Description

"I hate sales" is something I hear a lot.  Often the struggle is because you aren't having good sales conversations because you don't know what to do.  But it really is simple.  If you make a friend, you make a sale.

When you make someone laugh you create a bond with an emotional attachment. There's a certain level of know, like, and trust that comes out of this building of the relationship. Too often, in a sales conversation, we have so much going on in our head that we block the opportunity to have this emotional response with a potential client. 

If you go into the sales conversation expecting to close the sale, your intention is to close the sale. Which means your focus is going to be to close the person and you're constantly going to be thinking of what to say next, which creates a very inauthentic conversation. The person feels like they're being sold. You're going to feel salesy, and you're going to sound salesy. 

Let's review 3 tips on how to have a good sales conversation:

1. Go into the call with the intention of being a service to the person. And be sure to follow the 80/20 rule.  (You should be speaking 20% of the time and the person that you're talking to should be speaking 80% of the time.) If you go into the conversation expecting to close the person, your intention is to close the person. Which means your focus is going to be to close the person and you're constantly going to be thinking of what to say next, which creates a very inauthentic conversation. The person feels like they're being sold. You're going to feel salesy, and you're going to sound salesy. 
2. Ask open-ended questions. An open-ended question allows the prospect to provide a potentially long answer that may reveal some clues as to how you can help them and approach them with your product/service. Open-ended questions help you stay on track with the 80/20 rule. A close ended question creates a one word response and is normally not too helpful.
3. Control the conversation but ensure they feel as though they are controlling the conversation. This loops back to the open-ended questions. Position the questions for them to be able to feel as though they are controlling the conversation such that it doesn't feel like an interrogation on their end.

Even though this goes with tip 1, it's worth highlighting, so pay attention… If your product/service truly doesn't seem like a good fit for someone (aside from you earning income), don't sell it to them.  Actually tell them you aren't going to sell to them because they aren't a good fit.  Why? It sets you up with a level of integrity. And it's amazing how, when you have really good integrity, that word spreads about what a great person you are.  Even though this person maybe didn't buy from you, they will still refer you people because they know that you have a very high level of integrity. So if you have to tell a person it's not a good fit, that's fine. Move on to the next one.