Most marriages that show up on Marriage Builders contain one reluctant spouse. Dr. Harley states this about couples that show up for his seminar. Selling Marriage Builders to your spouse seems to be a critical issue for many here. The way you present this program is critical because people do not buy things unless they see a benefit.
Many make the mistake of presenting this program as a means of changing their spouse and they never get buy-in as result. Who would want to buy a program that makes me change? I negotiate deals for a living so I thought I would revamp my company's selling process to work for marriages.
The most important thing to understand is that people buy things when there is a perceived benefit. TO THEM. And how do you find out what they would view as a benefit? You listen and ask open ended questions. You take those answers and find features of the MB program that would benefit your spouse. You bridge features to benefits, showing your spouse how they stand to benefit.
A good way to start this process is to have your spouse take the Marital Problem Analysis
here If you are not successful in this process, the Harleys have coaching services that can help you motivate your spouse. Those programs are outlined
here and
here. Selling ProcessGet your spouse's attention with a benefit statement: You�ve told me in the past that it bothers you when I buy things without consulting you. I have an idea that will eliminate that problem so that I never do anything without our enthusiastic agreement.
Ask Open-ended Questions:
First, I want to ask you a few questions so I fully understand your perspective. What would you say are the top two things I could eliminate that would make you the happiest?
And what are the top two things I could start doing [or do more of] that would make you the happiest?
How do you feel about the level of romance and passion in our marriage?
Spouse response examples: It really annoys me when you buy big ticket items without consulting with me. I also hate the way you make my fried eggs. I like them over medium, not over easy.
It would make the happiest if you would spend more time with me and when we go out, you stop wearing that blue jogging suit I hate. It makes you look like a Walmart shopper.
The romance is supposed to die after you are married. That is just life!
Solution Statement: I have an idea that will get you what you want and restore the romantic love to our marriage.
Bridge Features to Benefits: This is how my idea comes into play. I have been researching the Marriage Builders program and it is the only program I can find that has an effective plan to restore the romantic love to our marriage. A big part of the program is spending more time with your spouse, gaining enthusiastic agreement before making decisions and never doing anything that makes your spouse unhappy. That means we could schedule more time together, make all spending decisions together and I would stop wearing that blue jogging suit when we go out.
Which is what you want isn�t it?Critical Details: The program has step by step instructions that we can learn together at home. I can buy all of the necessary books for under $45. The basic concepts of this program are found here:
site tour of Marriage Builders One of the main elements is spending 15 hours together every week. Time that is scheduled is harder to put off so if we make this schedule we can decide what we would like to do and find the things that make us the happiest. How would you feel about spending one hour every night doing the lessons together as part of our planned time?
Overcome Objections: Know your program so you can overcome objections and come to an agreement. Before you have this discussion, anticipate potential objections and work them out beforehand.
Recap Next Steps: Great. I�ll order these books tonight and we can start our lessons next week when they arrive. I brought a worksheet we can use tonight to schedule our date nights and our lesson time. We can discuss things we would like to do on our dates and write out the times and dates. How would you feel about starting our date nights tomorrow?
