All That Matters Is The Sales Experience

Not the one that you think it should be. Not your ideal demo, presentation, scripting. Not how you were taught to sell.

Not what you assume people want (concepts like ‘people like to be sold to’ is wrong and outdated). But what the potential customer wants and needs. What they are expecting. What they will and won’t tolerate.

What is it that will signal to them they are speaking with a professional Guide that is focused on helping them get to a better place and not just make the sale?

Sales is really a matter of humility

Humility is defined as a modest or low view of one's own importance; humbleness. Not that I don’t want you to think you are important to the world and to yourself.

I don’t even want you to not think you are important to your prospective customers. But you need to stop thinking you are the hero that will help save their day, life, business.

They don’t care about you. They are a self-centered human, like all of us. They are only thinking about themselves. And, as a customer, they will generally assume that it’s all about them. They are the one with the money.

Your job has nothing to do will selling them anything. Your role as a sales professional in this era of sales and business is to provide them the experience they are in need of.

What They Care About

While there is no ‘ideal’ sales experience, here are a few things to keep in mind.

First, they don’t care about you, your business, or even your product. They only care about themselves. They don’t want to hear your testimonials, your product claims, your features and benefits, or your client logos. They want it to be all about them – at first.

Remember this cliché statement (cliches are generally true): people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Until you show them you actually care about them and their current situation versus their preferred future state, they won’t trust you or listen to you fully.

Show Them You Care

Second, show them you care about them first. The ideal sales experience is built around the customer’s experience. It’s centered around them – the self-centered human. Make them the focus, especially in the beginning phases of your conversation(s). Rapport building that is based on a genuine interest in them combined with empathy-based discovery will show that you care about them.

By the way, it will go a long way if you actually do care about people. That might seem like something I would assume to be true about salespeople, but it’s lacking from a lot of salespeople I observe or interact with. Yes, they might care about me enough not to try and offend or assault me. But caring about me is not at the top of their list. Making the sale, saying the right things, thinking about/worrying about what objections I might raise that could kill the deal, will they make enough money this month, plus whatever else is going on in their life that they weren’t able to leave at the door are all potentially above me in that moment.

I can definitely relate and understand, but in this time period of sales and customer expectations, if they don’t feel like you care about them and are making them the focus of the conversation, they will move on.

Find Out What They Want

Third, find out what they want and why, and then offer that to them as the solution (if you have what it is they could benefit from most). Stop assuming that buyer’s are liars and it doesn’t matter what they want, I am so good I will sell my product to anyone. Those mindsets/attitudes no longer work as scale. Yes – you could fool some of the people, some of the time. But you will run out of people to fool, or the ones that you do fool and are upset by the experience will destroy your online reputation.

Conclusion

Remember: All that matters is the Sales Experience.

When you build your sales process and shift your mindset to that truth, then your potential customers will feel cared about, which will build trust, which will lead to sales.

By the way, getting objections (not questions or concerns) from your prospects is not a requirement in sales. It is not something you should experience often. Constant, frequent experiences with objections means you are doing something wrong in your sales process, your approach, your tone, your body language, your energy. Something is off. Stop thinking that “objections are a part of sales.”