These 2 Spanish Words Will Help You Sell Mucho More-o

I remember being in Spanish class senior year of high school with Senor Martinez when we were joined by a foreign exchange student from somewhere in Central America.

Why he was spending his time in America in a Spanish class is beyond me, but I digress.

I still remember that for some reason one day he needed to leave class early and packed up his things and as he exited, he said in English to the entire class “So long for now.”

Being super mature, the class waited until he left before bursting into laughter.

I mean who says “So long for now”!?!

Then it took us about 30 more seconds to realize that we were probably learning phrases that are outdated, clunky, or overly polite and we'd look equally silly using them.

While the words may technically be correct, it's the meaning behind the words that really matter.

And in different cultures and languages, words and phrases can have different meanings.

[Warning! This article contains the use of a lot of quotation marks, probably used incorrectly, proceed at your own risk.]

For instance, in Jamaica, they don’t have “problems” they just have “situations”. And “situations” can be solved hence there’re never any problems.

In sales settings in some central and south American countries if you don’t want something instead of saying “no” or even “no thanks” they say “otra dia” which translates literally to “another dia” with the more common meaning being “another time.”

Think about that for a second and it could change your sales career. (Now I’m not saying you’re in sales specifically, but we’re all selling something at some time.)

Anyone with more than 5 minutes in a sales environment will tell you to expect a lot of “no’s”.

Maybe dozens or even hundreds for every “Yes”.

But the great salespeople and marketers know that you could quickly scale your income by realizing “no” doesn’t ACTUALLY mean “no”. (And obviously, I'm not talking about this in a Weinstein/Cosby sort of way.)

Many people take “no” to mean “I don’t want this ever so please never contact me again in any way at any time, and I’d prefer you find the nearest cliff and jump off of it you useless piece of garbage.”

While that may be a tad bit extreme, that is how most people treat a “no”.

What if instead next time you get a “no” you simply took it to mean “another time”.  

BAM! That changes the whole situation now, doesn’t it?

I’m often asked how long should you try to sell to someone once they become a lead?

The answer most don’t want but that I give (stolen fair and square from others that are way smarter than me) is that you keep trying to sell a lead on your product or service “until they buy, or until they die.”

While that is a little bit simplistic, it’s really a lot closer to the truth than it’s not.

I heard one business owner recently who said, “Once someone becomes a lead, I own their soul.” By the way, that business owner started a new company at the beginning of the longest year ever…2020…and grew it by over 5,300 during the worst of the shutdowns. So maybe we can learn from his attitude a bit.

As the person selling our ideal timeframe for someone to buy from us was approximately 6 seconds after they met us…and that’s for those who are patient. 

The potential buyer though may have a much different timeframe in mind.

I recently invested in a five-figure training program that I initially inquired about in April of last year…about nine months ago.

In the months in between when I first became a lead and bought, they e-mailed, called, and marketed to me daily, literally. Now they probably only called a dozen times, and maybe e-mailed me 20 times in that period, I could not go online without seeing their ads.

If it wasn’t my soul they owned, it was my browsing history and they used it.

And now they have tens of thousands of extra dollars and if they do what they say they’ll do, then this investment could grow significantly.

I talked with several other companies with similar services. Most I never heard from again. One followed up via e-mail. That’s it.

You’d think to make a five-figure sale you might put an actual human on the phone once a month and dish out a few bucks on online ads in addition to a few measly e-mails.

But most don’t, and that’s why you can win if you do!

Most either don’t have the discipline, the persistence, the intestinal fortitude, or simply the right mindset to realize that “no” simply means “not right now.”

They either feel rejected, say they bad leads, say the person wasn’t serious or a good fit, are too lazy or too disorganized to follow-up on their leads so that one day, that lead may turn into a client.

So what does your follow-up process look like? Does it have phone calls, e-mails, direct mail, online ads, gifts, newsletters, postcards, events, webinars, seminars, and a bunch of things I can’t think of right now?

If not, could it?

What would it cost?

More importantly, what is it costing you NOT to do this?

"So long for now."