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Sales Mystery Revealed

Written by: Cheryl A. Clausen

Article Overview: Sales can seem like a mysterious process when the process you’re following isn’t working. It’s especially frustrating when others following supposedly the same process achieve results while you don’t. Are you just a failure or is there something else at work here?

Sales Mystery Revealed

Sales can seem like a mysterious process when the process you’re following isn’t working. It’s especially frustrating when others following supposedly the same process achieve results while you don’t. Are you just a failure or is there something else at work here?

When something that should work isn’t your natural instinct is to try and make it even harder rather than trying to make it as simple as possible. Sales process is a simple process when you understand the process. I personally prefer to think of the sales process as the “Buying Process” because your objective is to help someone make a “yes” buying decision not to “sell” them.

People hate to be sold and they hate what they perceive as pushy salespeople. A selling approach is a resistance approach. The greater a potential buyer’s resistance toward you the more difficult your job, so stop trying to sell people and help them buy instead.

When you use or follow a presentation or sales pitch, and sales techniques your focus is on the wrong thing. Your focus is on you and what you want. The buyer doesn’t care about you and they certainly don’t care what you want. A buyer only cares about what they want.

At its simplest the sales process is nothing more than a process of discovery. You’re trying to discover if this prospect is a good client for you. They’re trying to discover if there is a match between what they want and what you’re offering. It’s a mutual process.

You should be working as hard to reject a prospect as you think they’re working to reject you. You actually want to help them reject your offer as soon as possible if it isn’t right for them. After all you wouldn’t want to sell them something that isn’t right for them because when you do you open the door for a number of negative and lasting consequences that simply aren’t worth the risk for you and your business.

Ideally this is the start of a long-term relationship and you’ll both be a lot happier if you work together. Your future client shouldn’t feel like they’re getting pressured to do something they don’t want to do and you shouldn’t feel like you have to strong arm people into buying. Plus working together is exactly what you’ll be doing if you take them on as a client, so you may as well have a practice run during the sales process.
When someone becomes your client that means your job is to look out for their best interests. That’s very different from obtaining a customer. Customers represent transactional events, whereas clients represent a long-term professional relationship where you’re acting as their trusted advisor. Set the stage during the sales process for a long-lasting long-term relationship based on mutual trust and respect.

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Article Tags: consequences, discovery, failure, job, long term relationship, match, natural instinct, objective, pushy salespeople, resistance, risk, sales pitch



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