Ch.1 - Why does everybody hate salespeople?
You’ve seen salespeople portrayed in movies and television - they’re usually awful. Think Glengarry Glen Ross, Wolf of Wall Street, or even Groundhog Day (remember the insurance salesman?).
Fortunately, you only need to know two things to become great at selling without becoming a caricature.
The first lesson of sales is...
“Always be closing!”
“Coffee’s for closers!”
Nope.
The first lesson is this: nobody cares about your product.
“Well that’s probably true for unknown brands. But we’re on the Inc 5000 - of course people care about our product!”
Wrong. People care about themselves and their problems.
They don’t want you to waste their precious time talking about features and functionality. They don’t want to hear about how many awards your product has won. They want you to solve one of their problems.
So solve a problem or go away.
Consider this: if a million-dollar watch doesn’t tell time any better than a ten-dollar watch, why is there a luxury watch market at all?
A ten-dollar watch solves the problem of needing to know what time it is.
A hundred-dollar watch solves the problem of needing to look stylish at the club.
A million-dollar watch solves the problem of needing to establish dominance in a business meeting.
Each watch solves a different problem, even though they all tell time.
In the end, our only job is to identify, engage, and close sales with buyers who are experiencing a problem our product will solve.
PRO TIP: Build a list of the problems your product solves. Use this list to qualify a prospect as early as possible. This will save you tons of time (and heartache).
If you’re new to the product, ask the best sales rep at your company what problems they most commonly solve.
If you’re a lone wolf, get permission to call a few of your company’s best customers and ask what problem they were trying to solve when they bought.
ATTN: LEADERS
If you leave it up to your sales reps to create a list of the problems your product solves, you’re doing it wrong.
Provide them with a list and regularly update it based on their conversations with qualified buyers.
The second lesson of sales is...
If you want to be successful, start by helping others succeed.
Today’s buyers have more information than ever before and rarely need a seller to guide them through the darkness. Plus, any product-based advantage you have.
now will be copied or improved upon in a matter of months by your competition.
“So I’ll be out of a job soon? I thought you were going to show me how to be successful.”
If you define success as staying in the middle of the pack and contributing only enough to the world to stay employed, you can just skip ahead to the next chapter. Technology will soon replace you, so you don’t have time to waste.
But if you define success as leading the pack and growing your career exponentially in the coming years, you need a different attitude.
Your future is about how many people you can help, not worrying about what’s in it for you now.
Build a reputation of being “that person” - the one people can count on and utilize as a resource regardless of whether you close a sale with them. That kind of reputation can never be taken from you and will serve as an incredible career foundation.
STOP & Take Action
Chapter 1:
(1) Make a list of the problems you solve
? ? ? ?
(2) Carefully consider the following question and answer below: Will I really commit to helping others before myself or am I only concerned with short-term success?