Monday, June 6, 2022
Monday, June 6, 2022
Love it or hate it, sales is the most valuable skill you can possess in business. Sales is the foundation of any business.
In this short blog post we’re going to deep dive into how you can sell anything. This will be valuable to you if you’re selling $400,000 dollar software or a $20 dollar pizza. After reading this, you will have actionable steps you can apply to your business
First things first, the first rule of sales is that you HAVE to be genuine and authentic. At the end of the day sales is all about helping people. If they genuinely can not benefit from your product or service you need to walk away.
Consumers are getting smarter and smarter each day they have unlimited access to information and choices at their fingertips as a salesperson you need to be aware of this and simply have their best interest at heart. This is how you win with sales in 2022 and beyond. It’s helpful not to think of yourself as a salesperson but as a “therapist” for your niche.
Now, let’s take a look at sales strategy.
Every sale is the same… it doesn’t matter if you are selling a 100 million dollar spaceship or a $2,000 dollar Honda.
I know that’s a bold statement but hear us out.. Sales can be boiled down to a very simple statement. Selling is simply the transfer of emotion. What emotion? Certainty.
You have to come at it with the mindset of “I am 100% certain my product or service will benefit you” If you truly believe this, it will come out in how you speak, act, and present yourself. Conviction will naturally flow out of you and transfer to your prospect. This is sales at the highest level and this is why every sale, no matter what, is the same. You have to believe so much in your product or service that you have the paradigm of “It would be a disservice to the prospect if they didn’t buy because it would provide that much value”
The above ideology only works with our first rule of sales. You have to be genuine and authentic. If you are selling a boat load of crap, you can be the best actor in the world but you will lose in the long run. It’s all about intention.
This is the sales framework we teach and use. In our opinion, it’s the only sales strategy you will ever need and we’re going to break it down in the second half of this article.
As you can see from the diagram the sales process is a straight line. We’ll break down and give examples for each point of the sale in the straight line
This is the most important part of the sale. This is when you first meet the potential prospect. In human psychology we are wired to make snap decisions in less than 4 seconds. It’s not fair but that’s how we’re designed. People can literally tell if they’ll ever do business with us in the first 4 seconds so first impressions matter. It takes 8 positive interactions to reverse a negative first impression. Now this doesn’t mean going over the top and being too enthusiastic but be yourself, give a smile, and make it count!
In these crucial first seconds you need to establish a couple things:
I will explain this further with an example. Think of a doctor, within the first 4 seconds of meeting a doctor they generally carry themselves in a professional and confident manner and they’re wearing medical equipment and a lab coat. In the first 4 seconds we are ready to trust them with our lives because of how we’re conditioned to perceive them. To drive this home further if you are selling lawn mowers are you in a thousand dollar suit or a company polo and jeans?
This phase is crucial because this is where we find out if we can actually help the prospect or not.
Some really good questions to kick this off are “So tell me about your situation John” “So why schedule a call now what made you pull the trigger on this meeting”
In the intelligent gathering phase you are trying to find out key details and deeper motives that can help you during your presentation phases. It is absolutely crucial you practice active listening and maybe even take down notes.
Some information you might want to find out:
Now after we’ve collected enough information and got to know their situation we can transition into our first presentation phase.
A good language pattern to transition is “so based on your situation John I would recommend our xyz for you let me tell you why”
Let’s see a really cheesy and simplified car sales example of this all coming together:
“So John the most important thing to you is your family and their safety. We’re looking at keeping payments around $350 a month. Let me run our Toyota Rav 4 by you, here’s why.”
This is where it is your time to shine. Everything that happens here in this phase has to be done with conviction and we are adding value with everything we are saying. You use what you found out from the intelligent gathering phase to craft your presentation to their specific values, needs, and budget. If you feel you’ve provided enough value and your first language patterns are complete you can go in for the first ask
Our presentation is finished and a good language pattern we might use is “John if we could accomplish x,y,z for your (whatever their needs were from the intelligence gathering phase), at x price point would you be ready to move forward today?
If you’ve provided enough value, oftentimes they’ll say yes right there. But the sale truly begins once they hit you with an objection at this point.
Here’s a sales hack: it doesn’t matter what objection they give you here they’re all just a smokescreen for you not providing enough value yet. They are not convinced your product or service will give them what they’re looking for. Here are some popular objections:
“I’m not looking to pay that much”
“I need to talk to x,y,z first”
“I’m going to shop around”
Again, all these are saying is that you haven’t transferred enough of your certainty that your product or service will help them. They are not convinced that it will provide enough value to them.
Here is how you will respond to any objection
“I completely hear what you are saying John, but let me ask you this…” And then you transition into your second presentation and take back control of the sale
This in sales is called a Looping pattern.
This is where we bring out the big guns. This second presentation is where we try to lower the prospect's action threshold. Some great action lowering language patterns are:
“John we’ll hold your hand every step of the way there won't be any work on your end”
“If you hate it John and it doesn’t fix your situation we’ll give you a 100% refund”
In this presentation it's a good idea to bring out reviews, testimonials, and case studies to showcase or share. Again everything should be related back to the specific information you found out during the intelligence gathering phase. Finally, once you have used some action lowering phrases combined with all your big guns for the presentation we’re going to transition into our second ask.
A great language pattern for this goes as follows: “John if we hold your hand every step of the way and get you x,y,z result with x,y,z benefit/value at price point x with a 30 day money back guarantee would that sound fair enough?”
With that language pattern it’s hard for prospects to say no at this point. Because you’ve already provided so much value in your presentation you know how to solve their problem and you lower their action threshold by offering money back guarantees or special value propositions like a dedicated account manager etc etc.
If they STILL say no to this you can do another looping pattern (going back into a presentation phase) We typically give it a rest after 2 or 3 looping patterns.
One thing to remember when performing the straight line sales method is anytime you aren’t in one of the phases you are off the line and being counterproductive. As an expert in your field its up to you to take control and keep the prospect on the line. If you start having chit chat about other things it can be okay in moderation but if you think you are building “rapport” you’re not they have their friends and family for that. The way you build rapport is by helping them and being an expert in your field.
A great method to use in your Intro phase is to frame the call or sale this is extremely powerful and switches the entire power dynamic. Here are some language patterns to use for this as well as a scenario
“Typically how these calls go john is we’re going to ask you some questions about your situation to see if we’d even be a good fit for each - other sound fair enough?”
Scenario:
Intro on a call or sales encounter:
Prospect: “ yeah we’re kinda just shopping around hoping to get a quote”
Sales expert: “ I completely understand prospect but with all your respect I don’t even know if we can help you yet I’d need to get some more information about your situation”
To be your most confident enthusiastic self there is an old sales technique that uses your physiology to put you in a heightened state to perform. Everyone has their own way to do this but we like to listen to music and dance before a sales call here at Webvio. Some other common ones are to yell, perform power poses, and do jumping jacks. Find what works for you.
With this article you can become an expert salesperson. Apply this sales ideology into your business. If you have questions or want more information
Schedule a consultation call with our team.
