MAKALE

“SENSES, PERCEPTION, SELLING&COMMUNICATION SKILLS”

Emrah Altuntecim

Think of supermarkets; the vegetable and fruit aisles are exhibited in the open so that people can mingle with the products. We cannot sense the smell of the parsley or dill. Store attendants will dabble some water on the vegetables and fruit so that they will glitter. When choosing a melon or watermelon, we all turn into a specialized agriculturist. Imagine the facial expressions of people that take the fruit into their hands and smell when buying a melon or watermelon, weighing the fruit with their hands. They are the most serious facial expressions of the world, are not they?

Moreover, in some greengrocer’s shops the environment is lightened with light bulbs in colours close to those of the products exhibited. Red over the tomatoes, yellow over the lemons, and green over the lettuces… And the customers obey the rules just like they do with traffic lights and shop quickly…

In bigger markets, it is more difficult to direct the customer. There are so many stimuli. However, the smell in the aisle where cleaning materials are exhibited is completely different than the one in the section where breakfast foods are exhibited. If there is a bakery in the market, it attracts you slowly with its smell. However, since they will not let you touch the bread, they treat you to dried bread crackers or pieces of cornbread in a small basket. And the lightning is always giving bread the air of a gold nugget.

 The music playing inside is high beat. It is neither too fast, nor too slow. It mixes you up in a rhythm all of a sudden. Your steps get synchronized, but perhaps you are not even aware of this. Short singles have been mixed into the music, for that matter, and you have already started proceeding towards the soda section you are directed to step by step.

Another important thing is how our customers move in stores. Shoppers generally move towards the right; women tend to avoid narrow aisles more in comparison to men; men tend to move faster than women in store aisles; shoppers slow down when they see reflective surfaces; they speed up when they see an empty space, and they do not notice the showy signs in the first ten metres after the entrance.

Those factors that affect us when preferring a product in stores are so uncertain because no matter what you do, people will use their emotions rather than their logic. We do not think first before buying things, we buy things all of a sudden most of the time, and then we find logical reasons for ourselves.

And we shop to show off most of the time. This is the case for most of our clothes. We do not dress only not to be cold or not to sweat, but we dress for prestige. However, sometimes we shop just to feel good. If we feel good when we wear a certain cloth, then all is well.

Salespeople should keep their eyes open! Their minds should be agile and their perceptions clear so that they can understand and implement what is written in this book.

The more salespeople can grasp this quickly, the more pleasant and smoother they can make sales. A person whose self-perception is open can easily analyse the perceptual world of other people as well.

We perceive the universe with our five sensory organs. Sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell… Our sensory organs convey the messages they perceive to the brain by means of our nervous system, and our brain will process, interpret, and render these messages meaningful. Then, we react to these messages, steering life with our behaviours.

However, the perceptual process of each human being functions differently. Just like each of us is different then one another, so are our perceptual channels. It would become difficult for people with different perceptual channels to get along with each other if they are not aware of this fact. If we can guess people’s dominant perceptual channels, then we can use the words and codes of behaviour that would provide convenience for these channels, which only naturally means less conflict and more reconciliation. We can use this piece of information in various parts of our careers from the synergy between sales team members to our dialogue with our customers, and even to the meetings we have with our executives. Of course, it is possible to use this information also in our private lives, in our communication with our spouse or our children, and make life easier for us.

Knowing the dominant visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic perception channels means the art of tactfulness. If we can focus on what people feel, we can realize a better sales. This is possible with a technique called “mirroring.” What is “mirroring?” It is emphasizing the words your interlocutor uses, simulating their speech by following their tone of voice and speed of speaking, and acting parallel to their body language. If a visual salesperson is still communicating with an auditory customer through visual codes, it may be very difficult for him/her to succeed. Similarly, a kinaesthetic should also approach a visual customer with visual codes.

Indeed, every human being has all these three channels; however, one of them is the most dominant most of the time. The secondary dominant characteristic of someone whose primary dominant characteristic is visual can be auditory or kinaesthetic. With this logic, we can say that all the other combinations are also possible.