Deon Basson
Deon Basson has been involved in negotiation and selling for 19 years, specialising in Corporate IT Solutions. Operating primarily in Europe and Africa, Deon has a particular understanding of sales and negotiation in cross cultural contexts.
Deon holds a B.Sc Honours (Information Technology) and an MBA specialising in Business and Technology alignment. He is currently completing a PhD focusing on the role of technology in understanding people.
In addition to his strong systems background, Deon advises clients on the importance of the Human Element in any sale or negotiation. He assists his clients in better understanding the roles their teams, clients, partners and suppliers teams play - at and away from the negotiation table. Personality and thinking preference profiles are regularly used, to share a perspective on negotiators' and teams' unseen habits. Experience in Strategic Client Management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM), have fuelled and informed Deon's focus on the human element.
Deon's consultancy expertise is sought in collaborating with clients in creating a corporate negotiation capability. This usually starts with creating or redesigning a sales or negotiation strategy.
Deon frequently speaks at seminars, where he draws interesting parallels between the human element, strategy and technology in business negotiations.
“The Psychology of Sales”
“I know my product so well and I know my customer so well, but why can’t I get the deal I want?” Does that question sound familiar?
The sales process has become quite complex in the 21st century. As a result of the information age, your average consumer is much more educated than ever before. Purchasing practices are now at their best, and have matured significantly. It is for this reason that we need to enhance our ability to persuade people.
Product knowledge, customer knowledge and providing a solution is not enough to get the deal you want. You need to understand how to frame that deal in a way that will make the other party want to do business with you.
In this informative and fun presentation the focus is placed on understanding persuasion techniques that are applicable to any sales process, whether selling a product, services or just an idea.
Sales persuasion is no longer simply seen as an art as it has expanded into a science supported by over 50 years of research. In this talk Deon will talk about the following topics :
- Assumptions
- The law of relativity
- Reciprocity
- Commitment
- Following society
- Liking
- Credibility
- Trust
- Scarcity
A must for any sales person.
- Thanks for the amazing presentations you presented, I really enjoyed them. – Microsoft Partner Summit.
- An amazing talk on understanding self and others that will greatly enhance your team performance. A must for any team – Mediclinic
- A brilliant talk with such easy to understand tips and techniques…I am starting immediately - Paracon
- The talk is filled with real life examples, humor and thought provoking ideas.
- Addressing the principles of persuasion.
- How to build trust.
- Framing the deal is all about making it relative.
- Negotiation tactics and techniques.
- “How to get what you want” principles.
“Ironman Principles”
“How could it be that 2 people with exactly the same facts and exactly the same situation prepare and manage so differently in the Ironman or for that matter in any given business situation?” Understanding that or not understanding that is the difference between success and failure.
The most important contributor to success (in the Ironman, business or just life) is the ability to understand yourself and how you:
- Analyse any given situation (e.g. your Ironman abilities or current state in business).
- Define a vision for what you want to achieve and be able to see the bigger picture.
- Create a plan and how you follow that plan.
- Feel about the people that are part of this initiative or process.
Our thinking preferences greatly influence how we do the above. We might avoid analyzing stuff yet love working according to a plan or we might enjoy working with people yet avoid the “bigger picture” stuff. Further, our thinking preferences differ from each other more than our fingerprints. By using the analogy of animals Deon shows exactly why it is so important to understand your preference in order to succeed in the Ironman or business. The metaphors for thinking styles are :
- Visionary Fox – Opportunistic, Risk Taker, New Ideas
- Connected Meerkat – Relationships, Empathetic, Sympathetic
- Analytical Owl – Factual, Analysing everything
- Methodical Hedgehog – Process/Plan Driven
- Your fantastic quality inputs, your commitment and value-add during the second week of the BOSAL Master Class are greatly appreciated! The evaluation feedback from the participants on your contents and the learning process has been very positive. – University of Stellenbosch Business School.
- This brilliant message along with Deon’s natural ability to convey it makes it a significant experience. We at Skills Factory strongly recommend that all people in the market place be exposed to these principles. It so useful, we have even incorporated it into most of our training courses. – Skills Factory
- An amazing talk on understanding self and others that will greatly enhance your team performance. A must for any team – Mediclinic
- The talk is filled with parallels between the Ironman and business, practical experience, fun and great advice.
- In addition, each person attending will walk away with a thinking preference profile of themselves based on the 4 thinking styles mentioned above. A must for anybody dealing with people internally or externally.
- This talk could be from 60min to a participative workshop.
“LIFE IS A PITCH…THEN YOU FLY”
“How could it be that 2 people with exactly the same facts, exactly the same situation and both dealing with the same person, have vastly different results?” The one gets a ‘Yes’ and the other a definite ‘No’. In this lies the difference between success and failure (be it in business, a sale or just a simple conversation), in this lies life.
Be it normal relationship building, team building, sales or any other situation where you need to communicate to get results, this talk will show you how.
In this talk Deon firstly focuses on different thinking preferences and we all prefer to communicate in our own thinking preference. BUT if we pitch in the style of the person you are dealing with (and not your own), you will greatly enhance your success rate. Analytical people like statistics and facts while others think them boring; Social people like to hear stories while Analytical people might think it is vague; Methodical people like order and processes while Visionary people think them too rigid; Visionary people like to speculate and take risks while Analytical people think they are day-dreaming; ….the list goes on.
Say it in the wrong way, and you will normally say it in your own preference, and watch and hear your inability to persuade….say it in the right way and watch your ability to convince improve exponentially.
In addition Deon shows some very simple examples of persuasion techniques by talking about the psychology of influence and persuasion. E.g. how to create liking quickly; how to frame options in such a way that people go for the one you want; how to give favors…and get them back.
AN ABSOLUTE MUST FOR ANY PERSON THAT WANTS TO IMPROVE THEIR COMMUNICATION STYLE
AND HENCE IMPROVE INFLUENCE AND PERSUASION. A MUST FOR ANY TEAM THAT WANTS TO
IMPROVE THEIR EFFECTIVENESS. A MUST FOR ANY ORGANIZATION GOING THROUGH CHANGE.
Deon will in the talk draw some parallels between business / communication with experiences in the Ironman.