Sometimes Selling Is Like Being A Parent
Once, long ago, in a galaxy far away, someone said that once you’re a salesperson, you’ll always be a salesperson.
It’s kinda like being a parent. Once you have a little soul to watch over, you’ll never be able to think of yourself first again.
Even when those little souls turn 21, you still see a 2 year-old.
Customers are like 2 year-olds … on occasion, so sometimes you have to treat them as such.
I’m now going to reveal a “secret” sales technique that nobody has ever written about before … or at least not on this blog 
The Secret To Treating Customers Like 2 Year-olds
First off, we as salespeople, always think we know exactly what the customer needs and exactly what to say to them to “persuade” or “convince” them of their need for our product or service.
We’re not always right about either of those truths.
Like 2 year-olds, customers like to ask “Why?”.
“Why is your product better than the one I’ve been buying, at a better price, for 13 months?”
“Why should I drop my current supplier, whose kids go to camp with my kids, just to save 1/2 of 1%?”
“Why do I care that your conductor surges 3 times as often as the one we’re using, which causes us no problems?”
No matter how brilliantly you answer those questions, or any others they might ask, you’ll never convince them of a truth they don’t want to believe, no matter how many facts or figures you may have.
So how do you get them to drink your kool-aid?
Just ask them the same question they ask you.
Why?
How’s that work? Kinda like this:
When you’re just short of the big finish, you’ve unloaded all of your big guns and you’re waiting for some type of movement, anything, from the customer and all you get is …
“Why?”
I turn it right back at them and ask …
“Why do you think?”
If you’ve done all your due diligence and you’ve found their points of pain and proven that you have a solution that will save them money, time, personnel or whatever it was that makes them tick, then you’ll hear the answer that you should have given if you’d answered the question.
If they don’t give that answer, stop, go back to the place that you lost them or they lost you and try to do a better job this time. Because if you force them to answer right now, you hear a resounding NO.
Any questions?
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