Before your buyer makes a decision to buy anything from you, that buyer has to “buy you” first. Nothing good will happen if you aren’t able to make a strong connection with your buyer. Underscoring this challenge, here are some stats that might surprise you…

• You have 7-20 seconds to make a good first impression
• Buyers make up their mind about you in about 30 seconds
• Visual appearance accounts for about 55 percent of the first impression and what you sound like accounts for another 38%
• Research from a leading sales consulting firm suggests that only 18% of buyers will buy from you if you don’t effectively match their personality type

You might have the most awesome selling techniques, but if you can’t get past the initial impressions, you won’t close the deal.

Following are 3 strategies that will help you sell yourself.

Strategy #1 - Physical appearance

In our sales training research, we asked buyers, “How do you expect salespeople to dress?” Here’s what they said…

Strategy #2 – Mirror & match your buyer’s personality style to build rapport

As stated earlier, you’ll have a hard time making the sale if you don’t build the right rapport and alter your communications style to match that of your buyer.

If you haven’t taken the DISC personality profile, you should do so. You can take it for free at http://www.123test.com/disc-personality-test/. Review the results of your DISC profile with the chart below.

Use this chart to better understand your style and the personality style of your buyer. As you begin to understand better what his personality style is, modify your style to match his. Learn more about selling styles.

Once you are matching the buyer’s style, how best do you build rapport with your buyer? We asked that question in our research for sales training and the chart below reveals the most effective rapport building methods.

Strategy #3 – Presenting your company

If you’ve been on the buyer’s side of a sales meeting you know how boring it can be to hear the salesperson go on and on and on about his company. In my experience, this is one of the biggest mistakes salespeople make – long presentations about the company.

In our sales training research we asked buyers about how much time a salesperson should spend presenting his company. Here’s what they said…

If you have long Powerpoint presentations and/or lots of sales sheets and marketing materials to show to your customers – stop. Buyers want a meaningful, yet succinct understanding of your company. That’s all. If the buyer wants to know more about your company after the presentation, let him ask. This is a great way to learn what is important to your buyer.

In summary, buyers have to buy you first. They form impressions about you in seconds and these impressions are based on how you look and how you sound – not necessarily what you say. Assess your buyer’s personality style and modify your approach to align with his style. Build rapport with good, open-ended questions that communicate a desire to learn how you can help the buyer. And finally, the information you present about your company should be succinct and communicate competitive advantages.