Sell like Crazy

what’s up everybody in this video I’m gonna teach you a new way to sell how to get more clients close more deals and do in a way that isn’t going to come across as tone-deaf during these challenging times now before I dive in I just want to let you know this portion of the video is sponsored by Google Ads smart campaigns what’s the most difficult part of running any business well getting qualified leads and expanding your customer base one effective way to do this is to run ads but it can be difficult to set up not anymore if you ever thought about running an ad campaign but we’re intimidated by how to set it up smart campaigns might be the perfect solution for you it’s super easy to set up because it uses Google’s automated technology to manage your ads for you it’s constantly learning and improving performance best of all it saves time it’s easy to set up manage and to report by using Google Ad smart campaigns you’ll be able to reach more customers and get real results so that you can stay focused on running your business what are the steps here’s how it works in five steps one define a goal this could be to get phone calls clicks on your site or to drive traffic to your business to decide where to advertise you can select any geographic location and use keyword themes 3 create your message four set your budget and then just go live that’s it those are the five steps the best part you only pay when people click on your ads you can also quickly sign up for Google Ads through the app smart campaigns are a great way to get your business back online especially after a challenging time sign up or manage your Google Ad smart campaigns today Google Ad smart campaigns is a helpful tool for small to medium-sized businesses just like yours designed to help you reach potential customers and

generate leads once a prospect has reached out I’m gonna show you a new way to approach the sales call that will help you to build genuine and meaningful rapport surface the real challenges and increase your success rate especially during these challenging times thanks again to Google Ad smart campaigns for sponsoring this portion of the video let’s jump in sailes it’s a dirty word for some of you you might even be having a visceral almost allergic reaction to that word and it’s justifiably so most of our experiences with salespeople are unpleasant you ever regret answering the phone when a pushy telemarketer just all let you politely in the call you’ve had that experience before I have to that leaves a bad taste in your mouth well how about the door-to-door sales person trying to get you to sign a petition that you know nothing about well yeah sales has a bad rap we don’t have great examples of great sales experiences because it’s often perpetuated by people who actually use manipulative high-pressure techniques who will stop at nothing to get this out if this has been your experience and exposure to what it means to sell then it’s probably not much of a leap to assume you avoid selling at all cause so here’s the rub you know you need to sale for the sake of your business but you don’t want to feel slimy afterwards and if you’ve ever tried it before without much luck I want to give you a different way of approaching sales first forget everything you think you know about sales we have to do a little mental flossing cleanse the palate if you will so what does it really mean to sell well it’s not what you think selling is not pitching it’s not presenting it’s not convincing and it’s not a form of manipulation the goal of sales is to inspire the prospect to make a decision not to tell them what to do you do this by helping them to think through their challenges you don’t tell you ask so let’s find a more accurate generous and effective way to generate new business make more money and do it in a way that is in alignment with your values and beliefs I want to reframe what it even means to sell so let’s look at it this way sales means to serve ask listen empathize and to summarize that’s it remember these five words serve ask listen empathize and summarize now I’m going to dive in a little deeper so you can understand what I’m talking about so first is to serve this is a whole mindset shift you have to prepare yourself to think about sales in a whole different way it’s not about what you get but what you give and it’s about how you show up to helped others without expectations and you do this by acting in the best interest of others and it’s done in the spirit of generosity and you have to be selfless another way of thinking about this is to act like a fiduciary that you’re taking care of somebody else’s money in business and you have their best interests at heart next ask don’t give advice in Michael Bungay Stanier errs book the coaching habit he talks about silencing the advice monster and the advice monster lives in all of us because it desires to prove that we know something that we have experienced that we can be of service and help it’s the exact opposite of what you want to do you want to ask questions because thinking is difficult the client arrives with an unclear idea of what the real problem is only by asking questions can you surface the real problem asking helps the clients to think you can probe dig surface investigate and you want to do this through the lens of curiosity questions are like magical Keys they open the door to the mind of the client and when you ask questions you give deference the other person when you ask questions they feel important they’re in control and they have the power asking allows you to gather information to gain the inside track you are able to get information that other people didn’t get because they were afraid to ask or they weren’t curious for long enough because ultimately what you want to do is to find the right problem to solve and oftentimes the first problem that you hear is not the correct problem asking allows you to surface deeper motivations and to gain clarity here’s the thing not all questions are created equally so some more advice from Michael Bungay Stanier is the best questions start with what what opens the discussion what remains neutral what is unbiased how questions focus on tactics and unfortunately we’re rushing to find the answer how do we do this how might we solve this why questions sound accusatory if the tone isn’t correct so be careful if using why questions here are some examples of questions that you can ask what’s on your mind what would be a big win you what’s getting in your way of accomplishing this what’s the real challenge for you I love this question because it supposes that there’s an unreal or a fake challenge and oftentimes it’s a smokescreen that somebody will present to you as the real problem what keeps you up at night around this what is open for reimagining who else needs to be part of this discussion and what else Ellis for listening you want to listen more and you want to talk less when the client is transmitting a signal to but not getting any kind of recognition from you they’re doing what pilots know it’s called transmitting blind where they lose the radio signal one way that you can signal to the client that you’re listening is to give them little affirmations a simple nod saying yes right mm-hmm will do the trick you don’t need to to say any more than that because listening is your competitive advantage and do what Kevin daily calls full value listening what that means is that everything the client says matters and how do you signal to the other person that what they say matters you take notes yes like a reporter you take notes this is preferred over maintaining eye contact which many communication professionals tell you to do if you’re maintaining eye contact with the client they’re probably wondering what are you paying attention to and is this coming through clearly another technique of listening is to mirror where you repeat the last few words the client says so if they say we would love to have an amazing website you would repeat back so an amazing website an amazing website you would just repeat the last few words so e is for empathize this is a critical skill to have to understand the client’s pain they need to know you know what they’re feeling and what you do is you help them to relive it you concentrate on the feeling not the solution you can even ask some questions like how does it make them feel to not have a solution for this and to help them to relive that moment FBI negotiator Chris vos calls this labeling the emotion so here’s an example you could start the phrase with it sounds like so it sounds like you’re frustrated about the lack Transparency with your last vendor or here’s another one it sounds like not having a solution is costing your company hundreds of thousands in lost sales here’s another one it sounds like cashflow is an issue right now is that the problem and finally it sounds like you’re upset that the last company told you one thing and did something else entirely the last s is to summarize to play back what you heard here’s an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you understand that you’ve been listening intently you want to put everything together and you want to play back their major points don’t be afraid of playing back what your heart people generally avoid this because they’re scared that they weren’t paying careful enough attention and by saying what they’ve heard they’re only confirming what their clients have suspected but before I talk about that I want to tell you there’s a difference between you a human being and a tape recorder a tape recorder records everything can playback everything but understands nothing this is your opportunity to show that you understand and by asking the client did I get this right you’re gonna get confirmation or you gonna get clarification both are important so here’s one way to do it if I understand you

correctly here’s what I gathered and you would point out here’s one thing I heard here’s the second thing I heard here’s the third thing that I heard and then you want to follow it up with is that correct by asking they’re gonna give you one of two responses yes you nailed it you’ve got everything or no let me give you some additional information both are quite powerful and just to be sure ask is there anything else you might gain an extra kernel a little nugget of information congratulations that’s the entire framework now let’s go in for the close okay so here’s the most critical part you’ve done the great job of asking the questions staying in the pocket silencing the advice monster listening with great empathy you’re labeling the pain and you’ve played back everything and you’ve gotten confirmation from the client you cannot stop here we got to learn how to close so here’s how you do it you use this thing called a conditional hypothetical close and the reason why you do this is because decisions are scary because part of decisions is deciding and the route or the decide side means to kill it means to eliminate possibility and why clients are afraid to make a decision is because they’re thinking am I paying too much is this the correct solution are you the right partner to work with so you want to make it easier to make a decision by framing it with questions you’re gently walking them through by making little tiny decisions small commitments this is the beautiful part so right here at the end you want to just use the if-then conditional hypothetical close and I’ll show you what that means so here’s how I would say something like this from what I’m hearing if a vendor could ensure delivery of a website that

increased conversion rates from two to four percent which would increase profit by four hundred thousand dollars this year and then you’d consider this a homerun and they would say yes that’s correct and then you’re gonna follow up if we submit a proposal for sixty five thousand dollars by the end of business day then you’re ready to move forward next week is that correct yes so now you’ve gotten to commitments and it doesn’t feel dangerous to make this big decision it’s still hypothetical but you’re moving from the hypothetical to the real in a very gentle and easy way so just a reminder if is safe it’s hypothetical it requires low commitment let’s summarize sales means to serve to ask to listen to empathize and to summarize to serve means to do it in the spirit of generosity to truly want to help somebody else other than you it’s about their goals and not yours and we do this by asking lots of questions asking questions allows us to find the real problem it makes the other person feel like they’re in control and they have the power asking questions allows us to truly understand what the clients are going through and the way that we do this is through listening by listening by taking notes and then empathizing labeling the pain and then to summarize what you’ve learned this is it serve ask listen empathize and to summarize and here are some books and resources for you if you want to dig deeper I highly recommend these three books Socratic selling written by Kevin daily never split the difference by Chris Foss and coaching habit by Michael Bungay Stanier that’s it for me I hope you learned something I hope this was helpful and I will see you in the future