Sales Skills- The Secret that Removes the Stress of Selling

Sales Skills – The Simple Sales Secret That Removes the Stress of Selling

Today I really and truly “got it!”

There is a single natural sales approach that all sales greats and great marketers get instinctively. Its’s what makes them so good. It’s one of the primary sales skills gives them their edge. This one instinctive and in many cases totally unconscious selling method is what all too often separates the good from the great. I can give you the secret in one quick sentence. You and your people probably already know what it is and yet it as Stephen Covey observed in in his bestselling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, “To know and not to do is to not yet know.” This powerful and yet simple concept smashed me over the head this past week and I have finally got it! I mean really got it!

It’s all about them.

For years, I, like many sales people, have been taught that when you sell if you really want to be effective, you must be genuinely interested in helping them solve their problems and do what makes best sense for them. You have to be customer centric in your approach. Dale Carnegie (How to win friends and influence people) taught us way back in the early 1930’s that you should be more interested than interesting. And whilst I have always understood the concept intellectually and even taught the power of seeing things from the customer’s perspective, I have never really understood it viscerally until this week just past.

The biggest sale of my career

For the last two weeks, I have been working on what may potentially be the biggest sale of my career. For a whole bunch of reasons, I had become obsessed with my need to bring this sale home. Ever had that feeling? Ever put everything else on hold and obsessively focussed on closing a particular sales opportunity? Sure you have. If you’ve been in sales for longer than six months then you’ll know what I am talking about. I had become guilty of single sales obsession!

The big issue, when one has so much invested in making a particular sale, it’s very hard to get all empathetic and truly consider the opportunity un-selfishly from the prospects point of view. If we are really truly honest with ourselves our focus is very much “ME” centric. It becomes all about our own need to make the sale. What accomplishing the sale will mean for us, our sales goals, our sales career etc. We very often lose sight of what the customer/prospect wants.

The short-list presentation

I had been short listed out of a number of highly respected, local and international sales development companies to present my sales management coaching solution to a large multinational sales organization based here in Sydney Australia. My prospect had set up a selection panel of seven key executives, and I, along with two other top flight candidate organizations were chosen to formally present our recommendations for turning around their lagging sales.

I had been working and tweaking and re-tweaking my sales presentation for days. I had rehearsed and practiced and I was as ready as I was ever going to be. I don’t mind admitting publically that I was as nervous as a kitten. I hadn’t been this anxious about presenting in years. So I am driving to the prospects offices and I am mentally rehearsing, (for the 1000^th time) and doing the old, if they ask me this, I’ll say that, thing.

Suddenly I become aware of my thinking. I became aware of my stress levels. I was off the charts highly strung with tension and apprehension. Now I have been training sales people and sales management long enough now to recognise that I am a walking disaster and I am about to blow a great opportunity.

The epiphany

So I ask myself, how come when I am coaching or training or facilitating a workshop I am always completely resourceful and un-stressed? It always amazes me that no matter how challenging the problem faced by my client/s, or how pressurizing the environment, I always seems to have the ability to think fast and creatively on my feet. I always seem to either, ask the right question or provide the client with the most creative answer. Just what they needed, at just the right time.  And yet there I was, driving to present to a panel of selectors, which I’ve done many times before, stressed out of my head. Like a schoolboy going on his first date. What was the major difference?

If you will get the answer that came to me, not just intellectually, but emotionally, it will transform the way you or your sales people sell forever.

You see, when I am coaching my focus is all about the coachee. When I am running a workshop or presenting a keynote speech, my attention is on my audience. It’s always about them and what’s genuinely best for them. This is lesson 101 in public speaking. Yet here I was with my focus set firmly on me. My focus was dialled in on what I wanted. I wanted the prospect to pick me and my solution.

So I asked myself, if I was coaching this prospect what outcome would I really want for them?

• Would I want them to “pick me!”?
• Would I want them not to ask me any curly questions or hit me with objections or concerns that I had no answers for?
• Would I want them to buy me for my expertise or my solution?
• Would I want to “close the sale”?

The answer I came up with wasn’t any of the above. As a coach, my focused outcome would certainly have been:

• How can I support this prospect to make the best possible decision for themselves?
• How can I support them to choose what will work best for their business, in their circumstances?
• What would make best sense for them, whether it be to select me, or choose one of my competitors or even none of the above?
• What would be in their very best interests? (Even if it meant selecting someone else or canning the whole project completely)
• Was there even a better and more profitable way to solve their problem?

It was very clear to me that as their coach, my goal as a coach would be to help them facilitate the best decision for them. My coaching would never have been about “choose me!” it would have only have been about “choose right!”

Choose what’s right for you, not what’s right me!

Eureka! Talk about putting a pin to the balloon. The moment I truly got that my presentation wasn’t about me and my credentials as the super strategic sales management coach. The moment that I got that it wasn’t about how I could outperform my competitors. It wasn’t about having all the answers. As I drove on my way to the presentation, I got that it was about me supporting my group of prospects to make the best possible decision for their business. That was the moment that all of my stress went “out of the window”. I instantly calmed down completely and my whole focus shifted from me to them.

I changed the introduction to my presentation from: “Here are the 3 things I want to cover with you today” to “Having seen and read my proposal and having sat through presentations presented by my esteemed industry colleagues, what do you need to hear, see or get a sense of from me today that will help you to make the best possible decision for your business?” And then I shut up and listened.

Fulfilling my role

Now I don’t know if I will get the work or not. But here’s what I do know…. I know that

• I never presented “at them”
• I never ran out of time and never had to cut short the Q&A which is often typical with these sorts of presentations
• There was a whole lot of engagement and questions from the panel of decision makers
• I got more “show and tell time” than my competitors
• I showed them only those PowerPoint slides that were meaningful, so there was very limited “fluff n puff”
• I was given no “objections” to handle
• The presentation atmosphere was relaxed and jovial and I was completely spontaneous and creative
• I had no stress
• My motives were clear
• I maximised my chances for success

Out of all of this I realized the simple truth when it comes to selling, when you focus on what’s right for the customer as opposed to what would be right for you, your odds of making the sale become infinitely increased in your favour.

I know that even if nothing comes from this particular sales opportunity, I have learned a very valuable lesson. I have become a far better sales person and presenter as a result. I know now what been missing from my sales repertoire. I also know what’s missing from the repertoire of many other sales people who are failing to make the grade when they’ve come so far long the sales funnel. I know that when I don the sales persons hat as I often have to, I have discovered a key principle of successful salesmanship. It’s never about you…. It never was.

I would love to hear from you and what you put your prospects needs first

Thanks

Ian

Related posts:

1. Selling Skills – Paying Compliments
2. Selling Skills-Are you getting beat up on price?
3. Selling Skills: 3 key factors to Selling Success
4. Selling Skills – Do You Believe?
5. What Exactly is Rapport? Selling Skills