If you are still approaching sales the same way you did two or more years ago, you are not winning.
You might feel like you’re winning, but it’s probably because you have to do a lot more to get the same results.
More calls, more emails, more texts, more direct messages, more nagging, more hoping, more praying, more stress.
If it feels like that describes your world of selling, persuading the right people to move forward towards being a customer, the good news is that there is a reason. It’s not you. Well, it is you…but it’s also something you can take actions to make better.
So what has changed?
Information
In the book Freakonomics, the authors wrote a chapter about real estate agents and how their power came from knowledge. Hording information about properties for sale. Being the gate keeper and the key master for the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). If you wanted to know about a house, and if you wanted to buy a house, the game was set up where it required a real estate agent. Which in turn led to them controlling the flow of the process and the fees involved.
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You might be and you don’t even know it! Selling in a post-COVID world requires new approaches. That is why the Selling With Authentic Persuasion training is essential for those who want to thrive in the modern economy.
Then the internet happened. It changed everything. For real estate, sites like Redfin and Zillow destroyed that imbalance of information. Real estate agents all over the country started to freak out because they no longer had the leverage of being the only ones who knew the details about and price of a house. Homeowners could now successfully list their home on their own (For Sale By Owner – which real estate agent’s generally hate). Buyers could look up property values online and buy a house from a FSBO. The middleman/woman could be cut out of the deal.
If you are wondering – yes, knowledge is power. The person with the knowledge and information has the power.
Historically in a sales-type transaction, the company and, by extension, the salesperson had the knowledge of the product, service, idea – the facts, features, benefits, competitive analysis. Which means they had the power. And they could wield that power to charge whatever they could get away with, to manipulate, trick, create false scarcity (“I have someone coming later today to look at the _____ (car, couch, computer, etc.), so if you don’t buy it they probably will.”), and use discounts to trigger unreal urgency (i.e. pretty much every furniture store, most weekends of the year).
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Are You Losing Sales?
You might be and you don’t even know it! Selling in a post-COVID world requires new approaches. That is why the Selling With Authentic Persuasion training is essential for those who want to thrive in the modern economy.
Then the internet happened. It took a while, but now all the world’s information is accessible by anyone with a way to get online. Not that everyone has access or will leverage the power of information, but it has truly caused the role of a salesperson to change.
Not the economy, inflation, pandemic, war, politics, taxes, government. Most people struggling in sales want to point their non-deal-closing fingers at those factors. But they are overlooking the fundamental disrupter to their sales success.
Stop assuming that your one job is to know your product really well and explain it to people for them to decide whether to buy. Stop thinking that they need you to tell them anything about your product/service. Stop pretending you still have the power.
One of my favorite bands, Rage Against The Machine, says is best – take the power back. That is exactly what buyers have done, thanks to the internet. They (we…because when we aren’t selling, we are buyers in our life and/or our business) don’t want lectures, sales pitches, tricks, games, slick (aka gross) closing lines, and manipulation.
They want help. We all do. If they are going to engage with a salesperson – and all the inherent danger that it represents – then they need something. Not just that product, they want guidance.
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Are You Losing Sales?
You might be and you don’t even know it! Selling in a post-COVID world requires new approaches. That is why the Selling With Authentic Persuasion training is essential for those who want to thrive in the modern economy.
They are desperately searching for the right answer. The safe choice. The better path. Sometimes it’s about avoiding pain, other times it’s for gain. No matter what, they want to get to a better place with the least amount of risk possible.
They want to know that a salesperson and the company they represent actually cares about them as a person. Then they will listen. Just like most people want a doctor who cares about them (good bedside manner), asks questions, does a thorough exam, and then provides a diagnosis and prescription that feels personalized to what that individual is going through.
Remember – you are selling to a human. It’s not B2C, B2B, DTC, D2D – its H2H. Human to Human. And that human you are speaking with only cares about themselves. We all do since we are all human. So, they want the sales experience that fits their needs, desires, hopes, goals, dreams, and avoids the terrible, awful, no-good sales experiences they have had at the hands of ill-intention and/or unprofessional salespeople.
The game of sales has changed.
Telling is no longer selling. Start caring about people, have a process that aligns with the sales experience people demand, and make them feel SAFE (Successful At Fear Elimination).
When you shift the way you sell, your fingers will go back to holding the money you earned by helping the right people buy.
Jason Cutter, CEO of Cutter Consulting Group, is a mindset and scalability expert focused on developing Authentic Persuaders®. Even though his bachelor’s degree is in Marine Biology, he knows what it takes to be successful in sales and build profitable teams. His books, podcasts, training workshops and speaking are focused on helping sales professionals close more deals, make more money, and produce scalable results.
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Header Image Credit: Andrea Piacquadio. Find it here.
