Unlock the secrets to starting a successful journey in sales with our latest episode! Ever wondered how recommending a favorite movie is like making a sale? We promise you'll gain practical insights into initiating conversations, handling objections, and closing deals—minus the fear of being too pushy. Whether you're stepping into a sales role by choice or necessity, this episode is packed with advice that makes selling feel as natural as sharing something valuable with a friend.
Ethical sales practices are at the heart of building lasting client relationships, and we uncover why honesty and transparency are your best allies in this endeavor. Discover how to avoid the pitfalls of overselling and misrepresenting products with real-life examples that highlight the importance of understanding client needs. Plus, we share top-notch communication strategies to engage prospective clients through genuine conversations, ensuring your selling approach is both impactful and authentic. Don't miss our accompanying video and webinar for even more tips. Happy selling, and join us for more insightful discussions in our next episode!
If you have a sales problem you'd like to hear covered in a podcast, please contact me directly. Or, my sales training programme might help!
If you'd like help to improve your sales confidence, please jump onto my free (1 hour) on-demand webinar. I'll teach you three things you can apply immediately, including handling objections and closing a sale.
Hello again. This podcast is specifically aimed at you. If you're new to sales, so you don't have maybe any direct sales experience and you're having to step into a sales role for whatever reasons. That might be because you've chosen to move into sales as a career move, or it may be that you have your own business and part of where you're at right now is that you have to do your own selling, and I'm particularly thinking of face-to-face selling, so where you sit with your client or stand with your client and you sell to them face-to-face this isn't about online selling, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:
So where do you start? Because I definitely know it can be very daunting. I've had to go through that myself when I started sales, and sometimes you're lucky enough to have a mentor, someone who can take you through the process, give you some basic steps to get you going. But other times you're not so lucky, so you're suddenly left. You've got maybe it's your own business and you've been very excited about taking what is a really big step in starting your own business. And equally almost as big a step, I think, if you change careers and you move into direct sales working for somebody else. So you're definitely putting yourself on the line. But, of course, we all start with pretty much no experience. Most of us, when we go into selling, we haven't sold before, certainly not in that way, and not when it's very visible, which it is within a business. Even if you're on your own, you know that if you fail as a salesperson, the business is gone, because without sales, you don't have a business. So there's a lot of pressure there.
Speaker 1:
So how do you start? Where do you get going? And that's really the purpose of this podcast. So what I will do in the description is to give you a link to a free webinar that I have and that will take you through three things. That's how to have the conversation, how to start the conversation, how to identify what the important things are for you to cover when you're talking to somebody, and it also touches on how to handle objections and also how to close the sale. So these three things, I think, cover three of the biggest fears that salespeople have, I think, three areas that most salespeople find most difficult when they start. So it will take you through and just give you practical things you can do. It will give you a structure that you can use. So it's really important to have a structure to get going at least. And then, if that works for you, I also have an online trading course called Creative Consultative Selling, and that will give you more options, it will give you more information, it will give you really the secrets to being able to sell successfully. So that's for the future, right now.
Speaker 1:
So how do you get started? How do you approach your first maybe it is your first client meeting? Well, the fear I think most people have is that they, or their experience has been that they have to deal with pushy salespeople. So you know that person who is just constantly trying to close you, constantly trying to get you to say yes. And, first of all, I don't think many people like those people. I certainly don't. And again, if you don't like those people, you probably don't want to end up like them, and the good news is you don't have to.
Speaker 1:
So the first thing I want you to think about is how do you handle it if you've seen, let's say, a movie that you've really loved and you think your friends are going to be interested? Or there are certain friends you think this is just really going to float their boat. They're going to love this movie. So think about your approach to them when you start talking about this movie, and I want you to just think about what your energy is like, the kind of phrases that you're using and generally how that whole conversation would go. So I think most of us have had that experience, and the reason that I want you to think about that is that selling is pretty much the same thing, and before we dive into that in more detail, I want to step back one further pace, if you like, and ask yourself why, if you go back to that conversation, why did you want to encourage this person to watch the movie? And the chances are that your answer is that first of all, you thought they would enjoy it. It may also be that you think it might be helpful to them in some way, maybe give them a perspective on an experience they've had, or just generally help them in some way. So it may not be all three of those, but these are typically the kind of reasons that drive us when we want to share something.
Speaker 1:
So it doesn't have to be a movie. It could be a book, it could be an application, it could be anything, anything that's relevant between you and this other person, and this is the kind of thing I want you to bear in mind, because when it comes to selling, whatever it is you sell, whether it's a product or a service, whatever it is, what you are trying to do is to help that person. I've spoken about this in other podcasts. This is absolutely fundamental to the way I approach sales, and that is that sales itself is about helping other people. A salesperson is somebody who is there to help somebody else achieve their goals, and the way we do that is we provide either a product or a service that is relevant to them and will help them to move forward. So, if you think about the kind of products that you might be selling, obviously I don't know what you're selling, but it could be a car, if you're selling a car, and, I have to say, if you do sell cars, my experience of salespeople in the automotive industry has been pretty ordinary, to use a phrase. So most of them don't sell at all well in my opinion, at all well in my opinion. So, if you're in the industry, if you know how to sell properly, I think you'll stand head and shoulders above most of the people you're selling against.
Speaker 1:
But if you go to a car, what is it you're trying to do? You find out what is it that person needs the car to do for them. Do they have a family? Does it have to carry? You know two adults, most of the time, and you know several children, however many that might be. Is it a runaround? Do they do a lot of long distance driving? Is it for work? Whatever they do, it might be a vehicle that they have to use at least some of the time for delivery or collecting. So hopefully, this is starting to make things a little bit clearer about understanding what your prospect let's say, to use that phrase what is your prospect hoping to achieve? Why are they putting time aside to talk to you? And the reason is simply they recognize that they need to achieve something in their life, and what they need in order to achieve whatever that is is something that you can deliver, and you can spin this around.
Speaker 1:
When you've bought a car, or when you've bought a house, or when you've signed up to a gym, or whatever it might be, what was your mindset, what was going through your head when you were going to make this purchase? Were you already very, very clear on what you needed, or were you going to the sales person. Let's say that's who you were dealing with and you weren't that clear. You actually needed their input to start getting clear about what the right service was for you in that situation, what the right car might have been for you. It might have been a house, it might have been a gym membership, whatever it might be. Start going through. Take yourself back to when you bought something and look it was probably a purchase that was reasonably significant. I'm going to assume that what you're selling has a reasonable cost to it, so it's not something that would be a trivial purchase for the person that you're selling to. So put yourself in their shoes. Put yourself back when you were making that purchase and what did you want from the salesperson? And even write down maybe three, four, five things that you were looking for from that person. So it might have been clarity on what the best product or solution was for you in that circumstance.
Speaker 1:
There might have been other things that were important to you. So what about guarantees? What happens if something goes wrong? Can they handle it locally? Does it have to go away somewhere? What does that mean to you? If this product or service stops working, what's the impact of that on what you're trying to do with it. So these are, you know, and you can come up with these questions. Just take a little bit of time away, maybe go have a cup of coffee and just sit down with a notepad and write down the kind of questions that were in your mind when you've made these purchases and they might vary from purchase to purchase, but you're likely to find there's a core number of questions that come up every time.
Speaker 1:
And then when you are dealing with your clients face to face, remember they probably have those same questions themselves about whatever it is you're selling to them, and this is really important because once you start putting yourself into their shoes, that changes the approach. So now your approach to them is to make sure, first of all, that you understand what might just be the top three things, the top five things, whatever it might be that your solution needs to deliver for them. So you have a conversation. That's what sales is. When you're in a direct selling with somebody. I call it consultative selling, because it's about having a conversation. You're consulting, you're understanding, you're learning what it is they're trying to achieve, and they may well know a good deal about what you need to deliver in order for them to be successful. Equally, they may well be coming to you so that you can fill in some of the blanks they have, so they may not know.
Speaker 1:
If, let's say, it's a car, they've got a tailgate and it's one of those where you wave your foot underneath the bumper and the tailgate opens, you know, one of those sorts of things, is that something they need? I mean, it's a trivial example, but what I want you to start thinking about is what are the options or what differentiates different models or services that you have, and what are the questions you need to ask so that you can identify the best solution for that particular person. So this is, I think, really important that you take time out, as I say, have a cup of coffee, go grab a notebook or take your laptop or whatever it is you use, and just sit and write down what are the questions that you really need answers to in order to be able to identify the best solution for any particular client coming in. So it would be somebody coming in and these are the questions to just ask them so that you can pin down the correct or the best solution for them, the solution that you offer that will give them the best value. And equally, in those questions you also need to have one or two questions in there that identify the showstopper.
Speaker 1:
So what I mean by that are that if there are certain things that you can't deliver, then you need to make sure you've asked those questions too, because the worst thing you can do, in my opinion, or certainly one of the worst things you can do is to sell a solution to a client knowing that it won't do everything that they need, but not being upfront about that. Because what will happen is they will feel like they've been had, you know, become apparent very quickly that what you've sold them won't do what they want. And if you've told them it will, then you've just lost trust. You've lost that client, so you've lost any future business with them. The chances are they also will give you a bad review. They will tell friends or other people they know who may also be potential clients for you, not to touch you. So this is absolutely not where you want to go. That's a great way of destroying your own business.
Speaker 1:
So be upfront. So you really need to know what are the differentiators and somebody coming to you for the kind of product or service that you offer. Are there things they may well typically ask for that you know you can't deliver and the key thing there is to be upfront about it, and it is better not to get that sale but to maintain the relationship, because you don't know who they know. You don't know how their requirements might change in the future and there's definitely a possibility that their requirements might change to a point where what you offer is right for them and they'll remember that you were up front with them. You can be trusted and that trust is really important. So, again, think about it.
Speaker 1:
Go back to the situations where you've bought something from someone that's been a, you know, really important purchase for you in one regard or another. You need to trust that person. You need to feel that they've taken the time to understand what it is that you're trying to achieve and that they have offered you the best solution they can, or, if they can't meet your needs, they've been up front with it, been up front with you, so they're not wasting your time, front with it, been up front with you, so they're not wasting your time, they're not wasting their own time and you know that if things change in the future, you can go back to them and they're going to be straight with you. And that's really important, because a lot of people I'm not going to put a number on it, but there's definitely salespeople out there who, under pressure, they're so worried or they need to get the sales so much that they will lie, not to dress it up, they'll lie in order to get the deal. And, in fact, I've even seen this. I've even worked not for very long, I will add, but I've worked.
Speaker 1:
I remember working for one particular company and that was pretty much how they operated. They didn't care whether they met the requirements or not, they just wanted the order, and then somebody else would have to sort out the mess, and I just thought that was crazy. And it was a company that I didn't work for for very long because they had no ethics. And so this, I think, is an important thing Be ethical about what you're doing and be honest. So, going back to approaching a sale where you've got no experience, what are the key things to bear in mind? Well, first of all, you are there to help your client to be successful in whatever it is they do, so you need to know the questions that you can ask them, so that you are clear on whether or not you can help them and, if you have options of services or products, which one is most likely to be the best value for them.
Speaker 1:
Now they may not buy that, and I've had a situation with some equipment I was selling once where, in fact, it was a lower value item, was perfectly adequate for what this particular person wants to do. But it was a bit of equipment that had a screen, and the version that I was recommending to them had a monochrome screen and the screen, but I demonstrated a color one because that's what I had. I didn't have every version of this particular piece of equipment and they loved the color and I just said to them well, look, it doesn't offer you anything more. Honestly, for what you want to do, monochrome will be adequate. No, no, they wanted the color and that's what they bought. But the thing is, I've been totally up front with them and, um, they knew that they were put paying more than they had to, but they were buying the version they liked, not the version that they needed. So, look, that's fine, that's their choice.
Speaker 1:
So, as I say, just if you are new to sales, you're not sure where to get started. Start with those questions because they will open up the conversation, they will allow you to begin the conversation with this potential client and you are asking very relevant questions. And again, if you were the buyer, put yourself in their shoes, would you appreciate that? I think most people would. If you felt you were talking to somebody who genuinely had your best interests at heart, was genuinely trying to understand what it is you were trying to do and was genuinely trying to come up with the best solution for you from what they could offer, then wouldn't you feel good about talking to that person. So, having said all of that, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:
Going back to the recommending a movie, we chat to friends because we think they'll like it, for whatever reason, and we also tend to be enthusiastic about it and because we know that it's going to be a good fit for them, we'll get enthusiastic. Now you don't have to be over the top, but do it's nice to have a bit of energy around that? Um, just to you know, just show that, commit. It's really to me it's demonstrating your confidence that you can provide a good solution for them and in in alongside that confidence comes a commitment as well that you are perfectly happy to commit that. What you're offering will do a great job for them and that's a really good feeling. We all get excited about that when we recommend that to friends. So have a little bit of that positive energy, if you like, when you're talking to your clients and, honestly, let it go from there Now in the video.
Speaker 1:
So I've mentioned the video already, but that will give you tips on how to close the conversation, but that's what it is. What you're really doing is having a conversation with your prospective client and that, honestly, is the best way to build up experience, just to have a chat with them. Now, there's obviously more to it than that. There are more subtle things you can start to introduce, and that's all covered in the course and some of them are covered in this video. So the webinar. Please take a look at the webinar if you found this useful and go from there. So good selling and I'll speak to you in the next podcast. Bye for now.
