In this four part article you will move away from forceful and manipulative sales tactics to Conscious Sales tactics and in the process experience your business and easy, effortless and enjoyable. When you feel good, you make more sales naturally.
Shift for Making the Sale to Making a Contribution
To begin making the shift to becoming a Conscious Salesperson, you must first begin letting go of your focus on making the sale and instead start making a contribution. In other words, begin taking yourself out of the equation. Feel yourself moving from selfishness to selflessness.
As you release your attachment to “making the sale” and what you are going to get, you’ll feel a lessening in the client’s resistance. Get excited about what others want and resistance melts away. However, when you are focusing on what you are going to get by making the sale, people feel it and resist. You’ve felt this resistance before, haven’t you?
Think now about the times you’ve been sold to and you felt uneasy, or even repelled by the salesperson. What turned you off? If you honestly look at that situation, you’ll more than likely discover that the salesperson seemed to not care about you or your needs. You felt some hidden agenda. That’s how your clients feel when you’re focused on what you’ll receive from the sale or when you’re being selfish.
My best friend John is a salesperson. He’s incredibly powerful, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. When John first started selling, he was desperate. He needed the money to survive. He would make call after call and get no response. After listening to John’s presentations on tape, it was obvious what was happening.
In his desperation, John said things that didn’t matter to the customer. He skated around important issues that the customer wanted addressed. He didn’t want to lose the sale by upsetting the client, so he would hide things and lie about the process or product. He would agree with the clients, even when doing so contradicted his values or company policies. Even worse is how hard John would try to compensate for all this. He studied his scripts and practiced his objection handlers, and yet the harder he tried, the worse it got. Even though he practiced being powerful, once the customer showed up he abandoned everything he had practiced for fear of being too direct and losing the client. After two years of just surviving, John finally got it...
Selling is not about you!
Selling is about the customer’s needs, wants, and desires. No one cares what you want. No one cares about what you need, and certainly no one (especially your clients) cares about your desires.
When John finally began focusing on the customer’s needs, he gained a whole new freedom in the sales process. As he changed his focus, clients responded favorably. John began using what he had practiced. He started being straight with people about what he would and would not do. He had the freedom to explain why it was beneficial for the client to do what he wanted them to do. And he soon realized that some clients had no business buying from him, so he wouldn’t let them buy.
John became unattached to his outcome and completely attached to making sure his clients were taken care of and their needs were met.
You can sense what happened next. The first month John produced what he would normally do in a year. That was in September; in the last quarter of the year John’s sales were more than what he had made in the previous two years.
The Difference That Makes the Difference
Contribution is the difference! When John began speaking to people about how he could help them solve their problems and what possibilities lay ahead if they took his advice and direction, his sales skyrocketed.
One of the side benefits of learning to sell this way is that you’ll begin feeling happy again. When you shift your focus from your needs and focus instead on contributing to your clients, you’ll receive a greater sense of happiness and satisfaction. And I don’t have to tell you that when you are happy and satisfied, you always do much better.
When you are focused on what you’re going to get, it’s like using black magic against yourself. Your tongue is tied, you feel nervous, and you end up saying things that don’t make sense to the prospect. You don’t make sense because you are looking at it from your perspective. The harder you try, the more they resist. You’ll just be saying things to try and get them to buy, and you will sound desperate.
Let’s look at this from your Conscious Salesperson perspective. Your energy precedes you. What you are thinking and feeling is sending out messages into the universe and your customers (everyone) can read them before you open your mouth.
People may not be able to get exactly what you are thinking, but people can read you easily. Not everyone is paying attention to the signals you are sending, but most people get a strong “get away” feeling when you send out desperation signals.
There are two things that give you away: your subtle energy transmission, and your actual physical transmission. The way you look, your facial expressions, posture, and mannerisms all give you away. The way you sound, the words you choose, the tonality you use, and your phrasing all get altered depending on how you view the situation.
So how do you make the shift from making a sale to making a contribution? Start getting excited about other people’s opinions. Begin to look at the world through their eyes. Start viewing the situation from other people’s perspectives. Ask yourself questions that change your point of view, such as:
- What does the client need, want, or desire?
- Do I have a solution that’s right for them at this time?
- Will my product or service make a difference for this person?
- How can I help?
- What can I do to assist this person in getting what they want?
I’ll be discussing the power of questions later, but now notice the shift in perspective as you read them now. It feels good to look at the sales process like this, doesn’t it? There is nothing more satisfying than contributing to others. It feels good to you and it feels good to the prospect. You’ll soon realize there is nothing more important than feeling good when selling.
You are a Conscious Salesperson. Contributing to others is your mission. When you are looking out for people, they can feel it and will readily put themselves in your hands. No trust is available when you are making the sale for you.
Take Money out of the Equation
To close this chapter, let me say this: I know you want money, but what would happen if you decided to take money out the sales equation?
Just suppose that instead you focused on how you are going to benefit people by sharing your product or service. You know that whatever you give, you will get. I know this makes sense to you. You are the type of person who always gets what you want eventually. And you are now realizing that you get what you want as soon as you let go of the need to have it. The less concern you have for the money, the more magic will happen in your life. You are blessed. Remember that and sales will flow to you easily.
Matthew Ferry
President and CEO
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