The Best Sales Call I Ever Had Took Less than 2 Minutes
Every entrepreneur has to learn to sell, and it’s a lot easier than you think.
When I was a young entrepreneur first learning to build startups, an early mentor gave me a piece of advice about sales that seemed ridiculous at the time. Then I actually tried it and was amazed by how well it worked.
I still remember our conversation. We were sitting in a coffee shop in Philadelphia and I was complaining about a potential customer I’d spent hours trying to close. The prospect backed out of the deal at the last minute because it “wasn’t what they really needed.”
“No matter what I said, I couldn’t convince her to change her mind,” I complained. “I can’t believe she wasted all that time only to decide she didn’t actually need it. Why didn’t she figure that out in the beginning?”
“That’s not her job,” my mentor reminded me. “It’s your job.”
“How am I supposed to figure out what she needs?” I asked, skeptically. “It’s not like I’m inside her head!”
“That’s true,” he said. “You aren’t inside her head. But if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to figure out how to get inside the minds of your potential customers.”
