Sell Anything or Persuade Anyone (literally… anything and anyone)
It’s easier when you understand the principles.
Selling is not merely about exchanging your product or service for money. It's a skill that can do you a lot of good not just in your business, but also in your relationships, personal life, your parenting and much more — it also helps build your persistence, perseverance, discipline, punctuality, confidence, determination, persuasion, and negotiation skills which can assist in every way in many real-world scenarios.
Whether you realize it or not, you’re always selling; Have you ever been in a conversation where you had a belief or opinion that differed from someone else’s? Have you ever had to convince your child to pick up their toys or convince your partner to take out the garbage? Have you ever had to convince a company to hire or promote you?
This is why selling is a skill and an art that’s worth mastering — selling your peers on your ideas, selling your partner on why he/she should marry you, selling that interviewer on why he should hire you, selling that car of yours that you no longer need, selling your mom and dad on why you want to marry that “lowlife bastard” — selling can help make your life easier.
Now that you understand why learning to sell is so crucial, there are some principles you need to know which are really simple yet underrated because of all the other “tips and tricks” that dont really help you in the long-term when it comes to selling people on your ideas or your products.
Learn to Influence
People hate being sold to, they hate being told what’s good for them especially when it comes from a salesman. You can’t force an individual into buying your product, agreeing with your views, or doing as you want them to.
Hence the solution here is influence; some of the greatest leaders and entrepreneurs including salespeople today know the significance of this concept and they've been leveraging it to their convenience.
There are many ways you can influence an individual when you're trying to sell them something but one of the best ways to go about achieving the desired outcome is to win your prospect’s heart. As cliche as it may sound, this really works because once you capture a heart, it becomes nearly impossible for your prospect to process things thoroughly through logic and it also becomes impracticable to convince them otherwise.
If you are able to touch someone at their heart, you will have a customer and a follower for the rest of your life.
How do you earn it?
The bad news is that this is difficult to earn. You earn it over time, and with great effort:
- By showing that you sincerely care for them.
- By showing that you add value without any ulterior motives.
- By showing that you see them not as a tool, but as a friend.
- By showing that you value them and you see their value more than they see themselves.
- By showing that you can give them what you have without expecting anything in return (as crazy as it may sound — especially in sales or business.)
- By showing that you genuinely want the best for them, not out of them.
- By making them feel that you see them not just as statistics but as a friend, or a valuable partner.
People like to feel that they are in control, at the same time they also want to be led — as humans naturally hate uncertainty — and when one shows up who can prove that he can lead effectively without making the prospect realize they are being influenced or that they are being sold something to, he is sure to win the game through influence.
Once you have influence over your prospect and they trust you, they won’t “consider other alternatives” or “need time to think it through”.
Sell The Sizzle, Not The Steak
According to Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman, most of the consumer decisions are directed linked to the subconscious mind. In Zaltman’s book, “How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market,” the professor reveals many exciting ideas and insights about consumer behavior that can be helpful to salespeople:
Contrary to popular belief, consumers aren’t as savvy as they might like to believe. For example, while many consumers report comparing multiple competing brands and price points when evaluating a purchasing decision, Zaltman’s research indicates that this is not actually the case.
Also, by studying consumer’s unconscious physical reactions, Zaltman found that what they really think or feel often contradicts what they say.
Research by the Nielsen Company shows that roughly 90% of purchasing decisions are made subconsciously, not analytically.
Why aren’t consumers truthful about their purchasing thoughts and feelings? Well, a big reason is that they are driven by unconscious urges, the biggest of which is emotion. Emotion is what really drives the purchasing behaviors, and also, decision making in general.
Research by neuroscientists shows that people whose brains are damaged in the area that generates emotions are incapable of making decisions. This idea is of great importance because it helps us realize that human beings are not as logical as we might imagine. And understanding this has significant implications for marketing, sales, and branding.
What Does This Mean For You?
As you know humans are emotional beings and it makes sense to go for their hearts instead of their heads by triggering their emotions.
People rarely buy features.
People sometimes buy benefits.
People always buy emotions.
What kind of car do you own? What kind of purse do you carry? What is your favorite brand of clothing? Why?
While product quality and seller reputation matter, the reason we make a purchase goes far beyond the fundamentals. All humans have an intense need for feeling significant and important, feeling like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves — people don’t buy things, even if those things have countless features, they don’t buy into an idea just because the idea makes sense.
Individuals buy products that make them feel significant, they buy into opinions and conclusions that hit home and sound familiar to their own beliefs, they’ll do anything you tell them to if you can make them believe that what they're doing is a part of a bigger plan and that their participation is important, that they are important.
Build Intimate Rapport
Building rapport is one of the most powerful ways to influence someone's decisions or directing them to achieve your desired outcome. Rapport is key to building strong connections and is often the reason why people choose to say ‘yes’ to what you’re proposing (it may even be that guy or girl who you love), recommend you to others, and choose to work with you rather than your competitors.
Whether you’re trying to move others to buy your products, accept your ideas or invest in your company — without rapport, you just come across as another one of those used car salesmen who are extremely pushy, annoying, manipulative, dishonest and will do anything just to get something out of you.
Building rapport doesn’t mean that you have to like or agree with another person’s take on a situation or a topic. All it means is that you’re prepared to demonstrate empathy, by understanding where they are coming from. Empathy is the ability to sense, understand, and respond to what other people are feeling. In practice, this means that you have to stop and listen to their point of view and respond accordingly to clarify the meaning with such phrases as:
So, what you are saying is…
As I understand it, you…
Let me see if I understand you…
After this, you then either paraphrase or repeat their words to show your understanding.
Whether it’s having to break bad news to an employee, preparing to have a difficult conversation with your partner, or negotiating a salary increase, the rapport we already have or can establish with the person concerned can make all the difference to the outcome.
Taking others’ perspectives is absolutely essential to moving people. By doing so, you become better at picking up on their “signals” and figuring out what they want from a transaction or the interaction. People think of that as an emotional process, as requiring empathy. Researchers at INSEAD find that people who focus on what others think are much better negotiators than those who think about what they feel.
Focusing on thoughts means you’re better able to focus on their context and get to a solution that’s in both parties’ interests.
And remember that it’s not only about saying you understand the other person’s model of the world, you demonstrate it.
Conclusion
Most things are very simple yet we strive to make them complicated ourselves. Sales and persuasion just happen to be one of those things. As I mentioned before, there are many “tips and tricks” that promise to make you a better salesperson, but really, when you look at them they are nothing but just short-term “tactics” that won't get you very far.
The fundamental principles of sales and persuasion may evolve over time, but they’ll always remain the same:
- Influencing people instead of forcing them.
- Capturing your prospects’ hearts by selling them emotions and making them part of a greater story — instead of telling them to buy plastic and paper from you that has many features.
3. Building trust by empathizing and understanding.
Happy selling.
