The Four Principles of Selling Services

The notion of sales is regarded by some as more offensive than the saltiest of words. Too often, people believe that sales is something you do to someone rather than a constructive exchange of ideas with someone, ripe with opportunity for both parties. I started my first company at 19, a successful digital marketing agency based outside of Boston, MA, USA. I spent nearly 20 years selling marketing services, and the success of the sales efforts boils down to the four principles I'm going to share with you. I had no formal sales training until much later in my career, and the principles I began with were only reinforced as the years went on. 

The Principles

A great deal changed over the years to the marketing industry and technology, but the sales truths were always intact, and to this day have remained evergreen. The bedrock truth under all of my experience and success is this: a successful sales experience is one where the seller is helping the buyer to buy something the buyer wants. To do that, a seller needs to embody four key principles:

1. Solve the problem.

People don’t know how to buy what you sell. They only know they have a problem, and they want it solved. I was selling marketing services, and it didn’t matter that I could build a really great web site, market them on Google, or help them get in the paper. What mattered is whether or not I could help them to generate more income, which is the core purpose of marketing in the first place. People don’t buy services, they buy solutions. What mattered was truly understanding my prospective client’s real problem, and working to solve that. Which leads me to…

2. Listen and ask LOTS of questions.

You can’t possibly solve the problem your prospective client is experiencing if you don’t understand it. You have to listen, and listen well. If you’re doing more than 30% of the talking in your sales meetings, you’re doing it wrong. People do not buy “features and benefits,” so you can go ahead and put your flip chart away – people buy solutions to their problems. Listen. Ask lots of questions and seek to completely understand the full breadth and depth of the problem. Which means you need to...

3. Simplify the solution.

If you’re listening to your prospective client carefully, your mind is probably turning and jumping up and down with how many different ways you can solve the problem, and how many services you can sell to them. Take a breath and stop. Your job is to identify and clarify the real problem for them to see it clearly, and for you to understand it fully.

Then, your job is to solve the problem using the simplest solution that they can understand from their worldview. The fact is, people don’t know how to buy what you sell, and it’s not their job to understand it. What you do might seem obvious to you, but it's not typical that it's obvious to your prospect. It’s your job to make it easy for your buyer to solve their problem. I’m sure you’re talented at 47 things. Narrow your presented scope of services to bite-sized manageable pieces that they can understand from their limited understanding of your world. It’s also important to…

4. Create a framework to attract your best clients that will stay.

If you sell to make sales and hit numbers, you’re going to churn and burn, which is exhausting and not sustainable.  However, if you sell for personality fit first, skill-to-need matching second, and last, the budget that works for both you and them, you will find your dream clients that appreciate you for you, respect your boundaries and your pricing, and enjoy working with you because you did the work to create a sustainable relationship up front.

Putting The Principles Into Action

In 2018, I retired from Vision Advertising, and it's still marching on powerfully today without me needing to drive it forward. I'm free to sit on the beach, or pursue an entirely different career now, one where I work with executives and entrepreneurs on their businesses and dream life designs. I'm proud of what I built, and that it has only gotten better with time. The fact is, using these sales principles is largely responsible for my ability to retire young in the first place. Building a solid book of business from a place of problem solving, learning, simplification, and mutual fit is a critical aspect of building a service company that will endure. The net impact is that clients feel helped, understood, supported, and they enjoy the relationship because the relationship was started off on the right foot from day 1.

However you're selling now, remember that you can pivot and change. It will make you richer long-term to do the work within yourself now to become the living, breathing embodiment of these principles. Adoption of these principles may require that you abandon old habits in favor of creating new ones, and operate from an entirely different mindset that focuses on long-term wealth building.

If you're ready to make this change (and I hope you are!), start with these two powerful questions:

1. What is my current sales process, and what's not working about it?

The more you can dig into what you're doing and what's working and not, the more you can learn about your weak spots. Ignorance is not bliss, and will only hurt you. I would suggest having a hearty discussion with a coach or a mentor, journaling, or working with a sales trainer to help you unpack your current process to find the holes.

This is objective work that is based in facts. You can pull data from sales reports if you have them, conduct surveys, or do informal studies of your own efforts.

2. What are my current beliefs around sales now?

It's much easier to change something if you know where you're starting from, and most importantly, why you're there at all. If you believe things like: "sales is hard," "I have to work hard to sell everything," "people don't want to hear from me," "I hate doing this to people," or "I have to convince them," you've got some work to do.

First, identify these thoughts. Second, dig deep and ask yourself why you believe those things. Finally, and this is the most important, list out potential opposites for every item (like, "sales is easy," "I love helping people buy," and "I get to help people"), and ask yourself what stands in the way of you adopting that new, more powerful belief. Do you need to make a vision board to remind yourself? Daily affirmations? Work with a coach? Go to therapy to sort out a low self image? Identify your internal obstacle and work to overcome it so you can adopt the new thoughts.

This is subjective work based on your thoughts and feelings. You're not a robot, and when you take stock of the human actually doing the work (you!), you can marry it with the objective data for a complete picture of the pathway forward and into your new, powerful sales habits.

You've got this!

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About Laura DiBenedetto

Laura DiBenedetto is a business and lifestyle coach for executives and entrepreneurs. She is the author of the book, The Six Habits, and is the retired CEO and owner of Vision Advertising. She is passionate about helping people to create lives of joy and abundance. Laura is a powerful and transformative educator and is available for speaking opportunities. She resides outside of Boston, MA, USA, with her husband and dog, and travels frequently both domestically and internationally.