Selling me softly with his words… The truth about what sales is – and what it’s not

I’ll start with a controversial statement:

Sales is like a romance novel – between you and your potential client.

Now before you scream:

Ick! Stop with tis sappy approach! Sales is about business and generating revenue! – let me explain what I mean.

Imagine you’re “in the market” to find an intimate partner. If it’s been a while, try to remember what it was like when you were looking for that someone special in your life (if ever).

You might have gone out to a bar, a yoga class or a party to find potential partners. Or you looked online to get a first impression of what’s out there and to see if you can find someone who’s style, appearance and attitude resonated with you.

Then you see a person who seemed to be a good match, meeting some of the criteria you are looking for in a potential intimate partner.

What do you do?

Do you go up to this person and say:

“Hey, you seem to be a great fit, let’s get married tomorrow” - ?

Probably not.

You romance him or her, get to know this person and see what they like, dislike, what they are looking for in a relationship, what’s a show-stopper for them, you get a feel for this person, understand his or her story … etc

And it’s the exact same procedure with potential clients.

Sales is about finding a match – not for life in most cases, but for a certain time period of working together.

Looking at sales like a potential “love story” can help shift the perception (and the results) of your sales conversations for the better.

However, what a lot of people perceive as sales is frequently based on past conditioning, experiences and beliefs around sales, which is often not very positive.

When we do a free word association exercise in my seminars where the task is to write down anything that comes to mind when hearing the word “Salesman” … participants often come up with “creepy, selfish, arrogant, out to get me, annoying, a pest…” and the negative list goes on.

Understandably, when we expect a certain outcome (like the above) – we are often likely to get it when the quantum law of resonance hits.

Let’s do a small test to see what kind of perception you are putting out there, when it comes to sales – okay?

Here’s a compiled list of words, circle the ones that you agree with in relation to sales – and see if you have more positive or negative words circled:

In your next sales conversation, why not turn it into a game?

Look at your future clients from a “romance” perspective, just as if you were meeting someone you liked at a bar. And notice how you can be much more casual about it, take off the pressure and just go with the flow:

See if it’s a match – or not.

If it is – great! If it’s not, no worries: there are plenty of prospects out there, in the market. Especially if you have a high match to market ratio (see my previous Newsletter No 2).

In my business my ideal prospects are coaches, consultants, teacher, trainer – anyone in the information / expertise industry. And quite a few of them do not really like to do the selling bit of the business:

I often hear: “All I want to do is help and coach people, I’m not so much about the selling part.” Or “If selling was not a necessity, I would love to do without it.”

To help shift the negative perception about sales – and to help my clients sell better, easier and more successfully - I developed the Soft Sell System™, and even wrote a book about it (to be released in Spring 2023).

It’s based on 8 steps and the Star Rapport Method™ that helps ANYBODY with ANY sale to be converting higher (turn more no’s into yesses), make prospects love you when you’re selling to them, builds rapport quickly and is a lot of fun.

The Star Rapport Method™ taps into people’s need to feel appreciated, approved of, liked and respected. It’s applicable to any kind of human interaction (even the one I mentioned in the beginning) – and very helpful also to turn difficult relationships around.

The 6 A’s of the Star Rapport Method™:

If you ‘d like to learn more:

I’ll be hosting a series of free workshops called Sales Bootcamp Sprints in the coming weeks, kick off with the Soft Sell System™ and the Star Rapport Method™ is on February 23rd, 2023, online => check it out HERE.