8 Sales Tips For Non-Salespeople(from the CEO of a Sales Training Firm)(Excerpted from The Well-Fed Writer: Back For Seconds; Fanove
2004). As I worked with them, an idea bubbled up: to have CEO Tom Stanfill contribute something to this book. After all, Aslan specializes in transforming non-sales people into effective phone marketers. Are your ears burning? Unlearning Bad Habits At the same time, many ideas he was espousing were exactly what I’ve been saying about “sales” for a long time: that it’s not about being slick, pushy or aggressive. It’s not about “closing” hard. It’s about taking the time to understand a client’s needs and exploring whether your product/service meet those needs. It’s really about service, not sales. I asked Tom to offer up some tips for this book, keeping in mind that he was talking, largely, to creative people deathly afraid of “sales.” Here are the gems he served up ... THE TIPS 1) Clients Don’t Want To Be Sold. They want a partner, so adopt the voice of a partner. And what’s a partner? Someone who knows he or she can’t be successful unless the client is successful. 2) Asking For The Order Doesn’t Motivate People To Buy. What motivates people to buy is when they get to that you “get” them - that you understand their world and have shown how your product/service will impact their company in the ways that are important to them. In most cases, the salesperson that wins the deal isn’t the one with the best product or lowest price, but the one who can best articulate the customer’s point of view. 3) “Drop The Rope.” While it’s unlikely that people already fearful of the sales process would actually “lean on” a prospect, it’s still worthwhile to grasp the concept of “Drop the Rope.” Take the analogy of a tug-of-war. If two people are holding a rope and one pulls, the other will pull back. If prospects sense you have your sales hat on, they’ll resist. They’re not rejecting your solution, service, or product; they’re rejecting you. In the course of prospecting, if you get resistance from a prospect, regardless of your approach, “drop the rope” by saying, Mr. Prospect, I’m not even sure my service is a fit for your company, but I’d certainly love the opportunity to learn more about what you do and see if there is some common ground. Speaking of which… 4) Sell the Meeting, Not the Service. Don’t try to sell people writing services. Sell them on getting together – by phone or in person – for a “discovery meeting” and exploring, together, what they do, what you do and whether there’s a fit between the two. In a discovery meeting, you can evaluate the client’s needs and determine how to position your services. Most importantly, you’ve built a relationship that will ensure, at the very least, your recommendation gets heard. 5) Sell the Process, Not the Service. Often sales people rely too much on the client to determine the next steps. Make sure that every interaction with a customer ends with a specific event the customer agrees to (i.e., another meeting, a follow-up call at a set time, etc.). And the agreement is crucial. A planned action is much likely to happen than one left to chance. Just as importantly, you stay in your customer’s field of vision. 6) Stop Trying To Be a Salesperson. Every day, we teach non-salespeople to be effective salespeople, not aggressive, pushy closers. Those attributes are self-centered, and self-centered doesn’t sell. Motive is ultimately transparent. If your motive is to truly do what’s in the best interest of the customer, the customer will sense it and pursue a potential partnership. If it’s to sell the customer something, regardless of need, the customer will avoid you. You don’t need to be a salesperson; you need to be a passionate, competent copywriter who is unafraid to share your talents – not because you need the money but because they need the help. 7) Calculate The Value Of Your Prospecting Time. Once you’re established, figure out how much you’ve made up to a certain point divided by the number of hours you’ve “prospected” for that business. If you figured out that you put in 100 hours prospecting which netted you $10,000 in work, then your prospecting time was worth $100/hour. You might just get a bit more motivated knowing this. 8) Answer the Question, “Why You?” What’s different
about you? How are you going to differentiate your services
from the competition? Don’t assume the client will figure this
out. There always exist multiple solutions: doing nothing, hiring
a competitor or doing it themselves. Once you have determined your
unique offering, make sure the client “gets” that difference,
either by just telling them (or validating it through success stories),
or, better yet, ensuring the customer experiences the difference
through your actions – reliability, professionalism, creativity,
etc. Get this FREE introduction to earning 6 figures as a freelance copywriter when you sign up for the Freelance Writing Success Newsletter.
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