You Don’t Have To ‘Sell’ To Be Successful

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You Don’t Have To ‘Sell’ To Be Successful

I am going to ask you 4 critical questions…

1. Do people feel connected to you?

2. Do they actually WANT to buy from you?

…or do they walk away?

3. Do they see you as a future partner?

…or do they say no?

4. Do they want to KEEP working with you?

…or do they leave you after a while?

There’s a great quote I just love from Matthew Kelly (author of the Dream Manager) that really describes this picture perfectly…

“People are stuck with themselves. It’s a human condition, and it’s hard to cure.” -Matthew Kelly

(BTW) Pick up this book…it’s a fantastic read…

While you’re considering that, I’m going to share some of my favorite tips to harness this concept and gets clients to sell themselves…

…but first, I’d like you to think about the last time you stood up in front of an audience…

I’m talking about a really big client.

You really wanted to be convincing to close the deal,

…but for whatever reason, it didn’t happen.

Now really think about this one… take a second to write down how it felt afterwards.

Now, ask yourself these questions…

It’s likely though that one sales presenter did eventually get the sale.

Clients usually hear the same old sales presentations over and over.

They sit through the “Here’s what we’ll talk about first, then we’ll talk about this, then this…” routine with almost every sales presenter they listen to.

The worst sales presentations are the ones where the presenter tells a story like Dick and Jane…

…and yet most sales presentations go like this…

Dick did this…Jane did that…there are no SURPRISES.

Eventually, they start to feel like this little girl:

Why do we do that?

Surprise has to be a key element of almost all successful sales and it’s also the key element in nearly EVERY presentation.

Yet, there SO many boring ‘ho-hum’, ineffective sales presentations going on out there week by week?

Here’s an A-HA for you…let’s go back to when we were kids…

• When we were little kids, we were taught to lead with the product.

• We were handed a tin of popcorn or a box of cookies and told, “Go sell the product.”

Ever since we were little kids, each of us was taught “push” product details, product, product, – “product sales” or “selling”.

So are you a “product salesperson”? Are you “selling”?

Here’s how you can tell…

The “Product Salesperson”:

The Coach:

The concept is called “Getting people to sell themselves”…and it’s actually not about the product at all…

…Because when you “push” a product (even for just one sentence) during your close, the reality is it’s most likely game over.

Some people will use 99% of this concept (getting the clients to sell themselves), and they’re going to succeed because of it…

…but, 1% of it they’re going to forget.

DO NOT FORGET!

The first rule of getting clients to sell themselves:

So, If I can’t pitch anything, how am I supposed to sell it?

The answer is in getting the clients to sell themselves…

When you do this, it becomes a true partnership with your client, and the following scenarios start to take place more and more in your business as you are getting all your clients to sell themselves on your solution:

• Your clients put their energy into you.
• People fill you up.
• You are consistently getting restored.
• You have more energy to give to other areas of your life.
• You close even more business than ever before.
• Your prospects routinely say, “When can I sign?”
• Your prospects are incredibly excited to meet with you next.
• Your prospects truly understand why this is so important.

You can learn more about getting clients to sell themselves here: Sales Bootcamp: Hands-On Sales Presentation Skills

But, why does getting clients to sell themselves work so well?

Imagine asking the client:

“Do you want to go on a road trip?”

The client says:

“Yes, I want to go on a road trip.”

You respond:

“Okay, so we’re going to go on this road trip together. Are you sure you want to go on this road trip together?”

The client says yes. You’ve just formed a partnership with your client that you’re going on this road trip together.

When you’re in the car together, you’re in a partnership.

You both chose to be in the car.

At this point, you have to ask yourself:

“At any point, are you grabbing the wheel?”

Most sales people feel they need to be the one driving the car on the road trip.

Getting the clients to sell themselves suggests a different solution…

…the sales person sits in the co-pilot seat instead of the driver’s seat and lets the prospective client drive the car.

That’s the difference.

• Why not let the client drive?

• Who has to spend more energy?

• The person driving or the person being the copilot?

The answer is the person driving.

Ironically, many sales people live every single day as the drivers of the car.

Why do they do that?

There’s actually three reasons…

When you’re the one driving the car, you’re not noticing all the cool things and all of the opportunities around you, because you’re rarely able to look out the side of the window.

As the copilot, you have the mental capacity to notice things that other people won’t notice.

This includes things like:

✓Other client opportunities
✓Other prospect opportunities
✓Referral opportunities
✓Opportunities to help the client think bigger
✓Being able to see what’s going on in the client’s eyes
✓Noticing what the client is thinking or feeling

People are scared of being sold.

That’s so important, I’m going to say it again…

People are scared of being sold.

Getting the clients to sell themselves isn’t about fear selling.

It’s about asking the right questions so that the client comes to his own conclusions and answers.

You make the process as simple and clear to him or her as “water is wet.”

It’s about anchoring the answers to your questions in the client’s mind.

Any time you refer to a question in the future, you are essentially asking the client, “Mr. Prospect, is water wet?”

Now the client won’t say, “Let me think about that. I’ll get back to you.”

They will simply say, “Yes, of course water is wet.”

Instead of selling a product or pitching a process, you are coaching somebody to come to his own solution by asking strategic questions.

Think of it in the same way you would teach a child to finger paint for the first time (I know…just follow me on this one)…

You could just tell a child how to do it…

Or, you could help the child paint herself.

How would you do that?

You can tell (or even show) the child how to pain all day long, but she won’t really “GET IT” until she is the one painting.

What if, instead, you ask the child questions, guiding her when needed, to help her paint herself?

How much more effective would that be than a pitch?

If you’re going to pitch sell, then you have to worry about style.

But if you’re going to get the clients to sell themselves, this is a universal technique that works for anyone.