My dog taught me sales ❤️
Somehow when it comes to making pitches, I have never struggled. It's time I share a few things about what helps me, personally.
My dog is a great sales guy! He’s constantly selling me on why we should go for another walk right after we have wrapped one.
The second kickass salesperson is my alter ego, always convincing my brain of why, this time, I should be able to wrap a thousand tasks on my plate that always spill over. Mostly because I end up picking a lot to do. I wonder, on certain fronts, if our alter ego is as confident as Michael Jordan would be on the court.
But really, what happens above? My dog wins because he has got that innocence about him. My mind does debate whether I’m just giving into his cute face, but then the reality sets in. Dogs have an IQ of a two-year-old. So, the dog is as transparent as you would expect a kid to be. Transparency wins! The second instance where the alter ego is debating with my brain is much more complex. The brain asks a lot of questions, but the alter ego comes with a response to each of those questions.
I’m a man who introspects even the minutest details. So naturally, I ended up reflecting on what I could learn about sales from the two best salespeople I encounter daily. After all, aren’t we selling everything every minute and if we knew how to sell better, life would be easy? Selling our vision, selling our work, selling to ourselves why we should eat what we want to, selling to our partners on what we should do the coming weekend and so on?
Whatever you’re trying to sell, there is an audience on the other end sending you signals.
Observe the Oohs and the Aahs – In the example above, our brain and our alter ego debate with each other on the silliest of concerns, but ultimately, the alter ego addresses all of them. Whenever I go to make a sale, I have 1000 variations of what I am selling ready. If my audience winks, I know what to say. If they hoot, I know how to acknowledge. If they flinch, I should know how to divert. It takes practice. It needs playing through different scenarios in my head, but ultimately, it makes me prepared. This is what my brain and alter ego teach me. Noticing and addressing all individual concerns 1/1.
Hit where it hurts – Every sale I make ultimately depends on the mindset of the buyer, and more often than not, buyers have trust issues. If I handle every trust issue upfront, I win their trust. Most of the founders who struggle with successful raises get this part wrong. When I know I have a weak point, I bring that upfront and in a humorous way. My audience may have gone through a thousand bad experiences in the past, but they want to trust me one more time! That’s golden. And this is what my dog teaches me. Being transparent with a hint of innocence and in my case humour as well :)
Document to speak gold – The third one is simply a bonus. Daily, I run into beautiful phrases. Sometimes, pieces of writing that taste like fine wine. No one is born perfect, but we can learn to get as close as possible to perfection. Good salespeople know what to speak and how to speak them. So, whenever I’m selling, I try communicating the value that the buyer is getting using the right phrases, and you would be surprised about how easy it is to make a sale if you use the right words. So, I document everything I like into neat folders that help me bring them back up at the right time.
By no means is this all that defines what makes my sales work, but I can assure you, if there were a random spot you wanted to start at, this would be a pretty good start.
Happy selling, you!