The Sales Evangelist

Selling is honorable, and we should be proud of the work we do because nothing happens until somebody sells something.

Today Harry Mazier talks to us about the importance of selling and how every organization must practice the fundamentals of selling in order to do it well.  It begins by understanding the importance of being a sales professional.

The short attention span of today's buyers means that there will always be room for relationships in selling.

[Tweet "There's an adage that says that when all things are equal, people want to buy from their friends. And when all things aren't equal, people still want to buy from their friends. So make friends. #RelationshipSelling"]

It's perhaps the best sales lesson you'll ever hear.

It sounds basic to say that nothing happens until someone sells something, but it's true that if we don't sell, we won't eat.

Sales is the lubricant of our economy.

It doesn't matter how good your manufacturing is, how precise your accounting is, how deep your R&D is, everything begins when someone convinces a prospect to say, "Yes, I'll take some."

When the deal closes, the gears begin moving and everything takes off from that point of agreement.

Fear of failure prevents people from selling. You might drive past a prospect's business 12 times and always find a reason not to stop: no parking places, it's too early, or it's too late.

To get past that reluctance, you must suck it up and knock on the doors. Then, once you get in front of that customer, you must know what you're talking about.

Emerson said that nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm. You must be enthusiastic and excited. If you're not excited about what you're doing, do something else.

Be smart. Don't tell them how much you know. Tell them how much they need to know to get where you want them to get. Selling is convincing someone else to agree with your opinion.

But don't overstay your welcome by speaking too much.

There's a story that Samson slew 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, but twice that many sales are killed every day with the same implement.

Your role is to provide the necessary information and be convincing. The best salespeople don't sell, they help people buy.

Selling is instructional and informational. Be a friend and a resource to your customer. Sales is an honorable profession that has taken a lot of hits -- many of them self-inflicted.

Salespeople are a resource to our economy and they really are helpful to customers. People choose sales for a variety of reasons like interactions with people and independence. Of course, income opportunities are part of it as well.

For a long time, sales was perceived as little more than one person taking unfair advantage of another. Salespeople have lived through that era and have established themselves as a resource rather than an impediment.

Avoid being self-deprecating. Don't refer to yourself as "just a salesman." Sell with integrity every day so you can improve and help your customers.

Don't put artificial limits on your own success or settle for good enough instead of good.

Relevant stories can help sellers sell. Rudyard Kipling said that if history was taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

People love stories, so rather than giving facts, features, and benefits, incorporate a story into your sales presentation. Do it consistently and do it as well as you can.

Read and listen and stay attuned to the people around you. Harry recorded countless anecdotes in preparation for writing his book, Story Selling: Sage Advice and Common Sense About Sales and Success.

If you don't use a story to provide proof, selling will be more difficult. But the story won't stand on its own. You must give your very best effort.

Stories aren't the answer alone. You must support it with your work and effort. Do the best you can every day.

Remember the 10 powerful 2-letter words: "If it is to be, it is up to me." You can find excuses and blame, but ultimately it depends on you.

Don't think you're not in sales. Everyone is in sales from the moment they get out of bed in the morning. You are persuading or influences, negotiating or communicating.

Don't run from it. Embrace it and learn to be better. Grow by failing.

It's not how often you get knocked down; it's how many times you get back up. Get back up and learn what's effective and learn to communicate.

Be true to yourself and embrace the opportunities you have as a salesperson.

You can connect with Harry at [email protected] or at (404) 853-1063.

Grab a copy of his book, Story Selling: Sage Advice and Common Sense About Sales and Success

This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance.

TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump.

If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us.

This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It's super easy, it's helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link.

Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out.

I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility.

If you haven't already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more.

Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.

Mentioned in this episode:

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

If you're giving your customers things that you value instead of focusing on things that your customer needs or wants, you should be aware of the 5 things you get wrong when it comes to building value.

We're dedicating the month of April to a discussion of building value, and we're starting with the fundamentals of building value.

People will only change if they see a distinct need for it, and sometimes our customers don't even recognize that they have a problem. Or, in other instances, they may have found a solution or a band-aid to the problem that seems to be working.

People don't fix things that seem to be working.

Your job as a seller is to ask the right questions to help them consider or see the importance of addressing their challenge. Once you're able to help them identify the problem, we must provide a clear solution to help them address it.

Donald Miller has a wonderful three-step process that lays out exactly how you can move through the process.

If the buyer doesn't have confidence in your ability to guide him through the solution, you're likely going to lose the deal like I did when it happened to me.

I've taught this principle over and over again as the platinum rule: treat others the way they would like to be treated. It's a step up from treating people the way that you'd like to be treated.

Don't focus on features or benefits that you like. Focus on things that the buyers like.

Buyers may choose to work with you for a variety of reasons, but not all of your product's features will be important to the buyer. Not all of your service's benefits will matter to him.

Once you've identified the problem that the buyer needs to address, and you've given the buyer a clear plan, avoid the urge to give the buyer things he doesn't need. Give him the things that are important and necessary for him and nothing more.

You may have 100 features, but the buyer likely has one problem that is costing him a lot of money. He needs the feature that will solve that problem. Yes, he'll get much more than that with your product or service, but focus on his main problem to start.

Over time you can educate him about additional features.

This ties closely to number 1 because we often continue talking even after the buyer has agreed to buy.

Our conversations and discovery meetings are intended to help us discover things about our prospects. It's not intended to be a lecture.

Sometimes sellers believe that if we're talking, we're winning, and that simply isn't true. Think of it like dating: you want the other person to perceive that you're interested.

Studies indicated that you shouldn't talk more than 30 percent of the time, and that will only happen if you come prepared with meaningful questions. That will help the buyer express himself and his challenges.

Once you've listened, you can pitch to the one thing he needs the most.

This issue emerges frequently with sellers who think that value means having the lowest price, but it simply isn't true. I've lost deals before to companies that were bigger and more expensive than my own product or service.

When I looked back, they didn't care that we were cheaper. They were concerned that I didn't focus on their problem and show them a clear path to solve it. They didn't have the conviction that I was the one who could best help them.

If you've done a fantastic job of identifying their problem and you've helped them find a solution, they'll see the value in what you're offering. If, for example, their problem is costing them $50,000 a year but your solution will cost them $5,000 a year, that's a good saving for them.

[Tweet "Lowering your price doesn't necessarily build value. Solving a problem builds value. #BuildValue"]

Show me that you understand my problem and that you have a solution. Then show me that you've solved this kind of problem before. That will give me, as a buyer, confidence in you as a seller.

We often mistakenly believe that offering our customer more is better because it's a way to increase value.

You might be giving away so many add-ons that your company loses money. In the future, your customer will likely expect the same kind of discounts and bonuses. If the customer stays with you for only a year, you will have lost the client before you could recoup your losses.

Resist the urge to give away everything for free. Enjoy the silence in your conversation. Don't jump out and start talking too quickly.

They may not be looking for more value but rather just contemplating the purchase.

Keep things simple for your buyers and remember that less is often more. We know a lot more than our buyers about our product, and they don't need to know everything that we do.

Avoid these mistakes and you'll have much better success building value.

You've heard us talk about the TSE Certified Sales Training Program, and we're offering the first module free as a gift to you. Preview it. Check it out. If it makes sense for you to join, you can be part of our upcoming semester in April.

You can take it on your own or as part of the semester group. The program includes 65 videos altogether, and we just completed a beta group that helped us improve the program and maximize the information in it.

If you and your team are interested in learning more, we'd love to have you join us. Call (561)578-1729 to speak directly to me or one of our team members about the program.

This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link.

I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility.

Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.

Mentioned in this episode:

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

Sellers have a bad reputation as people who are artificial and only concerned about themselves, but in order to succeed, you must focus on selling from the heart.

Larry Levine has spent 30-something years in the trenches of B2B work, and he recognized some glaring weaknesses in sales teams he worked with. He values authenticity and he points to it as a big disconnect for many sellers.

But it isn't just sellers. Think about how many times you've run into a friend you haven't seen in a while, and you toss out the phrase, "we should do lunch." It doesn't usually mean anything other than "I'll see you when I see you."

Sellers must pay attention to their words.

The words genuine, authentic, value, and trusted advisor prompt the follow-on question: "What does that mean?"

Start by leading an authentic lifestyle. Think about this: When you say you're a salesperson or an SDR, you're already behind the 8-ball already in the minds of your clients and prospects.

For every great sales professional, there are 10 that give the sales world a bad name.

When you deal with the people in your personal life, are you genuine and true to who you really are? Most likely you are. So why can't we play that same role when we're dealing with our clients and prospects.

[Tweet "Address the misalignment that exists between who you are at work and who you are after 5 p.m. Be genuine and authentic with the people in your business just like you are in your personal life. #AuthenticSelling"]

Many sellers maintain a certain amount of distance in their relationships with their clients. In his book, Slow Down, Sell Faster, Kevin Davis asked how it's possible to sell something to someone if you don't spend time figuring out who they are?

• What makes that person tick?
• What do they care about?

Sellers try to move their prospects through the sales funnel as quickly as possible instead of investing the time to understand. Listen with intent and help them do their jobs. You'll be surprised to find that things actually speed up.

If you don't build a relationship throughout multiple steps and influencers, it will be difficult to sell anything. People will buy from people they know, like, and trust.

People are beginning to understand that it's ok to bring your heart to the sales world. It's ok to be genuine and real. But in order to do that, you have to be vulnerable, which goes against what we believe about sellers.

If you asked your prospects what they truly desire in a seller, what do you think they'll say? Maybe someone who is honest and who can solve their problems. At some point, you'll hear them say "I want them to be sincere and show up after the sale."

Have a conversation like you would with your friends.

Memorizing scripts may make you sound too robotic. It isn't that scripts are bad, but we must make the verbiage in the script our own. If you can't align to it, you'll struggle with it.

Imagine if you understood the person you were reaching out to. What are the issues and challenges they are facing.

If you're calling a VP of sales to set up a demo for software, find out the issues that VPs of sales struggle with. Offer three issues that are most common for sales teams. Ask your prospects which of those three topics he can most closely align with.

The truth is that even tenured sales reps are going about this the wrong way. Instead of the phone call being focused on setting a meeting, focus the call on starting a conversation.

Time and patience matter. Your organization wasn't built in a day. You took a series of small successful steps to get where you are.

The same is true for your sales process, but no one has time or patience for it. No one wants to slow down.

Larry recalls deciding one day to focus on quality over quantity. He focused on opening at least two new conversations with two people he didn't know every single day. His phone skills improved and his mindset did, too.

Sellers who are allowed to focus on quality over quantity may find that they enjoy their roles a bit more because they are connecting with people.

Larry's first mentor freed him from the pressure of memorizing his prospecting script word-for-word, and instead encouraged him to understand the foundation of the script. Once you've done that, make it your own.

Get back to humanizing what we've previously dehumanized in the sales world. There's a time and place for technology, but human-to-human matters. Technology can't replace every human aspect.

Larry warns against being an "empty suit with commission breath."

Once leadership realizes that there's a human on the other end of the sale rather than just a bunch of dollars and they set out to solve problems, watch what happens to the level of your relationships and referrals and profits.

In a crowded field, in order to rise above the sea of sameness and be seen in a different light and stand out from the sales wolfpack, the differentiating moment goes back to the human aspect.

People smell sincerity immediately. Instead of juggling personalities, be authentic.

Understand that credibility and clarity sell in a world of insincerity.

[Tweet "In a commoditized market, if you open conversations in a transactional way, expect a transactional relationship. You'll be replaced by another transactional relationship along the way. #SalesConversations"]

Create a transformational experience by having a conversation. As you transform your relationships, you'll stick out like a sore thumb in a world of transactional conversations.

Find Larry on LinkedIn @larrylevine1992 or on his Selling From The Heart podcast at sellingfromtheheart.net.

Grab a copy of Larry's book, Selling From the Heart: How Your Authentic Self Sells You. His website also offers an accompanying self-reflection journal.

This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance.

TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump.

If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us.

This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It's super easy, it's helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link.

Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out.

I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility.

If you haven't already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more.

Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.

Mentioned in this episode:

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

Sellers are understandably focused on the closing of any deal but it’s important that we keep things in perspective and don’t make the closing an event.

The truth is that every transaction has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but we often get so focused on the closing that we unnecessarily freak ourselves out.

This conversation comes from our TSE Certified Sales Training Program, our sales coaching program that helps sellers maximize their effectiveness.

The sales process naturally builds toward a close where the client signs the deal and then everyone celebrates. Our challenge as sellers is to avoid the temptation to make the closing the entire focus of the sale.

Focus throughout the sale on building value. Initiate conversations that address your prospects’ challenges and difficulties. Realize that you’ll never get to the closing if you don’t effectively address the buyers’ objections.

Help the buyer feel confident in this deal by sharing stories that provide value and dispel your customers’ objections. Instead of waiting for your customer to offer his objections, bring them up on your own terms as a way of building trust.

Red flags won’t go away simply because you ignore them. They don’t typically diffuse themselves, and your decision to wait until the end of the process to address them could cost you your deal.

Like many other relationships in life, struggles between buyer and seller don’t naturally disappear over time. In fact, problems often get bigger and worse as we fail to address them.

A single demo for your client won’t magically offset all his concerns, so don’t wait until then to address his objections. If he has concerns about your product or service, it won’t likely matter how good your demo is: you won’t overcome his hesitation until you address the problems.

CLICK TO TWEET

Whether you’re selling water, computers, or houses, your buyer doesn’t want to part with his hard-earned cash until you’ve addressed his fears.

He may want a new house. He may even need a new house. But he has fears of his own:

• What if he can’t afford this house?
• What if an unforeseen issue comes up?
• How much will hurricane insurance cost?

Help him minimize those risks and fears throughout the process. That way, when he gets to the end of the transaction, those fears won’t be an issue.

Hubspot reported recently that as many as 40 percent of salespeople don’t like prospecting and about 30 percent struggle with closings. As a result, we tend to make closings a big deal in our own heads because we’ve worked so hard to find a prospect and get to this point.

Instead of viewing it as a huge event, we should think of it as a natural byproduct of the sales process, and we should move the buyer smoothly through to conversion.

Conversion begins the moment I start building value for my prospect. If I focus on blind-side challenges and identifying key problems, I can address objections early and minimize the risk that my deal will fall apart.

My goal is to eliminate any reasonable doubt about whether I’m the right vendor for the prospect.

If you’re able to identify the companies your prospect is currently working with, you’ll be better able to pitch your own strengths against theirs. You can identify the competition’s weaknesses and use those to make your case.

Share stories about past clients who have left that company to work with you and explain why they made that choice.

Build one-on-one conversations into your process as often as possible so you can clarify any questions as they develop. Once you understand the big issues that will likely sabotage your deal, you can help everyone get to the same page.

Follow your demonstrations with an email outreach offering to address any new questions the prospect has.

Avoid pushing objections to the end of the process. Make objections and questions a constant part of your dialogue so that you minimize any risk toward the end of the deal.

Strive to create a smooth experience for your customer.

You’ve heard us talk about the TSE Certified Sales Training Program, and we’re offering the first module free as a gift to you. Preview it. Check it out. If it makes sense for you to join, you can be part of our upcoming semester in April.

You can take it on your own or as part of the semester group. The program includes 65 videos altogether, and we just completed a beta group that helped us improve the program and maximize the information in it.

If you and your team are interested in learning more, we’d love to have you join us. Call (561)578-1729 to speak directly to me or one of our team members about the program.

This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. You’ll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link.

I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility.

Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.

Mentioned in this episode:

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

One of the most important questions you’ll answer is “Why should I do business with you?” and it’s vital that you get it right when you do.

When the question comes, you’ll be tempted to point out how long your company has existed, how great your product is, and how great your customer service is, but those answers won’t likely work.

Sales From the Street tackles actual problems that sellers are facing and allows a sales rep just like you to provide an answer that worked for him.

People frequently get on Reddit seeking advice about how to answer this question. I love checking in there because it gives me a great opportunity to connect with sellers and share my own insights and expertise.

They frequently listen to the podcast after our interaction and it presents a great opportunity to grow my business. If you haven’t checked Reddit for a page related to your own industry, you definitely should.

“Why should I do business with you” is a loaded question, and I’m going to answer it in two different ways.

When I was a young seller, I was quick to point out the features of my product and to preach about why we were the best company, but it never addressed the client’s true issue.

Your answer to the question will largely depend on whether this is the first time you’ve spoken to this person. Do you have a relationship already, or this your very first contact?

If you’re speaking to the customer for the very first time, he may be testing you to see how you’ll respond. You could play a seller’s version of whack-a-mole and blindly try to guess the right answer, but as a sales professional, that’s not how you want to operate.

Instead, take control of the situation. Your first priority should be to find out why she is asking this question in the first place.

You can respond with a listicle or with a question of your own. Or, consider this:

“You know, David, when people ask that question it’s usually one of three things.

1. To see if we have the proper expertise
2. Testing whether I’m quick on my feet. 
3. To determine whether we can solve their problem.

Which one of those are we dealing with David?”

His answer to your question will help you understand how to proceed.

CLICK TO TWEET

Ask questions about the sales process that will help you determine what the customer is seeking. Take charge of the sales process by controlling the conversation.

If the prospect is wasting your time and has no intention of hiring you, you’ll determine that more quickly rather than wasting time on a deal that will never close.

If the prospect is interested, he’ll answer the question and you can continue from there. Pose a question in response to his question.

Ask him why he’s inclined to ask that. If he indicates that his company has encountered other sellers who couldn’t solve its problems, then you’ll know how to respond.

“I don’t ever want to do business with you if I can’t solve your problem. We want to make sure we’re a fit. I don’t want to waste your time or mine.”

“If you are open to it, I’d love to see what you’re doing now to see if we can help you just like we’ve helped many other companies in the past.” 

You can even mention at some point that you’d love to be honest enough to acknowledge if the two of you aren’t a good fit. That will keep you on the same page.

Your customer expects you to rattle off a list of features and benefits. They expect you to be a submissive seller.

They may not realize that as a professional seller, you’ve helped a lot of people, and you’re an expert at doing so. You’re going to stay calm and confident.

If, on the other hand, this is a customer that you’ve worked with for some time, he may be truly trying to determine whether he should work with you. Your goal is to communicate to him that you’re the best at solving his particular problem.

You’ve done it for thousands of other clients, you’ve run the protocols, and you know you’re the best. You can turn the tables on the customer at that point.

“Why should you not do business with me?”

Be confident. Make sure you understand why the customer is asking the question.

This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance.

TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump.

If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us.

This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It’s super easy, it’s helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You’ll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link.

Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out.

I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility.

If you haven’t already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more.

Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.

Mentioned in this episode:

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS

HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS