Selling Isn’t A Dirty Word

Business happens when someone pays you for a product or service. Therefore, someone has to be the buyer and someone needs to be the seller for the transaction to occur.

So, then why do many business owners who want to increase the size of their business and make more money, have so much judgement and discomfort when it comes to selling?

If selling makes you uncomfortable chances are, you’ve got to work on your mindset around money.

I’ve been talking a lot about selling lately, but it’s because I want you to understand that it’s not the scary, ugly thing that you may think it is. Let’s take a look into what makes selling feel gross.

When a buyer is uncomfortable with the selling process usually it’s because:

1. They don’t feel heard, valued or appreciated, OR
2. They can’t afford to buy what you’re selling and depending on how you make them feel, they make project that discomfort onto you.

When a seller is uncomfortable with the sales process, typically it comes from:

1. A lack of skill
2. A lack of belief that you the buyer will buy
3. Perhaps a lack of belief in what they are selling
4. The very common fear of rejection

Let’s Break These Down

As The Buyer:

When a buyer doesn’t feel heard, valued or appreciated, chances are good that the salesperson has not done a good job of determining needs. For a sale to feel good to the buyer, it requires the person selling to establish rapport. Uncover what the buyers needs really are, and you’re off to a good start. You do this by asking a number of questions to understand what your buyer is looking for – paraphrasing those needs so your buyer knows you hear them. Offer a product, service or solution to meet those needs.

If you start telling your buyer what they need instead of asking the right questions to understand what they really want, that’s a guaranteed way to create tension between the two of you. Which in the end, causes the buyer not to want to make the purchase.

Another way you can make a buyer not feel valued or appreciated is by ignoring them.  If you have a retail store or a restaurant, and a potential buyer comes into your establishment, your sales or service associate needs to be highly trained on how to make that potential buyer feel.  If they ignore the buyer and leave them to wander around trying to figure things out on their own, it can make them feel frustrated and annoyed by the lack of service.

The decision will be yes sometimes, and no other times. Both are okay – but it’s your job to give them the sales experience.

Have you ever gone shopping, knowing that what you’re looking at is far out of your price range? How about if you’ve ever gone shopping for something, and felt as though someone made the assumption you can’t afford it? It’s not a good feeling either way

This is a really important thing to remember: the buyer may not be able to afford that product today, but that does not mean that their circumstances won’t change. The impression you make with every potential buyer has the capacity to turn into a sale down the road.  Don’t dismiss someone because something is out of their price range, or because they can’t buy right now.  Make every buyer feel comfortable and remember the positive experience so they consider your business next time around.

As The Seller:

The most critical skill you need is your ability to make your buyer comfortable,  determine needs and present the right option for them to buy. One of the fundamental aspects of helping people make buying decisions is uncovering specifically what their needs are. You can’t do this by simply asking “Can I help you?”

Think of a time you had a conversation with someone and you felt like they were grilling you. Question after question, it made you feel like they were interrogating you, and there wasn’t any sincerity behind the questions. That is an example of inquiry done poorly.

When you establish rapport, you are able to ask smart, specific questions to help your buyer describe exactly what they want.  There is no magic set of questions. It varies depending on what you are selling. The people who are the best sellers pay attention to the questions that unlock a good deal of information easily and use them over and over again.

A buyer makes a decision based on fact and feeling.  If they don’t get a good feeling from the seller, usually they will walk away from the sale.

Consider a time when you’ve paid more for something you bought because you liked the person who you were talking to. The seller’s personality and how they make you feel as a buyer has a big impact on closing the sale. This is something I see ALL the time with retail businesses – people think they need more marketing to increase sales, when in fact they really need to train their team on the skills required to be an effective salesperson.

Walk into every sales opportunity believing fully that this person has the potential to do business with you.

Professional athletes don’t show up for a game against the top team in the league and decide “not to try” because their chance of winning is slim. Don’t let your own perception of what someone can or cannot do get in the way of being a true professional each and every time.

There is a quote that says “The first sale is always to yourself.” What this means is if you don’t believe in what you’re selling, you’ll never be able to transfer that belief to someone who is buying. If that is the case, the buyer can usually sense your lack of confidence and belief from the very start.

Fear of rejection is something that holds everyone back. Don’t take it personally if someone doesn’t buy, the best sales people track their conversion rate and know what their expected closing ratio is and work to improve it. They don’t take no personally, they get busy identifying what they could have done better and then they transfer that skill to the next opportunity.

Just because someone doesn’t buy your product or service doesn’t mean it isn’t good.

Did you know that Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas”? How about the fact that over 140 publishers rejected “Chicken Soup For The Soul” before it became a bestseller and sold millions of dollars in copies.

YOU have to believe it, before anyone else believes it. Walt Disney and Jack Canfield had two things in common, and that was an unwavering belief in what they were doing or selling, and that they never gave up.

We’re going to be talking lots about selling  at Money, Mindset and Marketing in Ottawa. If you want in-person tips, ideas, and help with making the sale, you should be there! If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, you can go to https://lisalarter.com/event . It’s going to be a full day of really hard work on your business, applying what you learn right then and there… Are you ready?

Leave me a comment and let me know, does your sales team go through initial training when they start? If so, what does that look like?