The 10 things they never told you about: sales.

1. Find me. There are basically two kinds of sales (basically) – inside sales and outside sales. They are different and the same. Different in that they require a different set of skills based on a different set of customer motivations, but the same in that you have to find a prospect for both. Prospecting is the first sales skill. You’ve got to find the customer. No customer, no sale.

2. Wear the roses. The customer doesn’t care about you. They don’t care about how you feel, about the fight you had with your person this morning, that your dog is at the vet, or the crack you got in your windshield last week. The customer cares about the customer. A sales presentation is a kind of trade – the customer trades their time and attention in the hopes you can make their lot in life better. The most important thing you can do in a sales presentation is to wear ‘rose-colored glasses’. Be up, be happy, be of good cheer. “How are you today?” asked the customer. “Best day ever” replied the smart salesman.

3. Find my pain. You really only have one purpose as a salesperson: to solve a problem for the customer that they can’t solve on their own. The best salespeople are the best doctors. They know how to diagnose, probe, and discover the customer’s pain (problem). If you can’t find the pain, you have no purpose. If you have no purpose, you have no reason to be there. If you have no reason to be there, you have no sale. Find my pain.

4. Practice makes you rich. Some of the highest paid people in society are professional athletes. A part of the reason for their value is their scarcity, but equally important is their commitment to practice. Said the professional football player, “We practice 50 hours a week to play a 1-hour game.” At last check, most players, on average, collect $206,000 per 1-hour game. It’s not an accident, it’s practice.

5. Listen to hear, not to respond. For the most part, buying is an emotional gambit. It’s more reactive decision than intellectual. Maybe salespeople get this wrong, but here’s what’s right: humans make decisions emotionally and justify them rationally. The best salespeople know that the real trick to listening isn’t listening at all. It’s making the customer feel like they are being “heard”, and reflective listening is the most effective tool for this. Reflective listening is the process of repeating back what the prospect said in their own words to confirm understanding. Do it right and you’ll make the customer feel like you get them on a gut level. Do it right and it will make you rich.

6. Sell the money. Professional salespeople don’t sell services or things, they sell “monetized” solutions. Monetizing a solution makes it more relatable so it has more impact. Says the paint salesman to the contractor, “This paint is $100 more, but will get the job done in half the time saving you 50% on your labor cost.” If the labor cost is $400, the contractor just walked out with a bucket of paint and an extra $200 in his pocket. Booya.

7. Sell the future. Write this down: selling creates a future state of being. The best salespeople know that they’re not selling the car, the house, or even the perfect shoes to go with the perfect dress today. They’re selling the customer’s ‘future state’ of being in involved with the salesperson’s product or service. Don’t sell a better today, sell an epic tomorrow.

8. Sell the cost, not the price. Most customers get hung up on price and neglect the cost. The two are not the same. The price is what you pay to acquire something. The cost is what you pay to own it. If you are selling a high quality, high price item or service, you need to examine the cost of that product or service over its useful life and compare that to your competition. Demonstrate to the customer how your product or service will save the customer money (or time). It works.

9. Tell features, sell benefits. ‘Features and benefits’ is of the most important, strongest, and essential skills to selling effectively. The feature is the ‘what’, the benefit is the ‘what’s in it for me?’. You need both. Most salespeople fall off after the sermon of features and lose a lot of money in the process. Take the time to think about how each feature will make the customer skinnier, richer, more productive, prettier, … That’s the win.

10. Don’t lose me. A common metric is sales in ‘CAC’ (customer acquisition cost). This is sunk money spent in the pursuit of the customer. ‘Sunk’ means you don’t get it back. The biggest way to lose that investment is to not follow up with the customer. Always follow up whether you make the sale or not. If you do make the sale, this keeps you front of mind for referrals. If you don’t make the sale, it keeps you front of mind for an unexpected future event where suddenly your product or service is needed and there you are ready to save the day and make all their dreams come true. Way to go smart salesperson.

Good luck and have a good week.

Joe Still

2025.02.02

Cite: “Sales is the lowest paying easy job and the highest paying hard job you can ever have.” – Tom Hopkins