How do you sell almost anything to anyone?

An interesting question! After doing sales and cold calling for a long time, I have realized that outside the product/service itself, the skills of the salesperson, especially the implementation of psychological techniques, matter much more when determining whether a sale is going to happen. Per my experience, I have a few strategies to share with you. Let’s quickly discuss those.

The following ten strategies fit in almost every situation when you’re trying to sell.

1) Fully understand the needs of the customer.

2) Be a patient listener, wait for the customer to stop and then respond. Nobody likes an overly talkative salesperson.

3) Have an understanding of the psychology of the customer, respect his/her emotions, then act in accordance with them. For example, if a customer explains that money is tight right now, whatever I say next might be prefaced with “Well, since you say money is tight right now, how about this…” etc. But don’t always accept that claim, by the way. Customers are extremely vague on what affordable means to them.

4) Honestly explain what you would do in your customer’s shoes. It’s slightly aggressive, in that it’s assuming you fully understand the customer’s challenges and situation, but it works to express confidence and project the image of them buying the product. Try it out if you’ve been interacting with them for longer than five minutes. What do you do before 5 minutes are up? Well…

5) Try to build rapport. Sales doesn’t have to be a miserable interrogation. Try to have fun with it.

6) Include social proofs while making sales. Proof in general is useful, and everyone has their phone on them all the time. You can give a stat and even direct them to look up the place where you found it, or offer to show it to them on the spot. You usually don’t have to wait for them to do that, either. They’ll assume you know what you’re talking about, just because you mentioned a stat.

7) Identify and research the USP of your product/service, then pitch it. Just make sure to channel it into how it makes the customer’s situation better. Benefits over features.

8) Ask questions, trying to identify the problems of your customer that the product could solve. Making a good thing better is great, but curing your customer’s biggest pain point, their biggest problem, will make them buy, every time.

9) Look at it this way: you are not selling to them, you are helping them. Save the selling for your garage. You are helping people make smart decisions, and yes, those decisions are going to involve money, they involve an investment in their futures.

10) Be ethical, honest, and look for long term accounts. Not only is this better on your conscience, but it means your clients stay happy and order from you more often, meaning you don’t have to do nearly as much prospecting in the first place to make more money.

Since most of the above strategies are self-explanatory, I didn’t get into too many details. I would recommend you search more on the above tips, specific to the products/services you are dealing with. By understanding the above points and strategizing accordingly, you will get more sales.

In addition to the above strategies, a special tactic I’ve used is preparing for the five universal objections that customers usually have when buying from you. By knowing those objections and their solutions, a salesperson could likely get more sales by quickly and confidently circumventing those reasons for the customer to say no.

To be clear, selling is an art as well as a science. The more you work at it and sharpen your skills, the better your success rate. With any kind of difficult social endeavor, whether it be sales or dating or public speaking, you need to establish what’s called a meta-goal, a goal outside of the current interaction.

For example, let’s say you are a cold caller. Instead of “I need to get this sale.” think “I need to make 10 cold calls per day.” This stops you from obsessing about the current moment and reminds you that even with a series of calls with no sale, you’re one step closer to a big accomplishment for that day. Do you know how many people are terrified of cold calling a stranger even once, let alone 10? Get used to making and achieving a meta goal like this, and the sales will come, just as a happy coincidence to you putting in that much effort and practice.

Anyway, after thorough research and feedback from the top-notch salespeople around the world, I have made a post that gets in-depth on those sales objections and their solutions. If you are interested in setting a meta goal and doing a lot of sales pitches, please save yourself a lot of time and headaches by reading “5 Deep-Seated Customer Doubts That Kill Your Sales (And How to Erase Them),” on my website.

In conclusion, by staying ethical but determined, having a positive mindset, and adding and implementing new skills regularly, you will get more sales. As you put it, you will be able to sell almost anything to anyone, and I’m not exaggerating.

Please feel free to reply if you have any questions.

Good Luck!

Thanks,

Cleo