Sales shouldn't suck [idgaf 008]

Hey Reader,

The 3 constants in business are death, taxes, and the constant need to get new clients.

The problem is that sales is kinda... not natural. Not for a lot of people (like me!). So when I first started trying to sell a service (this was back in my accounting days), I felt awkward and had no idea how to do it properly. I didn't want to be slimy after all.

I'd get into a sales meeting, and instead of spending that time showing the prospect just how amazing I was, I'd just sit there answering their questions and trying (in vain) to seem like the expert I was.

That didn't really work too well as a sales strategy. The few clients I did land, were a nightmare to work with too. Ugh.

I did eventually figure out how to handle sales meetings WAY better, and even put together a framework called "sell by helping" to cover it. It's the same framework I taught to hundreds of other people, and I'm going to break it down in this email. Yay for us.

I used to think sales is about convincing someone to buy my stuff. Manipulating. Persuading. And they're all negative words, which means sales seemed like a negative act. A trick or something.

It never helped that when people say "salesperson" I tend to think of a sleazy used car salesman, or slimy real estate agent. Because I don't want to be one of those people, when I got into sales situations, I wouldn't feel comfortable and I'd bomb.

I remember the exact moment things changed for me.

My job was a "business development manager" (ie. salesperson) for an accounting firm, and I'd just decided to quit. I was 3 months in, was bombing every sales meeting, and just not getting clients. It was super frustrating cause I was an accountant myself, I had really strong knowledge of all this stuff. Just was screwing it all up.

After making the decision, I felt soooo much lighter. And went into a meeting and said (to myself) "idgaf" and just asked the prospect "so what's going on?"

They started describing what was happening in their business, I asked a few questions, made a recommendation, and they were like "great, where do we sign."

What. The. Fuck.

Not only did I land the client; I was the most relaxed I'd ever been in a sales meeting, I didn't scramble at all, AND they thought I was the shit (to be clear - "the shit" NOT just "shit").

Turns out making sales easier was as simple as realising it wasn't about convincing people to buy, but helping them solve a problem. It seems so basic in hindsight.

It's been a long time since that day, and I've had plenty of time to improve and refine and figure out what works and what doesn't. Here's the 3 core mindset shifts to be way more effective in sales.

1. Stop selling, help people find a solution to their problem instead. You're going in with a way better mindset, and using your expertise as intended. It takes the pressure off the idea of convincing someone to buy.

2. Focus on what your prospect values instead of what you value. People always pay more for what they value, and this is how you push past being bottom of the barrel in pricing.

3. Say no to bad opportunities (cause there's always more opportunities). Probably the biggest hack. Bad clients are a HUGE source of burnout! Say no and move on, cause more will come.

I ended up approaching sales meetings like I was a doctor or specialist, and they were the patient asking me to fix their business boo-boos. And it worked. I was pulling in 20-30 new clients a month, making killer commissions, and found my job so easy and fun.

Whether it's yours or not, the sales meeting is going to run according to a system.

Either you take control and run the meeting in a way that suits your goals, or you let them run it and they'll find out whatever information they need to make a decision. Typically it ends up being "can you do this? how much? okay thanks I'll let you know."

I've found the best sales meetings go through three overall stages, and each stage has 3 steps (each step could be it's own email, so let's see how I go fitting everything into one email).

When you go to a doctor or specialist, they can't tell you what you need to do until they understand what's wrong. If you want to help someone, you need to do the same thing.

I do this in three steps.

1. Understand Them: I find out what they do, how it works, how they make money. It's an easy way to kick off the meeting - low risk for them, and covers critical info for you.

2. Understand The Problem: I then find out why they're talking to me. NOT what they want me to do, but what made them reach out (or what made them accept the meeting). What's going wrong? What's the impact of this? What have they tried to do to fix it?

3. Understand Their Objectives: Super important. What do they want to happen as a result of working together. NOT what work do they want me to do, but what outcome do they want to happen by working together. And what if that outcome occurs? What's the upside? ps. this is where we can uncover the value of having this problem solved.

By going through this process, I'll have a great idea of what's actually happening, what it's costing them, and what fixing it is worth.

This is where the doctor or specialist will explain what's going on, and I'm usually going "wow" cause they're teaching me something. We're gonna do the same thing.

This stage is where we start to differentiate. See, when you educate someone about something, it's like in the cartoons when a light bulb goes off next to their head. We want to trigger those lightbulbs, and the more lightbulbs that go off, the more of an expert they think you are.

Here's how we do it.

1. Explain the real problem: they've probably described some symptoms of the problem. You can explain to them why those symptoms are happening, and what the real problem is.

2. Explain why other solutions fail: just to be clear, don't shit all over your competition here. But explain how the industry works and what most people would do and why that won't work for them. It's like myth busting. And it makes them realise you're smart enough to know this, so you're obviously not going to make the same mistake.

3. Explain the solution: this is like a doctor making a prescription. Tell them what the solution is to their problems, and why that's the solution they need. Explain how it fixes the problem without making the common mistakes that happen in the industry.

So far everything has been about them, and now we've got them super clear on what they need (which may or may not be what they asked for).

Don't be intimidated by the name! We don't do the "always be closing" stuff here. It's really just doing a bit more education, but calling this stage "Education 2: The Sequel" was a dumb idea according to everyone I asked (0/57 people said it was a good idea).

This part is where we show them how to work with us. Finally out time to shine!

1. Run through the logistics of your solution: tell them how you operate, what stages you go through (and why each of those are necessary and unable to be skipped), how long it will take, and how much it's going to cost. You want them to understand you have a special process they can't get elsewhere. And YES make sure they know how much it's going to be. You do NOT want people finding out the price when you're not there to handle it. Because next up you can.....

2. Handle any objections (aka answer their questions): they might think you're expensive, they might not like the timeframe, they might not be sure it will solve the problem. Ask what they think, so you can find out anything that stops them moving forward (we call those objections). Then handle the objections (this could be a full email on it's own). You need to find out what it is, and why they think that way. eg. If they think it's expensive, ask what they're comparing to. That will tell you what you need to educate them about. Once there's no more objections you get to.....

3. Explain the next steps: tell them exactly what's going to happen after the meeting. Will you send a proposal? When? What do they need to do to accept it? When are they expecting to move forward? When will they need to pay? How do they pay? Make sure you've got a simple and clear way to progress the sale, and that they understand it.

Then just go and do what you said you would do.

This is roughly the system I've used for the past... 16/17 years? I've taught it to hundreds of people (for money lol).

And now you've got it too! Well, a slimmed down text version at least.

Implement it. Or don't. But I can promise you, it works really well. You'll feel way better running a meeting this way, and you should be able to get away with charging more too. Win win (for you at least).

Cowabunga,Nick Gulic