I was having diner with a friend of mine at a nice downtown San Diego restaurant, when lady-selling flowers walked up to us and said, ”do you want to buy a flower for your lady?”
I would call that a “hard question”, it cause me to make a hard quick decision.
So I looked at the young lady and said, “are you open for some coaching”
She enthusiastically said, “ Yes tell me”
I said, "I’m not going to tell you that your approach to selling flowers could be greatly improved because you already know that, what I would like to suggest is that you change your opening statement using my Magic Words Technology".
She smiled and said,” What is Magic Words Technology?”
I explained to her that her greatest opportunity to improve her ratio of flower sales is to use words that caused people to be five times more interested in what she is saying”
I asked her out of ten people she approached now how many would actually buy flowers?
She said 1 maybe 2.
I said, " I’m curious, can you imagine what would it would feel like if you had the exact words that caused 4 or 5 people out of 10 to buy flowers from you.”
She said, "that would be incredible"!
I asked, "I’m wondering, what’s important about improving your flower sales by 100% to you?”
She said, “I could go home earlier and take care of my daughter.”
I said, “ I won’t tell you that you will feel better when your home with your daughter instead of out here pumping flowers because you already know that, but I will tell you that until you change your approach you won’t be home with your daughter.”
She said, “ What should I say?”
I felt the shift from me giving her advice to her asking me for help. This is a critical step if you want to influence people.
So I suggested that she use the following Magic Words when she approached a man to buy flowers for her his lady.
I was wondering, if you can imagine how happy you would feel by giving a beautiful flower to your lady?
The flower lady went into a trance. She said, “Say that again.”
So I took my pen out and wrote her script on the napkin.
I was wondering, if you can imagine how happy you would feel by giving a beautiful flower to your lady?
I asked her to role-play it with me a few times to get the right tone and cadence.
She was really a terrific student.
We practiced it a half dozen times then I said, "It's show time, go get'em".
My friend and I watched with amazement as she sold 7 out of 11 tables flowers.
She came back to our table beaming with joy, she looked me right in the eyes and said, “ I’m going home."
It was a magic moment because one more time I realized that the right words, at the right time deliver with the right intention are magical.
Now the ironic thing was in the next hour three more flower sellers approached us with the statement “do you want to buy a flower?”
We chuckled and choose not to do any more coaching that night.
1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
