Got white gloves? Here's a ketchup popsicle.

How to succeed at sales without being annoying

A classic line from Tommy Boy refers to the ability to sell a “ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves.” Jay-Z raps “I sell ice in the winter, I sell fire in hell, I am a hustler, baby I sell water to a whale.”

Selling is a skill. It doesn’t require you to be a genius, but you need to have knowledge about what you're selling and be able to convey its relevance to someone else.

My decade of sales experience provided many opportunities for me to fall flat on my face when selling to customers. It was clear when I wasn’t prepared: customers would look at me confused or with a slight grin and walk away, usually buying nothing or, even worse, my competitor’s product.

In those moments of failure, there was a strategy to selling. One that anyone can follow. Here’s a basic procedure I used in my time as a salesman.

Sell the product by listening first.

The obvious component to any conversation that you hope turns into a transaction at the cash register is to sell your product. This means telling the customer not just the features but the benefits of a product. First, you must listen to their needs and wants. How will this solve my problem? What other problems might it solve? Could it solve any problems I don’t even realize I’m having? These questions roll around in the minds of your customers. Let them have the freedom to ask them.

From my experience, this rang true, especially when selling bug killer to women. I cite women as the example because men will typically walk into a home improvement store and pretend they know exactly what they need and how to use it and don’t need anyone’s help.

Women come in often skeptical. I sold lawn and garden products, and those aisles of chemicals are often the most confusing in the store for customers. Women came in knowing what they wanted to do, but not sure what product would get them what they needed. Having a conversation with the customer helps narrow down their pain points. You’ve got a roach problem? Inside or outside? Are they in the kitchen or other rooms? Sell your product by listening first, then tell how your product benefits the customer.

Show and tell.

Sometimes you’re selling products that are a bit more complex to use. (Not you, Chick-fil-A. We all know the procedure for down one of your tasty, spicy chicken sandwiches). Still, act like Pop-Tarts and assume your customer doesn’t know how to use your product. Make it as simple as possible.

Insecurity happens at the point of sale when customers simply don’t understand how to use a product. I can’t tell you how many times I was handed the tool I needed for a project at a store, just wishing the employee would give me a brief rundown on how to actually use the tool rather than the benefits of it. Never assume just because you know how to use it that your customer will. In my sales job, we even had demo bottles to let customers try out to see how easy it could be to spray bug killer.

Even if you’re not selling an item in person, make it easy to purchase. The customer needs help cleaning their house. Well look at you…you just happen to own a cleaning business! They want to buy a cleaning or two, but have you made the transaction simple? Or does the customer need to jump through a million hoops to get their house clean? You can have the best product in the world, but if it’s not simple to use or simple to purchase, nobody’s going to buy it.

Share your story.

Often the best way to get the customer to buy what you’re selling is connecting with them through story. We all love stories. We also all love to be the hero of a story. Here is your chance to turn this individual that came into the store to buy a product to kill spiders into a hero defending their home from invasive pests that seek to destroy their family and take over with an arachnid-like tyrannical rule. That feels a bit overboard, but the customer will feel amazing as the hero.

Stories connect us to places, to people, to events, and yes, to products. You can turn even the most pedestrian products into stories worth telling. Selling a nondescript pasta? Tell of a time you (or someone else) made this amazing Italian dish with your pasta and a bold marinara sauce with a sprinkle of parmesan paired with a crisp red wine. It was the perfect meal where right after you dropped down on a knee and proposed to the woman who has now been your wife for 5 years. Selling a 3-pack of cleaning sponges? Talk about a time when your friend and their whole family had a stomach bug and this sponge is the exact thing they used to go around and disinfect the whole house. Think of the old Hair Club for Men commercials.

Don’t lie and make up stories (unless you’re in advertising), but do have some connection to your product to verify its features and quality. When I was selling lawn and garden products, I made sure I knew enough about each item to sell them. I was most successful, however, when I could use a story to sell something. The bug killer that rid my house of the pesky centipedes that invaded every summer. The fertilizer that made my grass greener than my neighbor’s. The black mulch that bordered a row of bushes bringing some great curb appeal.

If your specialty is selling only one or two unique items (and not hundreds of different ones like I did), then spend some time using them. Drive the car around town for a weekend to really get a feel on how to sell it to the newlyweds coming next week to check it out. Go to your own cleaning website and make a purchase to write web copy that sells to the working mother of 4 who just doesn’t have time to clean. And yes, go ahead and buy a box of the new Pop-Tart flavor so you can tell the customer firsthand how amazing it is. Statistics show 65–70% of people retain information presented through a story, where only 5–10% remember dry data and details.

Too many salespeople don’t have connections to the very products they sell. It’s a simple hurdle to overcome. Know your product, know how to use it, and use it.

If people connect to your product, they’ll use it again. And again. You’ve developed trust because you haven’t only sold them a product or service, you sold them confidence and story. You’ll make them a hero. Who doesn’t want to feel like that?