“I agree” – these are magic words that every customer likes to hear and according to entrepreneur, sales expert and bestselling author of Sell or Be Sold, Grant Cardone, you must always agree with the customer…
“Always, always, always agree with the customer”
“Agreeing with the customer is senior to all other rules in selling! Agreement is even senior to closing the deal.”
But even out of the context of sales, agreeing with others will start benefiting your life right away so here are 4 reasons why you should become an agreeable person.
1. People Will Agree With You
The simple rule is that if you want people to agree with you then you will have to agree with them. That doesn’t mean that the other person is always right. It just means that you can understand their viewpoint and that you’re at least attempting to get along.
Now of course there are people with whom you will not agree with no matter what but those are people you will want nothing to do with anyway. You only want to agree with people that you want agreement from so that both of you can benefit. Make sure its a win-win situation!
I’m talking about day to day life. Agreeing with your spouse and loved ones, agreeing with your colleagues, agreeing with you customers…if you want agreement from them than you should start agreeing with them.
2. Become More Attractive
People who agree with one another move toward one another, where as people who disagree move apart.
The people that you spend most of your time with, the people who you consider your closest friends are the people who agree with your core values. Even when you disagree with one another at some level you’re agreeing to hear them out, hear their viewpoint and trying to understand where they are coming from because you are already in agreement with them in so many of their values.
So if you want to start pulling people towards you start agreeing with them. Keep and open mind and try to understand their way of thinking.
3. Save Time
The quickest way to end an augment is to agree…”let’s just agree to disagree and move on”.
Becoming more agreeable with others will save you time in petty arguments and the great thing is that is only takes you to end a disagreement because the moment you agree there is no disagreement.
So if you want to save your time just agree and move forward. Most of the things that people waste time disagreeing about are usually not major issues but are only made major because both sides try to fight their own case. Time is precious and is worth more than trying to prove you’re right in almost all instances.
4. Command Greater Control and Influence
One of the main benefits of agreeing with others is that it that you able to avoid resistance and keep them open to new ideas, more specifically your ideas.
Now just because you agree with someone doesn’t mean they’re right.
The last thing you want to become is a “yes man”.
Your job is to agree with them and then elevate them to your way of thinking. In fact the only purpose of agreeing at all is to do just that.
Is that manipulation? Whilst I can agree with you if you’re thinking that, I see agreeing as an attempt to get along.
If you disagree with someone their defenses are going to go up and you’ll be less likely to get agreement from them. There is no benefit to disagreement. Is doesn’t help you get your point across, nor does it help the other person.
The point is that once you agree you’ll then have control. You’ll have the opportunity to influence the conversation.
How can you elevate someone to your way of thinking? You can use the Agreement Frame. The Agreement Frame is a linguistic pattern and strategy often used in sales, negation and therapy that allows you to elegantly get your point across without breaking rapport.
Typical examples and statements of the agreement frame may include:
“I agree, (restate)… and this means …”
“I agree, (restate)…, and what’s more, we should …”
“I respect where you’re coming from, and what we need to look at now is…”
“I appreciate what you’re saying right now, and our objective now should be to look at…”
“I agree that from your point of view this is accurate, so what we might want to concentrate on then is…”
Well I hope you found this useful and I challenge you start agreeing with people in your day to day life to see the benefits.
If you’re selling anything then remember, “Always, always, always agree with the customer” and you’ll find your sales increase.
