By the Ocean
Clear 75 Degrees
5:15 a.m.
A large amount of my sales education came from my three long months in Scottsdale Arizona selling cars. It was so hot, I melted a pair of nice shoes walking around during my 12 hour shifts, six days a week.
During that time, I learned almost everything there is to know about what you don’t want to do in selling.
On the car lot, they sell like hyenas. (That’s probably offensive to hyenas, sorry!) They spot their prey coming onto the lot, they start approaching…and the minute the victim customer hops out of the car… BAMMMM…..
“How are you doing today?” And that’s how the hunt begins.
It’s obvious to anyone with a brain that this is a dumb way to sell. (There is so much turnover in selling cars, I suppose the real issue is that the GM’s can’t find quality people to actually teach how to sell who will stick around long enough to do it.)
If you go to the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the people who greet you in the stores at the mall. You walk in the door and hear: “Hello, may I help you find something?”
The immediate human response is, “No thank you, I’m just looking…” People will say that, and lie, even if it’s not true, because it’s easy and obvious.
Maybe we should go looking somewhere in the middle of these extremes to do our selling. We could be friendly but focused. Helpful but direct. Something that puts us in between the hyenas and the limp noodles.
But that would be dumb. Because you generally don’t make something great out of mixing two things that aren’t.
You have to play another game. A game where you bring an entirely different energy to the situation.
If you were walking around with a one of a kind diamond locked in a briefcase, living in a world where diamonds were the most prize possession of all, HOW WOULD YOU ACT? HOW WOULD YOU SPEAK? HOW WOULD YOU THINK? HOW WOULD YOU WALK AROUND?
Can you feel how good that would feel?
Do you act that way in relation to your product or service now?
Why not? If it’s not valuable, why are you selling it? If it’s not rare and different, maybe you should fix that? If you can’t present it to the world with confidence that it is THE best choice for select people, why are you wasting everyone’s time?
People don’t like to be sold because most folks suck at selling.
The REAL definition of selling is the masterful act of connecting a solution with someone who has a problem in a way where that solution becomes their obvious choice.
If you think that’s a slimy pursuit, the world of business is not for you.
Masterful selling is telling the truth. And part of that truth is that “what I have might not be for you!”
I’m not sure WHERE you look these days for good examples of how to sell. You surely don’t see them on the social slop platforms. Everyone there is churning out their Canva garbage to “get the word out” and create “engagement.”
You definitely don’t see it in the folks selling from the stage. Ask them what their closing rate is and they’ll spit out the number without blinking. Ask them the name of their best customers, the ones who have been buying for 20 years and they’ll look at you with a blank stare.
I couldn’t find many good examples of how to sell so I had to figure it out on my own. It took a long time. Primarily because I had to remove all of the crap conditioning the Matrix loaded into my head about what I’m worth, what I deserve, my general status and standing in relation to others, and what business I have walking around like I actually have something valuable to share with the world.
After the head trash got compacted, I had to figure out the process for actually doing the selling. You can’t just shove a product in someone’s face, no matter how much you want to help them. They’ll reject that, instantly, and never come back. So you need something better. Something more elegant. Something that attracts the prospect to the sale so you don’t have to chase it.
Isn’t it weird that the Matrix fills its shows and movies with the idea that SELLING IS SLIMY? Can you think of even ONE good example of a masterful seller portrayed in the mainstream media?
Selling is a superpower. Because it allows you to help people in deep and profound ways and to prosper while you’re doing it. (That is not the future the Matrix is planning for you by the way, sorry.)
The word “selling” has been sullied to make sure the slaves never venture near and discover that solving problems for other people is a direct route to freedom.
If you can find people with a problem that you can solve, and end up with them choosing your solution to that problem based on their own Sovereign Will…
YOU WIN.
Whatever you do, don’t sell like you see the folks doing online. Even knowing THAT will put you ahead.
If you want more details about how I approach selling, I’ll be talking all about them here.
P.S. If you haven’t read “How to Sell Yourself” yet, it’s now on Amazon.