How To Sell More Without Being Salesy

[TRANSCRIPT]

0:00:03 - (Jared Erni): This is the for Impact podcast, the destination for impact driven entrepreneurs striving to live life on their terms and create a ripple effect of positive impact in the communities they serve. Where we put your success stories center stage, dissecting the lessons learned and sharing insights and ideas that will help you amplify your impact. And now here's your host, Jared Ernie.

0:00:41 - (B): Into the week in between Christmas and New Year's. And it's quiet around in the business community. Like all the, all the business owners I'm working with are taking a little time off right now, and I wanted to come on and share a little podcast episode about something I've been thinking about. Because over the conversations I've had with a lot of business owners, about half, 50% of them are scared to death to sell.

0:01:06 - (B): They have this misconception about sales that causes them to have some false beliefs that prevent them from being able to sell effectively. The other half feel like they're the best at sales, but obviously there's room for all of us to improve. And I wanted to touch on something about sales that I think will shift a little bit about how at least the 50% who struggle in that space think about sales as a thing.

0:01:34 - (B): The reason people hate sales is because they have this misconception that it's manipulative, and that your sales is convincing someone to buy something they don't need, want, or can afford. And if that's how you perceive sales, of course you're going to feel yuck about trying to sell your services or products too, because you come from a place of a false belief that this is manipulative and you're selling stuff that people don't need, don't want or can't afford.

0:02:11 - (B): That's no fun. I don't like that. That doesn't make me feel good. It doesn't make them feel good. It makes everyone feel yucky. And that is why people have this misconception about sales. Because there are people out there who abuse cells, or use cells to be manipulative, to sell for their own purposes and desires. But cells truly isn't or doesn't need to be manipulative. There's also a process of sales where it is convincing people, or convincing someone to buy something, or excuse me, there's two ways to sell.

0:02:50 - (B): Let me clarify this. There's a selling when you're convincing someone to buy something for your desires, or persuading. Persuading is different. Persuading is persuading someone to buy something or to make a decision that they already desire to make for their own reasons. Okay, so let me reframe this so I can be really clear. Convincing someone is selling something I desire for my reasons. Persuading someone is selling something and helping them make a decision they already desire to make for their reasons.

0:03:36 - (B): Does that make sense? So there's really two ways you can go about this. One is selling to convince people to buy for your reasons, and the other is to persuade people to buy for their reasons. So selling can either be something you do for you, or it can be something selling something for them. And that's the difference. There's a higher law to sales, a higher way to sell that is actually one of the highest levels of service you can provide.

0:04:13 - (B): But the key is that it's not to meet your desires and needs. It's to be of service to meet their desires and needs. And that's the big difference. So, let me share with you a quick backstory on sales. I was actually working. I've been trained by a lot of really great salespeople as I've invested in different coaching and different mentorships. Neil Tricarico has been super influential with me. He was actually Tony Robbins, number one sales guy for like, eight years, ran his whole sales department.

0:04:48 - (B): I've been working with folks at AD outreach and wonderful salespeople there. Dave has been tremendous at helping me coach me through things over there. And even when I've been coached by such great people, every salesperson goes through cycles where we need someone from an outside perspective to look in and help us identify things we're too close to the problem to see. So this is one of those stories.

0:05:15 - (B): I was actually having a really great month, and then the month after that, it died down. It completely tanked, and I couldn't figure out why I was struggling the way I was to sell that month, but I got in my head and I couldn't see that. And so as I was going through some coaching, trying to figure out how to rebound from this, one of the best pieces of advice I got from Dave over at outreach, he said, he said, you're recording your calls, so why don't you go back and pick out your best three sales calls from the month that you did really, really well, and then pick out three of your calls that you know you should have closed from the month you've struggled in. And I want you to compare both of those, and I want you to go through and write down everything that you see that is different from those scenarios.

0:06:10 - (B): So I did that. And as I was comparing those calls, I noticed two major things. Number one, my best sales calls were averaging around 45 minutes, and my worst were going over 75 minutes long. So even the more time I spent on the call with that person, it was derailing my ability to help them make a decision that they already wanted to make for their reasons. I was having a harder time helping them see that value and being able to make the decisions.

0:06:40 - (B): The second thing I noticed was that on all my good sales calls, I was wearing this particular blue button up shirt. And on my other sales calls, my terrible sales calls, I was wearing a t shirt kind of like this, but a little bit different. And I realized something there. And as I noticed that, at first I just noticed it, but I didn't know what it meant until I spent some time thinking about it. And what I realized was, it wasn't the shirt. The shirt wasn't what made the difference, but it was what the physiology of putting that shirt on did to my mindset that allowed me to show up at a better place or be more present for that client that led them to better making better decision, not making better decisions, but allowing them, serving them in a way that allowed them to make the decisions, to move forward with something they already want and needed.

0:07:43 - (B): And that was what was really game changing for me. I needed to figure out how to put myself back in that mindset. And so I began again by starting putting on that shirt again, buttoning it up, doing the physiology of that process that made me show up at a higher level. And that was really helpful because it brought out a better me in each of my calls. That's what was super powerful about it. Well, shortly after that, I had my best sales month in business ever.

0:08:21 - (B): And I've been able to look at that as a learning lesson. Has helped me discover some things about how I sell that make all the difference. Because, again, the higher way of selling is not convincing people to buy something they don't need or want. It is being in a place in your own mindset and showing up in a way that serves that person to really unpack the value that they seek in a way that allows them to make decisions to move forward.

0:08:54 - (B): And I'm going to give you three tips that I learned through that process to help me persuade people to make decisions for their reasons. So the first that I want to share with you is, number one, you may have a really great product, a really great service. You might be the expert that they need, but do not tell them how good you are. Demonstrate it by asking good questions. If you can get to the point where you're asking good questions.

0:09:28 - (B): Not only are you demonstrating your expertise in the area that you serve in, but you're also uncovering the real problems, needs and desires that that potential client has that allows you to serve them at a higher level. Instead of a cookie cutter process that everyone should buy what I have to offer, you should hold back that and only offer it to the people that are a really good fit to genuinely get good results with that. Does that make sense?

0:10:04 - (B): You shouldn't pitch to everyone. You should only pitch. I'm going to actually touch on that here in a second, but should only be pitching to those people who are a good fit to get great results with what you offer. Does that make sense? So, detach yourself from trying to close everyone and come from a place of service where you want to understand them first and then give them the solution. Does that make sense?

0:10:36 - (B): Demonstrate how good you are by get good. Asking really good questions. That's number one. Number two, I just said pitch, pitch, pitch, because I wanted to set this up. But the truth is that we do not want to pitch at all. Pitching is for salespeople who come in and say, hey, this is what we can do. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's feature, benefit, feature, benefit, feature, benefit, feature, benefit, buyer thing.

0:11:01 - (B): We're not going to pitch. We're going to prescribe. It would be malpractice for a doctor to have you come into the office, not ask you a single question about your situation and just prescribe you a subscription or prescription. That's what we often do with sales, is just writing off those prescriptions without clearly understanding the potential client. So again, it goes in with line one, get good at asking good questions. But number two, don't pitch your product or service.

0:11:42 - (B): Prescribe the solution that they need to get the desired result that they want. In line with that, we're not going to sell the service. We're going to sell the transformation the service provides. Does that make sense? But you cannot do that if you don't ask the questions that allow you to understand what the desired results really are that your potential client wants. And number three, this is a really wise thing. I heard by Myron golden, someone who I admire, love his books, listen to him speak, even sat next to him for lunch once.

0:12:27 - (B): And almost everything that this man says, I absorb as like business gospel. He's so brilliant. But one of the things that he said that has always stuck with me is you need to discipline yourself to do the thing that you might not be good at while it's not working long enough to make it work, you need to discipline yourself to do it while it's not working long enough to make it work. What that is is what he calls lasting through the learning curve.

0:13:06 - (B): Learn from everything that you do and dedicate yourself to the process. Not the end result, but the process. Because the more you do it and the longer you do it, the better you're going to get. And I promise you, as you start looking at your sales, I hope that these points help you a little bit in thinking a little differently about how you approach sales. But coming from a place of service rather than a place of manipulation, and continue to practice that.

0:13:34 - (B): Get really good at asking questions. Prescribe instead of pitch. Seek to understand your client and sell the transformation, not the service. If you do those things, you're going to see a much stronger connection with the person that you are selling to, and you'll be better at helping them and persuading them to make decisions that they already want to make for their reasons only.

0:14:07 - (Jared Erni): Thank you for tuning into the for Impact podcast where we're all about driving positive change through entrepreneurship. Remember, your impact matters and your journey matters. If you found inspiration in today's episode, please subscribe, rate and leave a review. Your feedback fuels our mission to empower impact driven entrepreneurs like you. You can stay connected with us on social media and go to forimpactpodcast.com

0:14:39 - (Jared Erni): to take our impact marketing challenge. Keep pursuing your dreams, making an impact, and living life on your terms.