Sales

Vitally Important, Rarely Taught Series

“I have always said that everyone is in sales. Maybe you don't hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you, my friend, are in sales.” -

Zig Zigler

We all should go out and learn sales. It’s an important life skills and it teaches us many things about us and others.

Today, I want to talk about a big idea, that – “Everything is sales”. When we try to convince someone to do something, we are selling. When we are pitching our ideas to someone, we are doing sales. When we are asking people to take some action, we are selling. Unfortunately, no one taught us the basics of sales. In this article, I am going to break it down into easy to understand components that will help you get better in the art of influencing people.

Let me start with the true story of the greatest salesman in the world – Joe Girard. Guinness Book of Records recognized him as the “World’s Greatest Salesman” a staggering 12 consecutive times.

Joe sold 13,001 new cars and trucks at his dealership in Michigan, USA between 1963 and 1978. That is an average of 2 ½ cars per day [counting the weekends and holidays]. And he only sold one car at a time at retail prices to working class people: no bulk deals. “Face to face, belly to belly” as he called it. And he achieved this remarkable feat through good and bad times.

How did Joe do this? – Joe was a master in the art of building relationships. He talks about his sales process in his book 'How to Sell Anything to Anybody.'

In a nutshell, Joe cared about each and every customer - before, during and after they bought a car from him. He genuinely wanted to help them find the best car at the best price. He maintained regular contact with each of his prospects, reaching out individually at least once a month until he successfully sold them a car. And after that, he would continue doing it indefinitely – Creating a lifelong relationship. The idea may sound simple but it is difficult to execute if you don’t love your customers.

There are, of course, nuances that contributed to his success. However, the core of his phenomenal achievement lies in this disciplined approach of planting a lot of seeds, truly understanding his customers, and consistently maintaining communication with them over an extended period.

We may not be in the business of selling cars but the biggest takeaway from the above story is about building relationships. Sales is about people. It’s about building trust.

Bob Burg said, “People buy from people that they know, like, and trust”.

If there was only one thing I had to tell you about sales then that would be - “Build lifelong relationships”. You don’t need any training for that. Just be nice! Help people. Solve their problems. Genuinely care about them. Trust people. As Seth Godin says:

Everyone wants to be trusted, but we hesitate to trust.

The next important thing about sales is - Be Curious about others. Ask questions to understand them. Humans crave to be understood.

We have famously seen videos of “Sell me this pen”, in which a candidate for a sales position is being tested for his sales skills. I had written about it here.

“If a rookie salesman is asked to sell a pen then most likely he will be aggressive, forceful, and desperate. He will jump on to explaining all the great features of the pen”

Seth Godin says, “Selling isn’t the activity … it’s the side-effect of everything else. Selling is about a transference of emotion, not a presentation of facts. We translate emotion into action.”

“A seasoned one will first check if the customer is in the market for a pen. If the answer is negative then the salesperson will not waste his time on this person. You cannot sell something to someone when he/she doesn't need it /want it. 

If the customer is indeed in the market for a pen then a good salesperson will ask a series of questions to understand the exact needs and pain points of the customer. The selling process will be easy and smooth after this. I am not saying that the sale will close but I am sure that this is the right sales process.”

That brings us to the third point - Solve customer problems.

Often we fail in this. If we are a salesperson, we are simply pushing our product. And as ordinary Joe’s when we are donning our sales hat, we line up our arguments in support of our solution. What’s really required here is - Empathy. We have to think like an entrepreneur and understand what problem a customer is facing. And then we have to connect the customer to the best solution. At times, it may not be our solution. But that’s ok.

The last point to remember is to Understand your product or service.

Before you can sell anything, you need to know what you're selling inside and out. This means learning about the features and benefits of your product, as well as any potential drawbacks or competitors. Sam Zemurray - The Banana King - was already a billionaire when he decided to ride a mule across Honduras, just because he wanted to understand his product better.

You would have noticed that everything in sales stems from ‘caring for people’ and ‘building trust’. Therefore, sales is a mindset. In summary, there are only three things to remember - listen, understand, and build relationships.

Success in sales requires a strong sense of humanity. Marcus Chan said, “To master selling is serving at the highest possible level.”

Sales can be daunting, but it can also be incredibly rewarding. Learning how to sell effectively can help us understand what makes people tick, why do they do what they do. And like any other skill, it takes practice to get better at sales.

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Footnote: Let’s be honest, we all hate sales people. We think sales is sleazy. Jeffrey Gitomer famously said, “People love to buy but they hate to be sold.” This happens when salesperson sees people as numbers and not as humans. Why should we manipulate people and play with their minds? Why use some tactics to sell something? Why should we use fear as a tool?

Why not develop a mindset to help people!