I don't even have to justify my suspicion with a google search, I suspect, and borderline at least know, that Sale’s is likely the most hated, and avoided word in business. To which I can understand why. Its very nature is heavy, and icky, it feels like manipulation and somewhere inside our decent gut, we as humans don't like that.
Very few companies were built on a sales strategy, rather many were built on a product or service concept that would “sell itself”. It's the age-old hope of business, build something so good, it sells itself, and I think we all would like to just sit back and let that happen. But then it doesn’t.
Sales is the great inevitability of business. If you are going to exchange a product or service for money, sales are going to have to happen. If you are going to employ a team, sales will have to happen. If you are going to have long-term clients, sales will have to happen. If you are going to get a loan, find a partner, sell your business, buy a new one, sales will have to happen. Sales touches every part of the business, and does so regularly, so why then are we so avoidant?
To understand this, we have to understand the problem we all have with sales. It feels icky. I should put that in quotes and credited the world as the author. Because at some point we have all said or felt it.
To the average person, sales feels confrontational. Humans are hard wired to avoid that discomfort, and that sets the framework for why this all starts to go downhill. The notion of selling looks a lot like being saddled with a responsibility to convince a prospect to buy said item, and the process looks like telling them all the reasons why they should. This is not fun for anyone. Luckily, this is not what sales is, at all.
Selling is the ubiquitous act of persuasion. Persuasion albeit is often lumped in with the manipulation category, and that's ok too. Manipulation for the most part has a bad reputation. Should you manipulate people? No, not maliciously. But if you believe in the outcome being in their favor? Ethically, yes, for not doing so, would mean you are willfully allowing them to move forward negatively. This differentiation seems to be where people draw the line between manipulation, and persuasion. It's truly manipulation vs inspiration. Manipulation is the desire to be the hero in their story, where inspiration is the desire to make them the hero of their own story. We will come back to this later.
The discomfort of sales is mostly linked to having your back against the wall and needing something from someone else. Leaving you with the urge to talk at them, rather than understand and help them. This is the nature of almost all misunderstandings in sales.
I have something, I need them to buy, I know they need it, they are ultimately unaware they need it, I feel it is my job to convince them they need it, and if I do, they will buy it. Sales. Which, to be fair, is sales, yes. However, there is another way, and this way is more common every day.
I have something, they need something, I learn what they need, I commit to solve that need, they get resolution. Sales. Telling isn’t selling, yet to most people that's what they consider to be sales.
Selling is everywhere in everything. In every single conversation a sale occurs. Generally, this is not financial, but it is still transactional in nature, the transaction is in belief. In every conversation one human has a belief, and it is the job of that human to transfer that belief to the other human, sales. This is not as bold as say politics or religion, although it can be. It can be as simple as where you want to go for lunch, or how you feel about the weather, your work, your situation.
Selling is your ability to transfer belief. Which, if you have read other things I have written, selling is the exact same definition as coaching. Coaching is purely the transfer of belief. It is the Coaches job to believe in the solution, and then transfer that belief to the client. Which means, coaching is your ability to influence your client to make better decisions, and actions, and as such create better behavior. A sale has occurred. Great coaches sell.
This is paradigm shattering.
Humans see the world unfortunately mostly for limitations. Why they cannot. Coaches are far more optimistic. We see the world not for limitations, but for opportunities, if we can first understand. Coaches break paradigms, we show people what they are capable of, despite what they believe.
Sales suddenly becomes the actual skill you seek, rather than the one your fervently avoid. The change is purely in how you choose to see it. Do icky sales still occur? Sure, that doesn't mean you will need to do it. The age-old belief of something selling itself, is not that it sits on an ivory tower, and everyone seeks it, it's that its value is so profound, its undeniable when found. Something like say, fitness, or dreams. Those two things are pretty hard to deny how much we value, so why doesn’t everyone buy them? They lost their ability to believe, particularly in themselves.
But as you have likely experienced, telling them all the great parts of fitness, and what you do here, has not likely led to lots of humans taking action. Instead with each great thing you tell them you do here, their doubt seems to grow. They don't hear opportunities; they hear more things they can fail at. Eventually the scale tips in their doubt, and they walk out. The problem was that you were talking at them at all. Selling is listening, not speaking. Influence is understanding, manipulation is assuming.
The first step to correcting your relationship with sales is to see how common it is, it's in every interaction. Therefore, avoiding it is not an option at all. Further, if it's present in every conversation, the skill you are seeking is your ability to persuade. Persuasion is a truly powerful asset, and with that the second step to correcting your relationship is to know that with great power, comes great responsibility. Improving your persuasive skills will afford you the ability to have great power over people, you must understand this, accept this, and never allow this.
That should cover the foundational theory of sales, let's look at how to use it.
In any single class that occurs, there will come an impasse. This impasse happens when the client, despite all cueing and communicating, is not receiving the input, and as such are not correcting the problem. Simply put, the client isn’t doing what you asked. Not because they are being rude, or insubordinate, they simply cannot make the change you are requesting. This is not the client’s problem; this is the coach's problem.
Many coaches have been in the situation where what they are teaching is not being received. This is often quite frustrating. This interaction, and skill they are missing, is sales. This is change from Training to Coaching. A trainer teaching and talks, a coach listen and understands. At some point in every coaches journey they transition from trainer to coach, and this shift occurs when they realize it is their job to influence and persuade the client, not teach. They revert to questioning, and understanding, and abandon speaking and teaching.
Every business will likely have employees at some phase in its lifecycle. This is most often always met with frustration. Find 100% of small business owners, and 99% will list employees as frustration. At some point they all seem to be missing the big picture. They aren’t on board. They are doing the minimums. They are a liability, not an asset. A line-item expense, because they sure aren’t bringing in revenue. The 1% of owners though know this break down is a conversation of sales. It is the owner's job not to tell employees what to do each day. It is the owner's job to show them their future each day. This is a conversation of belief. A great owner is great at creating belief in their team. Belief in the dream, belief in the team, belief in the purpose. If your team is not contributing, you aren't selling them.
Tammy needs you, you know it, I know it, she doesn't seem to know it. Its 3:50pm, the 4:30 class will be here soon, and the dam just broke. 20 mins into this conversation and the well of emotion has sprung forth. She is in pain, emotionally, and it's breaking your heart. Shes 45lb overweight, her Dr. is trying to put her on meds, and perform surgery, and her husband left her last year. She is without a support system. She needs this place. You’re going to save her life. “Tammy” you start in, “Here is what we are going to do” and you lay it all out before her, her entire future, you are proud of this opportunity. But you notice she’s slumping in her chair more than she's getting excited… “I can't afford this” she claims, and with that, she sucks the air out of the room. Dumbfounded, you fumble over words, trying to make sense of this position you are in. She clearly needs this, and now she tells me she can't afford it? This is the situation we all hate.
Where it all went wrong, was when you started talking. Naturally, you needed to get to it, because the next class is coming. However, if you believe in her, and she believes in you, how you are going to solve the problem doesn't matter. All that matters is that you do. Instead, when you started telling her how, she started to doubt. All you had to do was say, let's get to work. Yes, she might have asked how, to which it's not your job to overwhelm her, but to assure her, to transfer your belief.
The problem we all face with selling is that we feel there is an obligation of telling. Selling is simply understanding and solving. The receiver cares of nothing else.
Persuasion is a skill, and it's the one that will save lives. If you lose Tammy, she can lose her life. We have an ethical obligation to help the ones who need it, the skill they need from us most, is our ability to transfer them our belief. This is not possible without persuasion. Coaching is not possible without persuasion.
Stop telling, start selling.
Decided you’re in need of a coach?