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How to Sell When Selling Isn’t Your Strength

Guest post by: Stefan Doering

Article Overview: Sales are not your thing? There are only two major components to making the sales process go smoothly. And knowing them can apply to many other areas of your life and even be fun.

How to Sell When Selling Isn’t Your Strength

Last week I was invited to a very special roundtable discussion. The topic was Sustainable Mobility, initiated by Jeffrey Sachs, Executive Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Along with Sachs, there were two dozen senior people from energy, government, automobile manufacturing, technology, urban planning, community development, and economics.

And I was representing green entrepreneurism.

We were trying to figure out what it would take to make mobility of people and goods and services a sustainable endeavor. Super cool ideas were flying around the room about how to recreate entire transportation systems within cities and regions around the world.

Towards the end of the day I mentioned to the group that the best and fastest way to implement our ideas was to show people how to make money doing it.

The room fell silent.

Soon after, the politicians and energy and automobile executives protested saying that policy must drive this initiative.

I said, “Policy can’t and won’t drive this. If we wait for that to happen, we’ll go nowhere fast. It is far easier to set the entrepreneurs loose on solving this once we give them direction, inspiration and tools.” Several people agreed and several rolled their eyes.

And that is when I realized if only about half the room was sold on such a crucial strategic component on launching sustainable mobility, imagine how difficult it will be to sell a city or country.

The key to selling… selling anything, is really just two basic components. And depending on what you are selling, these two components need to be managed accordingly, depending on if you are selling someone to go on a date with you vs. selling yourself as the next president of the United States.

Two parts to selling (almost) anything:

1. Energy—deliver your passion for what you are selling. Get them engaged and interested. If nothing else, get them to get your interest and passion for it. “The key is, you have to make people believe you believe. Like a sermon, you have to let it flow out. And then let it come back to you from the audience.” John Deal, On the Road With A Supersalesman, by David Freeman, Inc Magazine, April, 2010.

2. Action—once the energy is there, request the next step with them. Whether it be to go on a date with you, vote for you, or buy your widget. Remember the key here is they must be energized before they will act. If not, it will come across like pressure.

While these two steps in selling are straight forward, they can be difficult and take practice to implement successfully, depending on what you are selling.

Here are some tips to successfully implement and pitfalls to avoid:

· Get them emotionally committed. During the “energy” stage, start the conversation by making it about them. What is their challenge or problem they need solved.

· Have them want it to work. The key to energy is they see the possibility of what you are selling as being great for them. Make sure you deliver this to them.

· Make sure they are controlling the conversation. Be sure it’s their idea, not yours. Make sure they buy into it because they thought of it. Guide them in this direction. If you’re speaking more than 10%, that is too much!

· Have a sales pitch you can adjust quickly and easily. Listen to what they want to share with you and guide them down the path towards your solution. If you use a standard pitch, you’ll fail most of the time.

· Make sure you bring up pricing early on, if possible. Feel comfortable with why you charge what you charge. Be ready for objections and have powerful explanations.

· Speak to their skepticism before it speaks to you! If you’re not the fastest, least expensive, most state-of-the-art, etc. bring that up early on. If not, they’ll find out eventually and it will likely bite you in the you-know-what.

· Do not move to “Action” until the “Energy” is there. Just stay focused on the other person. If you go to Action too early, apologize for your enthusiasm and go back to the emotional (Energy) component. How you know they are energized is when you are energized.

So armed with this list information, selling becomes easy, fun and effortless. Especially when you are selling something you love and believe in.

This coming October, I will most certainly use it at next roundtable discussion at Columbia and expect to “convert” most of the listeners this time around.

Action Steps for the Week

Whether you realize it or not, you are ALWAYS selling. If you wear makeup, or professional clothing, those are forms of selling.

Once you get used to the fact that selling is just a daily activity, you can examine those areas you are most wanting to improve. Break it into the energy and action components.

In “energy”, what can you share to get them going in a direction you would like to lead them? A personal story, a current event in the news, what?

Make sure you listen more than you speak. Your job is to guide them. Let them ask questions and share what they want to share, while taking them down a path.

When it is time, take them to “action” and ask them to do something that is a logical next step.

And if you do this correctly, 50% of the time they will be taking YOU to action and asking things like, “so how can you help me?”

Most importantly, remember to have fun when selling your widget.

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Article Tags: Earth Institute, energy, green entrepreneurism, Jeffrey Sachs, selling, Stefan Doering, sustainable endeavor, sustainable mobility



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