By the Ocean
Sunny 78 Degrees
7:37 a.m.
“I want something from you” is a terrible mindset with which to grow a business.
I’ve worked with a lot of businesses where that was the primary goal:
“You’ve got my money in your pocket dear Customer, and today I’m going to do everything in my power to get some of it by selling you what I have.”
It’s easy to tell the difference between someone who is selling compared to someone who is serving.
If you’re even half awake, you can feel the self-interest of a seller coming at you from a mile away.
They see the world from their own eyes. They choose their actions based on their list of desired objectives. They are focused on making a transaction happen instead of helping a problem get solved.
No one likes to be sold, which should be enough of a clue to go searching for a better way to deliver your value to the world.
And yet, we celebrate the guy who closes the big sale. Why? Because that’s what we see others doing. And that’s what we’re trained to do.
I still remember one particular sale during my three month car sales career, where the sales desk manager was congratulating himself on getting a “10 pounder,” a deal he closed with about $10K in profit. This was a sale to two brothers who were clearly too trusting to not get eaten alive in such a disgusting place.
These days, with it getting easier and easier to block these signals from your reality, it seems that it’s a good idea to move to higher ground. All the sales tactics in the world are useless if no one is interested in listening to you.
Do you know what it looks like to provide service to a prospective buyer and have a sale happen on the other end of that service?
That’s an approach where you actually end up with a stronger relationship with your buyer AFTER the sale than before.
You don’t just wake up one day and have this happen. This is a strategically engineered position you take in the marketplace.
You show up with a way to serve first. Then you keep your focus on solving the problems of your buyers. When it becomes clear that what you have is an effective vehicle for solving those problems, the trust, credibility and respect you’ve earned allows a sale to naturally happen… with no “closing” required.
It is boring and very effective, which means most people won’t do it. That makes it an enormous opportunity.
In fact, don’t be surprised if people actually start asking you to buy what you have.
The world flocks to the one who needs nothing from no one.
Service is the most practical and effective “sales technique” I’ve ever encountered.
It takes patience, trust and a commitment to show up for people before they’re ready to buy.