell yourself wherever you are:

1. Become like the person you are talking to.

People like people who are like they are. We all feel comfortable with people who think like we think, or who used to think like we now think. So how do you use this in a sales conversation?

You agree with opinions. Everyone has an opinion. You must train yourself to appear to agree with their opinion, or if there’s no way you can agree with the opinion then you can always agree with the logic, the thought process which led them to that opinion. One of the most useful people buy people first phrases is ‘Fine I can understand that’. People like to feel they have been understood.

Let’s look at influence skills and objection handling to illustrate this point. The key skill is to agree and outweigh. If the prospect has a point of view different to the point of view you would like them to have, what all of us tend to do is we outweigh it. We dwarf minor objections by highlighting major pluses, but in order for the prospect to understand your point of view, to buy your idea, you need to begin by showing that you understand theirs. People buy people first, and whatever else second.

2. Be other person focused

Once people sense you have their interests at heart and not just your own, they begin to trust you. One of the great laws of success says – ‘The best way for us to get what we want is to help a lot of other people get what they want’. The most compelling way to behave is to show interest in other people – and you can’t act this, it has to be sincere.

Always keep in mind: your prospective customer or client is thinking, ‘is this an individual I will feel comfortable working with? Will they support me? Or are they just trying to sell me something?’

3. Out-listen your competition

Below average sales people monopolize the talking. Above average sales people monopolize the listening. What do you tend to do the most of during a business conversation? Talking or listening? If you catch yourself talking too much, stop and ask the prospect a question – for example, ‘what does value look like to you?’ You should have a list of 6 or 7 questions that you ask every prospect. You maintain engagement by asking great questions.

To outsell your competition, you have to out-listen your competition. The secret is to listen beyond your product. What are the issues? Why does it matter? Get closer to the issues.

Selling yourself, getting people to like you and buy you is one of the timeless skills of selling.

Learn more about LDL sales training.