How effective are your sales reps of understanding and then managing their spatial relationships with their customers?

Hi. I'm Jim Pancero, helping you become a stronger leader of your sales team.

And the reality is we have several physical zones around us, like circles with us standing in the middle. And the distance somebody stands to us is going to have a direct relationship of where our relationship is with that individual.

Here's where the problem in selling comes in. The sales rep is too energized, is too excited, and gets too close to a customer, invading their physical space because they had not earned the right to be there. There's a good chance the customer is just going to see them as too pushy and too aggressive and will never listen to their actual business solution. This is a reality. We need to train our people to understand comfort zones and to manage the spatial relationships to increase our persuasiveness.

See, there's four physical comfort zones around us. The tightest space within you is called the intimate zone. You could be sitting next to your spouse or a child and they could actually be leaning against you, doesn't bother you the space at all. They could actually be touching against your side and you're happy with that because this is the intimate zone, it's the closest space that you allow people to get to you.

Outside that zone, the next range is called your personal zone. So, if you were sitting with a friend having drinks, you'd be comfortable if they were fairly close to you compared to a stranger.

The next zone out from that is called the stranger zone. You're unknown to me. I don't know you. I don't know that I can trust you, and I'm suspicious. So that'll have I would be more comfortable with you giving a little more space to me than being up close and in my face.

In fact, the final zone is the danger zone. And the danger zone is it's beyond stranger that you're making them uncomfortable. Something is distressing them. This is a reality for me. I'm six foot seven, and being this tall, I learned that I have to treat most people as I'm in their danger zone because I'm a foot and a half taller than they are. So because of that, I learned in selling, I have to give more space than somebody else might, either in how they do a sales call or even how they conduct sales training.

Where are your people with this? And are they aware of where the customer's comfort zones are with spatial distances to help them understand and manage because selling is all about lowering resistance? And the lower customer's resistance is the more likely they are to want to buy and have a relationship with your sales rep. And the easiest way to lower their resistance is to make sure we're not invading their space.

What can you do to help your team understand these distances and even role-play and practice where they are and be aware of these distances and the impact on their persuasiveness? Would love to answer any of your questions. Thanks for checking out my podcast. I'm posting two new podcasts each week, all aimed at helping you and your team increase your selling competitive advantage.