Heart of a Lion: The Hard Sell, Soft Sell, and Successfully being Pushy!
“Are we going to get this beautiful thing wrapped up for your girlfriend or what?!” Said Brenda just before I started working as a Manager in Training for a Jewellery company I owe a tremendous amount of my personal success to! It was definitely one of the best and worst Management experiences in my life! The best because I learned a tremendous amount, the worst because I constantly failed, I don’t like failing, no one does, but I learned — and as a result won!
I don’t know what struck me about the question from Brenda, but I bought the damn necklace, and you know what happened to it?! It sat in my now ex-girlfriends Jewellery box for 2 and half years.
I wasn’t sure, but I knew she was going to be happy to receive it, and a little urgency on behalf of the Sales Professional was ALL that I needed to make the decision, and even temporarily give a beautiful gift to someone I cared very deeply about!
Was it rude? Probably, who knows, BUT IT DEFINITELY WORKED! And that wonderful little lady I fondly came to call “my ninja granny” the lady who commonly referred to herself “as older than Jesus, but better than sliced bread” was one of the top performing Sales Professionals in the company because of techniques like that!
There are literally THOUSANDS of techniques in the world of closing a sale, some hard, some soft, and some downright pushy, and guess what, many of them work!
Hard Selling:
There is a definite yet subtle difference between Hard selling and Pushy Selling. Hard selling has a mantra; “Timid Salespeople have skinny children”, it holds true to form during a hard sell situation! Sometimes customers need a little push, a little “umph” to get them across the line — but the push has to make sense, it has to carry logic. The logic is what makes it a hard sell!
Usually a Hard Sell comes into play when there are objections about payments, pricing, product issues, differences in your product vs. your competitors, affordability, economic situations, or your customers trust in you and the company you are working for!
There are HUNDREDS of ways to work within the scope of the hard sell, and all of them are necessary so long as you TRULY believe that what you are selling is the BEST possible solution for you clients!
I’m a hard sell Sales Manager, I’ve been all over the map with my selling style and something that I’ve come to realise is that if you don’t have the guts to charge through objections, handle rejection, and face the reality that selling requires a bit of a hard sell mentality, then you’re going to have a very long career of mediocrity!
An example of a hard sell situation looks something like this:
Customer: “$5000, that’s just too much money!”
Matthew: “I understand! It can be a little more than we want to spend at times on something of this particular (value building phrase). Can I ask, what would you want to spend on it?”
Customer: “I was thinking right around $3500…”
Matthew: “So we’re talking about a difference of $1500 then. Can I ask, how long do you think you might use something this for?”
Customer: “I don’t know, 10 years…”
Matthew: “So about $150 per year, and if you don’t mind me asking again, do you think you might use it every month?”
Customer: “Yea!”
Matthew: “Ok, so then we’re looking at $12.50 a month! Would you use it say, 20 days out of the month?”
Customer: “I could say that…” the customer says sheepishly…
Matthew: “So we’re talking about something as small as $0.65 per day, that helps you with, benefit, benefit, benefit and prevents benefit, benefit, benefit! Let’s not let $0.65 cents get in the way of that! Did you want to do it on credit so you don’t have to worry about it for a month?”
This is one example of literally HUNDREDS of ways to hard sell a deal into closing. It takes guts, it takes really knowing your selling process, it takes drive, and it takes hunger!
But it makes sense, it justifies the logic of the sale, the reason for the money, and most importantly, it doesn’t allow you to give anything away on the front end of the sale!
Pushy Selling:
Pushy selling is a little bit different from the hard sell, it requires just as much guts as hard selling does! Sometimes, it needs to be used, but only for particular situations and certain customers! It does come across as a little rude, and honestly, there aren’t a lot of people who like it!
Like the story I opened up with it reminds me of a sale that a friend had once made, I was shocked, but surprisingly, it worked like a charm!
Customer: “You know, I’m really going to need to think about this…” He said arrogantly and boldly, as he was beginning to walk away!
Salespro: “Hey man, you said you’ve been in sales for a number of years now, can I ask you something?”
Customer: “Shoot!”
Salespro: “Doesn’t it just burn your ass when a customer tells you “They want to think about it” after you’ve spent an hour or two with them?”
Customer: “Hahahahaha, yea it definitely does!”
Salespro: “So let me ask you something then, what the hell is the actual concern here, is it the price? The product? Or the way we hustle our product?”
Customer: “I like your boldness! It’s the price…”
Salespro: “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place! How is it I’m going to earn your Business today, where do we need to be?”
And you know what happened, the deal was done. Was it EXTREMELY pushy, abso-freakin-lutely, was it well timed for the customer, the situation, and the circumstance at that very moment. It was INCREDIBLY well timed!
You see, not every customer is going to respond to the cutesy spin selling techniques, or some other chopped up, mass produced Sales Process, that is “guaranteed to work” so long as you keep buying their Sales Training Products!
Sometimes a customer just needs a little OOMPH! a little push over the edge, I’m going to say something not a lot of other Sales Trainers say and tell you something revolutionary to your career…
IT’S OK!!!!! YOU’RE ALLOWED TO BE AGGRESSIVE! YOU’RE ALLOWED TO PUSH! FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR INCOME, YOUR FAMILY, AND YOUR WELFARE, DON’T BE AFRAID TO PUSH!!!!
Feel better? Great. But again, take the time to really build rapport, feel your customer out, get to know who they are, demonstrate in the best fashion you possibly can and then close like a wild animal!
Keep in mind that finding the balance, and not using techniques like this too often are also very important, it’s a one-off sort of situation that requires a tremendous amount of skill and finesse… the reason for that, if you use these techniques too many times, the market begins to know you for that, and as a result, the market runs away from what you’re offering!
Pushy selling falls within the walls of those cheesy freakin lines like; “Well, who wears the pants in your household anyways?” and “What do you mean “you’re just looking?!” Christopher Columbus was just looking and look what he found!”
Stuff like this makes people puke, it’s poorly timed, overused, and generally trash to the world of Sales Professionals. It gives everyone a bad name when it’s overused!
So tread carefully… young Padawan…
Soft Selling:
Soft selling is the subtle art of the Master Closer. The real players in the game who have walked all spectrums of the Sales world, and know what to say, and when to say it.
Soft selling is often linked to Glengarry-Glenross’s famous line “Always be closing.” It truly is the art of “Always Closing”. It’s happening so subtly, and so under the table that no one actually knows that it’s happening!
It’s the art of questioning and something we should all be striving for in our Sales Process! It’s subtly coming up with a clever phone call that actively engages the consumer in a sales conversation, it’s the email that, after a good amount of research, gets reply, it’s the question at the end of an incredible demonstration that has the customer saying “Yes” before you even have to ask for the order.
The Sales Process is a complex animal, and it’s ultimately up to the true “Soft Sell” professional to walk a closing conversation through each and every step, start to finish!
My favourite single place a soft sell takes place is at the end of a GREAT demonstration:
Sales Pro (MLM): “Can I ask you something? Can you see how this company could have a tremendous impact on your families overall welfare?”
Customer: “Yea! I loved that!”
Sales Pro: “Awesome! Let’s get you set up so you can start your journey!”
Customer: “Ok! How?”
The question “Can you see how this company could have a tremendous impact on your families overall welfare?” is such a soft question that helps the Sales Professional really know where the customer is in the selling process!
There are hundreds of examples that I could go through, but this one is an absolute killer to pulse checking your customer and their intentions! And, if done right, it helps customers feel good about ownership!
Think about where you could enter soft-sell questions into your Sales Process! They’re a tremendous asset to your overall success and, once mastered, will skyrocket your income!
The mindset of a Closer:
The last point of the closing conversation is the closer’s mindset! The closing mindset begins with a unadulterated belief that what you are doing, what you are selling, the services that you are offering for your customers is the best decision they could make. It’s the belief that if they go ANYWHERE else to buy from ANY OTHER Sales Professional, that the customer is going to get robbed blind on some level!
You have to be convicted in what it is you are doing, without this kind of conviction, you are conning your customer out of some experience they could get from somewhere or someone else!
If you don’t believe that what you are selling is in the best interest of your customer, then you either need to find a way to make it that, or leave the Business you are working for.
I’ve made the mistake of working for these kinds of organisations, and I personally, didn’t last very long in them! I felt better for leaving, and the organisation was a lot better off without me because I wasn’t presenting the product they were selling to the fullest potential that I could have!
Take the time to really give yourself an audit, are you living up to the expectation of a “Master Closer” and the mindset that is required of that, or are you costing your customers an experience they could have with you, for any other reason, during any other circumstance!
Be committed. Be convicted. Be successful!
Be great!
Matthew Gourley is the CEO and Founder of Salestraininc.com — A company that specialize in making you money, growing your Business, and helping you achieve the freedom you deserve!
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