Selling me softly with his words… The truth about what sales is – and what it’s not

I’ll start with a controversial statement:

Sales is like a romance novel – between you and your potential client.

Now before you scream:

Ick! Stop with tis sappy approach! Sales is about business and generating revenue! – let me explain what I mean.

Imagine you’re “in the market” to find an intimate partner. If it’s been a while, try to remember what it was like when you were looking for that someone special in your life (if ever).

You might have gone out to a bar, a yoga class or a party to find potential partners. Or you looked online to get a first impression of what’s out there and to see if you can find someone who’s style, appearance and attitude resonated with you.

Then you see a person who seemed to be a good match, meeting some of the criteria you are looking for in a potential intimate partner.

What do you do?

Do you go up to this person and say:

“Hey, you seem to be a great fit, let’s get married tomorrow” - ?

Probably not.

You romance him or her, get to know this person and see what they like, dislike, what they are looking for in a relationship, what’s a show-stopper for them, you get a feel for this person, understand his or her story … etc

And it’s the exact same procedure with potential clients.

Sales is about finding a match – not for life in most cases, but for a certain time period of working together.

Looking at sales like a potential “love story” can help shift the perception (and the results) of your sales conversations for the better.

However, what a lot of people perceive as sales is frequently based on past conditioning, experiences and beliefs around sales, which is often not very positive.

When we do a free word association exercise in my seminars where the task is to write down anything that comes to mind when hearing the word “Salesman” … participants often come up with “creepy, selfish, arrogant, out to get me, annoying, a pest…” and the negative list goes on.

Understandably, when we expect a certain outcome (like the above) – we are often likely to get it when the quantum law of resonance hits.

Let’s do a small test to see what kind of perception you are putting out there, when it comes to sales – okay?

Here’s a compiled list of words, circle the ones that you agree with in relation to sales – and see if you have more positive or negative words circled:

In your next sales conversation, why not turn it into a game?

Look at your future clients from a “romance” perspective, just as if you were meeting someone you liked at a bar. And notice how you can be much more casual about it, take off the pressure and just go with the flow:

See if it’s a match – or not.

If it is – great! If it’s not, no worries: there are plenty of prospects out there, in the market. Especially if you have a high match to market ratio (see my previous Newsletter No 2).

In my business my ideal prospects are coaches, consultants, teacher, trainer – anyone in the information / expertise industry. And quite a few of them do not really like to do the selling bit of the business:

I often hear: “All I want to do is help and coach people, I’m not so much about the selling part.” Or “If selling was not a necessity, I would love to do without it.”

To help shift the negative perception about sales – and to help my clients sell better, easier and more successfully - I developed the Soft Sell System?, and even wrote a book about it (to be released in Spring 2023).

It’s based on 8 steps and the Star Rapport Method? that helps ANYBODY with ANY sale to be converting higher (turn more no’s into yesses), make prospects love you when you’re selling to them, builds rapport quickly and is a lot of fun.

The Star Rapport Method? taps into people’s need to feel appreciated, approved of, liked and respected. It’s applicable to any kind of human interaction (even the one I mentioned in the beginning) – and very helpful also to turn difficult relationships around.

The 6 A’s of the Star Rapport Method?:

If you ‘d like to learn more:

I’ll be hosting a series of free workshops called Sales Bootcamp Sprints in the coming weeks, kick off with the Soft Sell System? and the Star Rapport Method? is on February 23rd, 2023, online => check it out HERE.