This is a post by Marcus Harris of Mount Solaris a site dedicated to sales, masculinity, and deeper mysteries of the world. In this article Marcus talks about the process of selling anything on earth in 5 easy steps and while selling is something that well all need to learn and that we all use in our daily lives. Enjoy.
Big time sales gurus all say the same thing:
“WE PROMISE RESULTS AFTER YOU PAY US $5000!”
While you will learn a lot from a course that costs 5 g’s, its likely out of reach to the average salesman.
That’s where I come in.
Every way you can possibly sell a product, I’ve sold it and so I have knowledge and skills 95% of the other “gurus” do not have. This knowledge is the kind of stuff the big guys charge money for.
Here’s the breakdown of what I’m covering:
- Introduction
- Short Story
- Qualification
- Presentation
- Close
Every sales pitch includes all five. The point is to get you competent enough to sell, I’m telling you what to do and why.
“I don’t do direct sales, how does this apply to me?”
Everyone does sales, knowingly or not. If you go on dates, interviews, auditions, or if you are in show business, music, or even construction; you are always selling yourself.
Sales is the fundamental skill of business ownership, every salesman is his own company and your job is to turn a profit. While I am targeting door to door sales in this article what I’m outlining will help you sell anything, anywhere, to anyone.
Okay, lets start with the Intro
Anatomy of an Introduction
A good introduction is usually:
“Happy Monday! Real quick my name is __________ with _________ the authorized dealer for ______ Corporation….”
That’s it.
Simple huh?
There’s a hell of a lot that goes into this simplicity. First, you will usually start out with an icebreaker. An icebreaker is anything you can use to take the focus off of you.
This is a very very important point: the point of the intro is to take the focus off of you and put it on the customer, so you can start to qualify them for your offer.
Talk to them a little bit, make them laugh and smile and then go into your short story.
There are a few things you need to be aware of to maximize the first impression people get of you.
Your Look
The first thing people see is what you wear and how you look. First impressions are last impressions. You literally have 10 seconds to make that impression, so make it count!
Don’t be a fat body, your clothes should look good and have a nice fit. Dress for the occasion and always look sharp. If you wear leather shoes then shine them everyday. if you wear a suit, steam it, and color coordinate. This seems like some banal stuff when it comes to sales but I’d rather take a sharp looking beginner over a sloppy looking “expert”.
The reason guys do not make money in sales is because they do not give themselves every chance to succeed. Everything that is in your power to control, you have to maximize those things.
Improving your look is the easiest way to improve your results in the field.
Energy
First, be in shape, seriously; not just for health benefits but people feed off your energy. High energy means high output at anything you do. Every result is multiplied by a factor of 10 when you have vast stores of energy.
The high energy sales person is going succeed, the low energy sales person is going to fail.
Energy also comes across in your vocal tone, learn how to speak from the belly and record yourself often. Use punctuation, get that inflection in your voice and avoid sounding monotone!
Body Language
Okay, you are high energy and you look sharp, you are now ahead of 50% of all sales people. Now its time to murder the rest of the field.
Body language comes before you say any words. In fact, only 3% of communication takes place in the words you say, the vast majority of communication is via body language and vocal tone. This is why you can say all the right things and fail miserably: it’s because your body language sucks.
A good rule of thumb is to mirror the person you are talking to, just copy them like you are a mirror. If they have a hand on their right hip, you have a hand on your left; if they lean to the left, you lean to the right.
Another thing is to make sure to use facial expressions, move eyebrows, widen eyes, gesticulate a little, move your arms around. Inject that energy we talked about into your conversation.
That does it for the intro…
“Wait a minute, you didn’t tell me about the words to say!”
The words in the introduction, do not matter. All you are saying is who you are and who you are affiliated with. The intro is so simple that it doesn’t make sense to explain it any further.
The words you say count for 3% of your entire conversation; the other 97% are all the things I mentioned here. If you do the 97% and just 1% for the words, you’ll do good, if you do 97% and the 3% for the words, you will be one of the top reps for any given sales campaign.
Short Story
The short story is the simplest and easiest part of the whole sales pitch. Here’s an example of a good short story.
“We are the authorized dealer for X Corporation and we just lowered our rates…”
“Your account is on a default rate, which is a higher rate…”
“We have a summer sale for today only…”
You see the pattern right?
At the heart of your short story is a Value Proposition. You see, when you walk up to someone and tell them who you are they start making value judgements on what value you could possibly offer them. As long as your intro was solid, your short story is going to be solid. This is literally the fulcrum of the entire conversation, and so you MUST get this right!
Have a solid short story and do not deviate from it. That short story is the entire reason you are there, so make it count!
Qualification (QTQP)
The most important currency you have as a salesman is not money, its time.
You only have so many hours of door to door daylight before you have to go home or else the police get called on you. Every minute you spend trying to sell the wrong people is a minute you lost money that cannot be recovered. This is the exact reason why sales people and businesses fail, they do not understand the value of time.
We don’t want our time wasted on schlep rocks that won’t buy shit!
Here’s a phrase to remember:
Quality Time with Qualified People
You will ask questions and qualify people for your offer, and make sure its the right fit for them.
Lets say you are selling a Rolex Oyster. You look to see what kind of watch they are wearing already and ask them questions about it. Someone that fancies wearing a Rolex wouldn’t wear a cheap Timex from the dollar store.
Once you have an idea of what they have already, then you start asking questions to figure out the pain they have with the current product they have. If you sell phone service: “Do you have unlimited data?”, if you sell watches: “Have you ever had a solar powered watch?”
The questions vary depending on what you sell. You have to be the detective and uncover clues that lead to their wallet. Sometimes they will tell you their pain right away other times you’ll uncover a pain they didn’t know they had.
Once you find out what pain they have and if they qualify for your offer you can move on to the….
Presentation
Some sales campaigns make this part real easy and others are very difficult. It all depends on how complicated your product is. Either way, make your presentation air-tight.
The presentation is you showing what kind of impact your product is going to have on your customer. Some campaigns have you do a Side by Side Comparison and others you will simply put the product in the customers hands. Show the customer the value in your offer, do it right and closing will be easy.
For a lot of campaigns it takes 30-45 minutes to get to this point and the last thing you want to do is screw away all your work for nothing. Make the presentation believable and show excitement in what you have to offer. People feed off of your energy and if you can get them excited about your offer than you will have an easy time getting them to sign up.
Closing Statement
“Visa of Master?”
“Is this something you see yourself driving?”
“What color would you like your phone?”
Most people do not know this but closing is the easiest part of the whole sale. I’ve already established the value of my product and all I’m doing is telling the customer to spend money.
ASK FOR THE SALE!!!
Closed mouths don’t get fed boys. If you want to make any money at all, then ask for the god damn sale!
Conclusion
There is just enough information here to get you selling but not enough to be overwhelming.
Sales (just like dating) is a numbers game. If you do everything I mentioned here and follow what your particular sales / marketing campaign requires, eventually you are going to succeed; its a statistical inevitability.
There are many many methods to selling products and I outline them on my blog in 33 Ways to Be A Sales God.
So Project an aura of power and authority and….
GET THEM TO SIGN ON THE LINE THAT IS DOTTED!!!
Take their money
…..or I will.
With Heart,
Marcus “The Wolf” Harris
