Selling is a paradox. You want to sell more products and services (of course you do!) but you don’t want to do it by selling products and services!
Whoa what’s that all about?
As we’ve said elsewhere in these pages, your clients don’t really care about you or your products and services. They only care about what you can do for them. A lot of sales training will focus on how you sell your products and services, but in our view this isn’t the best way to sell.
So how should you sell?
We think you should sell as if you’ve got nothing to sell!
That sounds a bit mad, but think about it:
- If you had nothing to sell you’d have to ask lots of questions…
- …and listen to the answers!
- You wouldn’t be able to push product.
- You wouldn’t be able to start thinking about solutions when exploring needs.
- The client would have your complete attention.
In sales situations it’s all about the client. Or it should be. But when we’re with clients we often tend not to focus on them, thinking about:
- What we’re going to offer them. This is a cardinal sin when exploring needs.
- Our next question, and not listening to their current answer. Another cardinal sin.
- Our concern about price.
Anything except the client.
It’s easy to get distracted and think of other things when you’re with clients. It’s also easy to think you’ve heard it all before. But you haven’t!
Keep your total focus on your client. Ask them intelligent, needs-oriented questions and listen intently to their answers.
And never push product!