5 Sales Truths You Need To Know (Stop Losing Deals)

[00:00:00] I had a prospective client tell me the other day, “You know, we sell a little differently than everybody else. I, I don’t think you can help me.” And I asked the question, “Do you sell to humans? Because I disagree.” If you’re selling to a human, guess what? We all work the same. The product might be different, the cycle or the length of time it takes to sell might be different, the buyer’s name might be different, the buyer’s title might be different, but guess what? There are 5 simple truths you need to know.

[00:00:23] The process you use and the ways we make decisions as people pretty much are the same no matter what. In fact, every sale still relies on basically five truths. Imagine if you would, you’re in a candy store, and you’re surrounded by all the candy in the world that you just love. But guess what? As a child, you could not have that candy unless you got your parent involved and got them to approve it.

[00:00:47] And in this episode, I’m gonna share with you that exact conversation that is happening within every prospect’s head as they decide to make a sale with you. Let’s get started.

[00:01:02] So as we talk about these five truths, there’s one thing to keep in mind when you’re thinking about these things. Humans are humans, and so these are kinda things that everybody knows in their head, but when they come to selling, they don’t really act that way. So number one is if you don’t have pain, you’re not gonna get a sale.

[00:01:17] If you don’t have pain, meaning those, those individuals you’re speaking with, you’re asking these questions, you’re going through the conversation, and you’ve determined they have problems, but they don’t care about them, guess what? There’s no sale. If they don’t care about the problem, why would they buy, right?

[00:01:34] So you have to make sure that when you’re asking the questions, part of those questions have to be, how important is this as a problem? Because if you don’t get the answer to that, you’re not gonna likely get the sale because they don’t care about the pain or the problem or what have you. Now remember, things are divided into kinda two different categories when you’re talking about sales.

[00:01:53] One is pain, and that can be pains that are happening now or pains that are happening that they’re trying to avoid in the future, right? That could happen either way. The other thing that they’re trying to do as a prospect is they’re trying to have some sort of good things in the future. So imagine if you’re gonna buy a boat You’re imagining that you’re gonna have a great time on this boat.

[00:02:14] Now, everybody knows that when you have a boat, it’s nothing but expenses, right? But, but when you’re buying a boat, what you’re doing is you’re looking at it saying, “I wanna be able to go out on my boat, enjoy the water, enjoy the time away from the, uh, all the other people,” whatever that might be, right?

[00:02:28] That’s the pleasure, that’s the fun things, that’s the positive things that they’re going after in the future. Another way is thinking about it is like, in the future is financial planning. Your, your financial planning is for good in the future. You have enough money to do the things that you want in the future.

[00:02:44] So those are all things that you would sell on. So if there’s no pain or there’s no need for something in the future, and you can’t put a dollar amount to that problem or to that pleasure, then guess what? There’s probably not gonna be a sale. That is, I would say, one of the more important ones of all of these five.

[00:03:01] And I bring it back to the child in the c- in the candy store. One of the things that happens when you’re the child, and anybody in a sales process, the prospect is the child, okay, in the beginning. And what I mean by that is that person has a desire or a want or a need to fix the problem or to get to some place in the future.

[00:03:21] And by walking through that, you’re making that child want it more, okay? But the problem is, that child cannot make the decision. We’re gonna get into that later, so hold that thought. The next one, number two, is everyone has a personality. So we’ve talked about DISC in some form or another on this channel before.

[00:03:40] I’ll drop a card in the corner so that you can click on that and learn more about DISC personalities. But essentially what I want you to do is I want you to think about DISC as a language, okay? So you have the dominant personality, you have the influencer personality, you have the steady personality, and you have the conscientious personality.

[00:04:00] Those four personalities, yes, they can combine. You can have combined ones. You can have a D and a C, or you can have a I and an S. You- those things can happen. But usually everybody has a dominant personality, one that dominates all the others. I don’t mean they have the dominant. They have one of the four personalities as the more prevalent one.

[00:04:18] What you need to think about when you’re selling is, number one, what is your personality? Do you know your personality? If you don’t know your personality, make sure you find out what that is. Because if you’re speaking to somebody who’s on the opposite end of the spectrum in the personalities, styles of DISC, guess what?

[00:04:34] The things you’re saying won’t ring true for them, and they think you don’t understand them. So if you don’t know how to speak to that person’s personality, you are missing an opportunity to get the sale. And what I say is, is it doesn’t, it doesn’t drive the sale as a go or no go, but what it does is it helps tip the scales in your favor if you’re speaking in their language.

[00:04:55] Imagine if I had to go speak to somebody in Chinese or another language I don’t understand, then guess what? I would probably not have a very easy time selling something. But if I understand their language and I can speak their language, it’s the same thing. I can now communicate with them. They now feel like I get them.

[00:05:11] They feel like I understand them. Now I feel a little more comfortable. I have built some trust. That’s it. That’s what it comes down to. I’m gonna stop here for a second and just remind everybody that, uh, if you have a question that you would like answered, please drop them in the comments. You can always email us at questions@theslowpitch.com.

[00:05:28] And also know that we have coaching sessions, that if you found this to be helpful just watching this on a video, you can only imagine what it would be like when you have a group of other people sitting in the room with you online and asking and answering questions that kind of relate to some of this stuff, but also other k- topics that have to do with sales.

[00:05:45] And if you’d like to attend one session, I’d be happy to invite you. Drop me an email at questions@theslowpitch.com, and we’ll see if we can get you scheduled in. Now let’s get back into it. Number three, the prospect must decide whether or not they’re going to buy or not buy. Okay, so this sounds a little odd.

[00:06:02] This truth really comes down to you cannot force a sale. If you force a sale, what you’re going to do is you’re going to create buyer’s remorse. Buyer’s remorse is a bad thing, right? After they sign the deal, they go, “I changed my mind. I don’t wanna do this. Can I just get my money back?” And now you’re in a fight.

[00:06:20] That’s what you don’t want to have happen. So to avoid that, you need to make sure they make the decision, and you ask them very clearly when they’ve decided and make that decision at the end or close to the end. You need to push back and say, “Are you sure you wanna do this?” Now, that sounds counter, counterintuitive, but if you did that and they say to you, “Yeah, this, this is makes sense, and here’s why,” now you’ve just solidified that they’re not gonna back out.

[00:06:45] So when they call you back later and they say, “I’ve decided to change my mind,” if they do that, which unlikely, but if they did, you can then ask the question, “I know, but I asked you if you were sure about that. That’s why I asked you, ’cause I wanted to make sure this was the right thing for you And, and it’s just unlikely because in the head, in their head, they already know that they committed.

[00:07:07] They’ve committed not only once, but twice, and sometimes three times by asking that question. So you’ll never be able to get that prospect to decide by force. You have to let them do that. And earlier I talked about the child in the candy store. So let’s talk about that real quick. In, in a thing called transactional analysis, what that means is every one of us as a buyer have something called a child in your head.

[00:07:33] The child says, “I want this. I need this. It’s gotta be mine. I’m gonna, I’m gonna buy this.” Now, that’s all great. It’s driven by emotion, right? That child is never allowed to buy whatever it is by themselves. The- what they have to do in their head, they have to bring in their parent, and the parent has to come in and say, “I, I don’t think you can do that.”

[00:07:54] Or the parent’s gonna say, “Yes, we can do that because here’s why. We can, we can buy this stuff.” Then the last step is bringing in the adult, and the adult says, “Well, here’s the logic behind why we’ve made this decision, and now we know our, our full on let’s go, let’s buy this,” right? So there’s a whole theory, and there’s a whole process to understanding that.

[00:08:14] But what you need to understand is that the prospect has to decide, but you’ve gotta work them through all three of those, I call it personalities, those, those mental personalities that are in there. The child, then you gotta go to the parent, then you gotta go to the adult. And once the adult makes the decision, you’re pretty much there.

[00:08:33] But it’s a critical step in order to get that done. One of the other truths that I’ve found people often miss Is they don’t insist on, or don’t have the decision-maker in the room. Now, that may sound odd because why would you have a meeting if you didn’t have the decision-maker? But sometimes people don’t verify that the person they’re speaking to is the person that can make the decision as yes or no.

[00:08:57] Is often time where somebody will have somebody in the room with them who can make a decision, but the only decision they can make is no. They cannot make a yes decision. And there’s a huge difference between those two individuals. If there’s just a person that can just say no, well, guess what? That’s not helpful.

[00:09:18] It’s nice, it’s good, but it’s not good enough. You need to have somebody that can say, “Yes. Yes, we can move forward.” Because if you don’t have that, you don’t have the decision-maker in the room, you’re never gonna get a final decision, right? You have to get that person to make and commit to the next step, and to make the decision as to whether or not this next step is the thing we’re gonna be doing, to whether or not they’re gonna buy or not.

[00:09:43] You, you have to make sure that they understand here’s what they’re going to do, and they’re making that decision, okay? You’re letting them do that, and you’ve gotta let them move on into the next step. You cannot push them to make a decision. They have to make it. And the last piece of that is you, you have to push them toward no.

[00:10:04] So as, as you’re speaking to a decision-maker, I would highly recommend that any time you’re speaking to a decision-maker, your questioning starts to push toward, “It doesn’t sound like this is a good decision, this is a good decision to move forward, is it? I don’t- Doesn’t sound like this is something you guys wanna do, is it?”

[00:10:19] What you’re doing is you’re forcing them to say no. That’s what you want. You want them to say no, so you know it’s a no-go. But if they say, “Mm, you know, I think this is something we should continue to work on,” or, “I think we need this and I think we should continue to have this conversation,” now you’ve got the right decision-maker, and you know that, and you’ve got them saying, “We’re leaning towards a yes.”

[00:10:39] That’s what you want. But you should always come from the position of no. And finally, the last one is probably a subtle one, but is really important. This is how you finish every meeting. So I don’t care how long your sales cycle is, I don’t care how short it is. Your job in every meeting is to end the meeting with, “What is the next step?”

[00:11:06] Oftentimes I hear people and I see people who get into these meetings, and in the end of the meeting they go, “Okay, great, let’s just meet again some day,” and we don’t nail anything down, we don’t understand why we’re doing it. And then when I ask the question of this individual who’s a salesperson, and I ask them, “So what’s the next step?”

[00:11:24] And they don’t know. “Well, we’re gonna, we’re gonna meet again.” Why? What are you meeting for? Why are you meeting? What, are they gonna tell you yes? Are they gonna tell you no? Are they gonna… Who’s going to the next me- Well, why? Why are we doing this? These are the things you need to make sure you have. So know what your next steps are.

[00:11:38] So when you finish any meeting, it’s always, “What are our next steps? What do you wanna do?” They do not drive the next step. You do. By asking that question, you’re still in control, and you’re making them make the decision as to what the next step is. If they finish the sentence with, “I don’t know what the next step is,” what do you think that means?

[00:11:59] That probably means they are probably not going to make the decision to go yes, right? So now you need to push a little bit and say, “Well, it sounds like this is a no.” So any time you don’t get a very solid, “Okay, let’s go to the next step. The next step, which should be this,” then you need to then say, “Hmm, it sounds like this is not a good fit for you.

[00:12:21] I, I don’t wanna push you into something that you don’t wanna do. It sounds like we’ve finished the end of this meeting, and it doesn’t sound like you wanna have the next meeting, and that’s okay. And I think we should probably just call it good. And, uh, we, I can just walk away, and we can shake hands and be friends.”

[00:12:35] And they often will say either yes or no, and you’ll have a clear decision from that. Wouldn’t it be nice if after every meeting you knew what was happening next? And by the way, that should be entered into your CRM system so you know and you remember what that is every step of the way. But this is important.

[00:12:52] Every meeting needs to end this way. If you found this to be helpful, make sure you like and subscribe, because there’s more content like this coming in the future. And if you found this to be really helpful, make sure you share it with somebody who could use this information. Until next time, remember, slow down and close more.