Dr. Eric Berne Can Help Improve Your Sales Results

Salespeople who want to achieve better results can use techniques outlined by Dr. Eric Berne. His work in the field of transactional analysis can enable us to modify our behavior, establish self-direction, and use freedom of choice. In very simple terms, Dr. Berne’s theories translate into three ego states: parent, child and adult.

The parent state is the internalized authority figure that sometimes helps, and sometimes hurts, your selling career. To illustrate how the process works, fill in the blanks in the following one-liners:
You can no more do that than fly to the .
Children should be seen but not .
Don’t love too deeply, you may get .

You may recognize how each sentence ends. Do you also realize when you react to your own internal Critical Parent and what effect this has on your customers or prospects?

The Critical Parent

When you react to your Critical Parent, to others you appear domineering, punishing, prejudicial, judgmental, and critical. You use such words as right, wrong, good, bad, immoral, moral, should, don’t, and can’t. People respond to your Critical Parent influence when they can’t avoid it, but, when they can, find ways to sabotage it. They learn to develop barriers to protect themselves from the impact of your Critical Parent. These barriers impair effective communication between you. Therefore, you should use great care before allowing your Critical Parent to exercise control over your behavior. Oh, and by the way, zero percent of your selling comes from your Critical Parent. The customer may not always be right, but he is the judge and the jury. It may feel good to win a battle, but you’re sure going to lose the sale.

The Nurturing Parent

Part of your Parent Ego State provides praise and supporting strokes. This Nurturing Parent will, when you have made a mistake, tell you, “That’s all right, you’re still OK.”

When you are responding to your nurturing parent, others see you as warm and friendly. You feed people chicken soup when they hurt and offer Band-Aids for their pain. You are helpful, understanding, advice giving, nurturing, protective and supportive. You use words that are agreeable, approving, pleasant and warm. And, yes, you guessed it, 70 percent of your selling comes from your Nurturing Parent.

In your Nurturing Parent mode, you will spend less time giving out product knowledge and more energy soothing prospects’ ruffled feathers and understanding his or her business needs. “I sure can understand how you feel, Mr. Smith. If I were in your position, I would feel the same way.”

The Child

When you find yourself spouting out “Fantastic!” or “I don’t care, I want it now!” the child you once were has gained the upper hand once more. Of the three ego states Dr. Berne identifies, surely the Child in you is the most creative and spontaneous. Although it also can feel anger, despair and joy, it is self-centered, powerful and resists being suppressed.

You were born with the ability to feel, but your parents taught you how to feel. Sometimes how you feel includes “I’m not OK” messages that have been stored years earlier and surface during stressful times or in response to certain messages from the outside world. Sitting outside a tough buyer’s office waiting for an appointment can conjure up many not-OK feelings, even though the actual situation may not be threatening. How many times have you said to yourself, “I’ll probably get thrown out,” when, in fact, very few salespeople are ever thrown out of an office. What should you do about these messages that come back from the past to haunt you? Leave your Child in the car. Yes, you’re right once again, zero percent of your selling comes from your Child. When you are in a selling interview, he must not be there to foul up the selling system.

The Adult

According to Dr. Berne, your Adult is objective, rational, nonopinionated and nonprejudicial. It is that part of you which solves problems unemotionally by ingesting and digesting the facts and making objective, rational decisions based on information. Expressions from the adult are “I think,” “in my opinion,” and “to my way of thinking.” Coincidentally, 30 percent of your selling comes from the Adult in you.

Along with the Nurturing Parent, your Adult questioning techniques are that part of your personality that gently probes, while gathering facts. When appropriate during a sale, the Adult gives information.

You will find you can develop greater internal power when you allow your Adult to function, when you present yourself and your ideas in a manner which you can objectively support. Furthermore, by cultivating a healthy Adult in yourself, you will bring out the Adult in others. Being straightforward in your actions generally brings with it objective feedback, which enables your Adult to determine your effectiveness and to make changes if they are necessary.

Who Said That?

To enable you to determine which ego state is in control at any given time:

1) Examine your behavior, for instance, the way you gesture, the words you use, your tone of voice. Your Parent will make such remarks as, “You should always…” or “Don’t do that,” in a nurturing or critical manner. Your Child could shout, “I won!” or might complain, “I feel depressed.” Your Adult will, in a very matter-of-fact tone, state the facts: who, what, when and so on.

2) Examine the way you relate to other people. If you are critical or overbearing, your Parent may be upsetting to another person’s Child. If you are having a good time, the Child in you is in control. If you are acting in a factual manner, like a computer giving out unbiased information, your Adult is in control.

3) Check your childhood. You may find that the expressions you use and the feelings you experience are much the same as you used and experienced when you were young.

4) Examine your own feelings. Do you actually feel like a child or a parent, or do you actually feel like an unbiased, nonprejudiced adult?

Finally, during your next selling day, keep track of which ego state you were in when you made your calls. Then add up the results and prove to yourself just which internal voice helps you make the most sales. If you are acting out only what you were told you could be, you’ll never be the full person you are.