Amateurs Tell, Professionals Sell

The only reason a professional makes a sales call or presentation is to be of genuine service to a customer or prospect. Professionals understand that customers buy for their reasons not for the sales person’s reasons.  This fundamental truth can give you a whole new perspective on what it means to be a professional sales person and the rights and responsibilities that go along with being a pro.

We define selling in two ways:

1. Selling is customer focused communication.
2. Selling is helping people make a decision that is good for them.
3. Selling is articulating your ideas from someone else’s perspective

Professionals take the time in the early stages of a customer meeting to ask good questions and find out what the customer’s real need it.  Quite often the customer doesn’t even fully understand their own need until a professional shows up and gets them thinking through a few though provoking questions.  By our definitions, it’s clear that the only goal of a professional salesperson is to remain customer focused, to find a need and then provide true service to address it.

Occasionally during the exploration or qualification stage of a meeting it is discoverd that the customer really needs something you or your company can’t provide. Professionals understand that helping a customer make a decision that is good for them sometimes also means telling the customer that they can’t help them.  If your prospect has no need for your product or service, can’t use it, or can’t afford it you have absolutely no right to try to convince him or her to buy.

Amateurs by contrast are extremely product focused and try to convince someone to buy in every single situation. They’ve been trained in the A B C  philosophy “Always Be Closing”.   They don’t ask questions, they don’t understand their customers and they endlessly tell all the reasons they believe a customer should purchase their product or service.   That’s a sure fire way to decimate trust.

As a professional you should never try to persuade your prospect to buy something that isn’t a right fit for them. Walk away or refer the customer who can give them what they need.   It’s OK to tell a customer that you can’t help them.  This simple code of conduct will reap huge dividends in increased sales; even from customers to whom you admitted you couldn’t help.  By being completely honest and transparent, you establish deep levels of trust;  that trust often results future business and referrals you were never expecting.

About Howard: Howard Olsen is President of High Output Training Systems, a Boutique Sales Training & Sales Consulting firm based in Vancouver Western Canada. As a professional sales trainer, keynote speaker and sales coach & mentor his powerful sales process and positive profit producing messages help thousands of sales people and business professionals look through the eyes of their customers to close more sales without pressure or friction every year. Follow Howard on Twitter @howardolsen or just give him a call at (604) 731-0901 to see if he can help you and your team.