If you want to sell, don’t be a seller!
Salespeople are notorious for making others feel bad. They cold call complete strangers to judge their business decisions and make them feel remorseful and stupid for choosing their current provider. They feed on all negative emotion to get the only thing that matters: the sale. They treat their prospects like numbers, instead of living, breathing people. Unsurprisingly, people find salespeople annoying, pushy, and rude. Nobody likes them, and nobody likes buying from them.
People buy from people. The only way to connect with your prospect is to act like a person instead of a salesperson, and treat them like a person instead of a sale. Just like you, your prospects have emotions, which are often overlooked by salespeople using old-world techniques like sales scripts and automated messages. By addressing these human emotions and using them to create a personal and positive atmosphere, you can create an experience that is better at making the prospect your friend and loyal customer.
Salespeople believe that making a prospect angry with their current vendor will somehow make them look good. They try to find the pain the prospect is experiencing in their current situation and think that exposing that pain will make the prospect want to switch vendors. It doesn’t work this way! Pushing the prospect’s hot buttons and arousing negative emotions will make their experience with you a negative one. You will get angry at the prospect, but he will be angry at you! All the painful emotions they experience with you will actually drive the prospect away from the sale. It will also make the status quo look pretty good. The prospect will choose to do nothing and you will lose the prospect and the sale! The key to connecting with your client is to create an emotional situation that leads to change. Show your potential client that it is better for them to change than to remain in the status quo. Creating this emotion is a bit more complex and is not as easy (or overused) as the old world technique. It requires being less abrasive and allowing the customer to realize (for themselves) the painful reality of their situation with their current provider. If they are not satisfied with their current supplier, they will find bread on their own. They don’t need your help to expose it!
Salespeople put their reasons for selling before the customer’s reasons for buying. Let’s be honest, your customers aren’t as excited about your product as you are. In fact, most vendors sell things that are quite ordinary and not very interesting. Because of this, the only way to sell your product is to find out what might motivate your customer to buy it. Through intriguing questions and engaging conversations, you can get to know your customer personally and determine the specific benefits they would get from buying your product. Your job is to get the customer to visualize these benefits. Your creative and engaging visualization will create positive emotion and make their experience with YOU a good one! When they visualize how rewarding your product is, they will find the motivation to create change and buy from you!
Salespeople don’t take into account the fears of their prospects. Any important decision is usually accompanied by fear. Before your prospect can act on their motivation to buy from you, you must first eliminate their fear of changing the status quo. The only way to remove fear is to identify it, and the only way to identify it is through engaging conversation. You need to do everything you can to truly understand your prospect to help them overcome this fear. Change can be difficult, but your prospects will look forward to it if you make it seem attractive and worthwhile. By understanding and responding to your prospect’s emotions, you can create a positive atmosphere. This will motivate and encourage your prospect not to be afraid of change and to buy from you!