THE UNFILTERED TRUTH ABOUT BUSINESS SUCCESS

Marketing And Sales Are The Linchpin To Success

It’s a harsh truth that a lot of people in business would rather not acknowledge, but the reality of business success is that a company that sells more successfully than other companies, even those with a better product or service, will usually be more successful.

A lot of people have a negative perception about selling.? They fear having to sell and they don’t like being sold to.? They’ll say things like, “I got into business because I’m good at … but I don’t see myself as a salesperson.”

The problem is, business has two primary flows of energy - in and out!? Just like almost everything else in the world.

In business, it’s the flow of value and money, in multiple layers.

With customers, it’s money in and value out.

With staff, it’s money out and value in.? The same is true for inventory, contractors, services and the myriad other inputs needed to create the value the company presents to the market.

For founders and shareholders, it’s money going out to the shareholders for value in (which is basically the founders and shareholders willingness to take risk).

You’re obviously aware of the imbalance here. ?Aside from one-off injections of money through borrowings and capital raising, marketing and sales have to provide pretty much all the inbound money needed to cover all the outbound money.

The sustainable success of any business comes down to how well you sell.

What The Best Companies Do Better Than The Rest

Business is a full contact, all weather, all market conditions sport!? Meaning, no matter what is happening around it, a great company performs no matter what.

The thing about performance is that it only matters when it is comparative - compared to past results, compared to the targets, compared to the competition.

The best companies sell successfully in all market conditions.? Basically, they manage to out-market and out-sell the rest of their market.?

If you think about this for even half a second, it becomes obvious that to do so must suggest that they don’t sell like everyone else.

So much has been written about having a USP, building great funnels, branding, conversion strategies and so on.? However, after having worked with hundreds of sales teams and thousands of sales people, I can say with certainty that the best selling companies and people, sell differently to everyone else.

They just have something about them, and it’s NOT the gift of the gab, or fast talking, slick sales tactics taken directly out of the old door-to-door, industrial age playbook!

What Do You Look And Sound Like From The Prospect’s Perspectives?

Your prospect is trying to make several decisions:

• Do I really need or want to buy this?
• Do I need to buy it now?
• Am I happy to spend that money on this, ahead of every other use I have for that money?
• Am I completely happy to buy it from you, as opposed to everyone else I’ve seen selling this?

Put your customer hat on for a moment and think about these questions as you try to work your way through the four questions above:

• How do I feel about people who try to pressure me into the purchase?
• How do I feel about people who try to confuse me into the purchase?
• How do I feel about people who try to manipulate me into the purchase?
• How do I feel about people who try to discount me into the purchase?

At another level, imagine the answer to these questions when your product or service looks just the same as everyone else.

It’s a formula for failure!

Here’s the thing … if you sell the same as everyone else, you end up sounding the same as everyone else and your value ends up looking the same as everyone else.

If you want to truly out-sell your competition, you must sell differently to them.? You can no longer rely on the pressure-based, false scarcity and urgency, verbal judo tactics that so much of the industrial age selling model is based on.

If you sell a complex product or service, the challenge is real … stop selling like everyone else and become the master of your market!

In The Complex Sale, How Do You Sell Differently To Everyone Else?

Here’s an interesting thought for you - what if the product or service that you sell is not actually the real story you need to tell?

What if there are controlling layers of the sale that are so deep, they haven’t ever really been explored in full?

What if there is a better story to tell that has such a profound impact on your prospect, that they IMMEDIATELY recognise a difference in the nature of the conversation you’re having with them?

What if your conversation is so simple yet complete, that everyone else sounds like they don’t really know what they’re talking about?

And what if you could do this in such a low-pressure way that your prospect just automatically falls into the conversation with you?

There are a lot of things I could cover to unpack all this, but three, big ideas leap out:

1. Become a voice WORTH listening to in your prospects’ world. ?Don’t just showcase a deep understanding of their unique needs but also let them know, without platitudes, that you see them as the real heroes in their own story.? Lose the idea of the “ideal client avatar” and instead lean right into the concept of the “hero client”.
2. Learn how to communicate the deep, deep COMPANY GENIUS behind everything you do.? Your true uniqueness is not attached to your products or services.? It’s attached to the quality of thinking and innovation that sits behind everything you do.? The trick is to have the prospect understand this WITHOUT you needing to talk yourself up.
3. Find a way of showing up in all your marketing and sales conversations that serves their simultaneous need for novelty and safety.? You must be able to show them that you have a different mechanism or solution to everyone else, yet give them confidence that your mechanism is completely safe and proven to solve their problem.

Blueprints For The Brain Are The Key

Selling is, traditionally, a verbal or word-heavy process.? We talk about copy, elevator pitches, closing techniques and on and on.? The problem is that words by themselves are limiting, especially when we draw over 80% of the inputs from the world around us through the optic nerve!

Your prospect has a gap between their current paradigm, and the future paradigm with you and your solution in it.

The future only matters to people if they are in it and the future that matters to your prospects is the future that has them in it, in a much better paradigm than they currently find themselves in.

They want a future where they win and where they’re safe and they’re looking for those companies that demonstrate the genius needed to do that for them.

Whilst winning can sometimes be attached to a technology or a product, safety is firstly attached to people … can I trust you, do you care about me, do you have my back?

When we sell through visual models, we enter that space between their current paradigm and the desired paradigm and we fill it with a blueprint for the brain.

The model is visual and because of that it triggers curiosity and transparency.? They can SEE what is going on and it is being presented in a way that is different to the way almost everyone else communicates.

The model also provides structure that allows them to “get it” and also trust it.? It’s the structure that turns an idea into a blueprint.

What Will You Do In 2024?

If you want to out-sell your competitors in 2024, you need to sell differently to them.

As we work with companies around the world to help them build their models-based selling system, we’ve seen the extraordinary impact of injecting visual models into their sales processes.? Their conversion rates and the prices achieved jump by significant percentages.

For these companies, selling through visual models has become one of the most innovative things they’ve done in their business.

That’s my challenge for you in 2024.? If you want to sell like crazy in 2024, you MUST stop selling like everyone else and let your prospects see the real genius behind what you.

How will you change the way you sell?

Let me help you …

I’m running an event in just a couple of days where I’m going to be talking about exactly this … and I’d like to invite you to attend.

It’s my Models Method Sales Masterclass - I only do two or three of these a year and they’re always very popular and well attended … we even have numbers of past clients attending because of the value I’ll be sharing.

So, go to my LinkedIn Event to join me on my first Masterclass for 2024:

https://www.dhirubhai.net/events/themodelsmethodsalesmasterclass7151442173828157440/about/