STOP Selling - START Helping (and watch your sales soar)

People don't care about how much you know, until they know how much you care. Selling is not about YOU but about the person in front of you.

Traditionally, Selling has been about trying to convince someone to buy a product or service through persuasion techniques or using smokescreens and mirrors with a focus on closing the deal at any cost. Salespeople were taught how to recite a well-rehearsed sales pitch and overcome objections.

Helping on the other hand is providing valued solutions to our customer's needs. But before we can help them with valued solutions, we must first understand what is most important to them, their opportunities, challenges and priorities to ensure that our recommendations are indeed the right fit for them.

The traditional approach to sales is rapidly becoming obsolete, instead a paradigm shift is occurring where the best form of sales is service, and service is the best pathway to sales success.

The highest form of service is understanding our customer's need and proactively providing valued solutions to them better than anyone else.

This means we must become Masters at:

• Understanding the value of our products and services in the eyes of our ideal customers
• Positioning our sales conversation with a focus on HELPING
• Asking powerful questions to understand needs (spoken and unspoken) and listening more than we speak
• Being able to articulate how our recommendations will benefit them personally
• Genuinely caring about our customer and walking in their shoes

Here's why helping wins in the long run:

1. Builds long-term relationships: When you help, you create a connection that goes beyond a one-off transaction. Customers remember the service and support they receive, and they’re more likely to return and refer others which creates sustainability and reduces churn.
2. Establishes trust: By focusing on the customer’s needs and not just the sale, you demonstrate that you have their best interests at heart. This builds trust through authenticity, which is the foundation of any strong relationship and makes them more open to receiving your recommendations.
3. Enhances reputation and brand: A business that helps is a business that cares. This reputation for caring can become one of your strongest marketing points, as satisfied customers share their experiences with others. Everyone wants to feel important, and this is a key part of organisational sales success through differentiation in a crowded market.
4. Creates advocates who become Raving Fans: Customers who feel helped and supported become advocates for your brand. They’re more likely to spread the word and bring in new business through positive word-of-mouth.
5. Sales becomes easier and more profitable: Buying decisions are first made emotionally, then justified logically so the better people feel the more likely they are to buy. People can smell a pushy salesperson a mile off and their resistance will automatically kick in, where when they feel safe and understood they are more likely to want to buy and will be less price sensitive.
6. Creates a sense of Reciprocity: When we genuinely try to do all we can to help our customer they want to give back to us and will help us also with what we need.
7. Reduces sales reluctance from team members: Employees do not always want to have to SELL but are generally very happy to HELP provide valued solutions. A simple shift in mindset and positioning can create a 180-degree shift in behaviour by team members which then flows on to deliver higher sales and customer satisfaction results.

The Outcome: A Win Win

When we stop selling and start helping, everyone wins. Customers receive the service and solutions they need, salespeople achieve their targets and organisations create sustainable success through increased customer loyalty and happier, engaged team members.

The best form of service is sales done right, which begins with a paradigm shift from pushing products or services to helping people with valued solutions to their needs, better than anyone else.

When we get this right, everything becomes easier.

The better it gets, the better it gets!

At Shine Executive, we love supporting organisations to create a high-performance culture by bringing out the best in their people.

We are here to help with speaking, consulting, training, conferences, coaching or offsite events and specialise in the following areas:

High Performing Teams | Leadership | Sales Training | EQ & Neuroscience | Financial Services Sales & Service | DISC Personality Profiles | Five Behaviours of Cohesive Teams | Positive Psychology | GROWTH Coaching

Our bespoke people and performance solutions are created to meet your unique business needs, time available and working environment - so if you have something that's important to you why not Book your free 30 minute call now to discuss. We'd love to hear from you.

Or contact us at [email protected] or +61 423 936090.

Naomi Oyston has more than twenty years leadership experience within the Corporate, Financial and SME Business sectors.? She has had extensive executive level success, with direct responsibility for leading the implementation and performance assessment of Customer Service Excellence, Sales Performance, Performance Coaching, Organisational Culture, Productivity and Leadership training within multiple major corporations.

Passionate, engaging and insightful, Naomi specialises in helping business leaders to create High Performing teams through a combination of mindset, toolkits and skillsets that are street proven to deliver results that matter.