Salespeople get a very bad rep, and unfairly or not, when most people think of sales, they associate it with a big helping of sleaze.
Salespeople should be avoided at all costs. They are gregarious and overbearing, right?
While there might be salespeople like this, they certainly don’t make the most sales.
How can you be the very best salesperson? What does it take to sell successfully? And how do you avoid being sleazy? This blog will help you stand out from the crowd for all the right reasons and give you some helpful tips on Exactly How to Sell.
Dreamer Or Doer?
Has anyone ever told you you were a dreamer like it was a bad thing?
While there’s something admirable about being a determined doer, the individuals who achieve the very best are often the ones with the biggest dreams.
You aren’t going to achieve much without dreaming big, right?
Exactly What to Say founder Phil M. Jones’ dreams have always been big. He dreams about continually building up his Exactly What to Say business, constantly looking at generating multiple streams of revenue and continuously looking to empower other people to carry the message into the world.
It is this mentality that has led to the creation of the book Exactly How to Sell.
Phil loves to sell and firmly believes that selling doesn’t need to be sleazy. And the good news is that you can use the EWTS methodology to be a truly phenomenal salesperson.
He hopes that by repositioning the perception of what selling really is, then he can help as many people as possible find more confidence and competence in sales conversations.
So, if you want to learn how to sell minus the sleaze, read on.
Sales - Sleazy or Not?
What do you think when you think of salespeople?
The stereotype of a good salesperson, most definitely is not what makes a good salesperson. The most effective ones are the people who do two things.
Firstly, they care about the problem that their consumer is trying to solve. Secondly, they use relentless curiosity to understand the context of the person they are selling to.
By approaching it like this, they can make recommendations that carry real strength.
One of the primary methodologies from the original Exactly What to Say book that has carried over to the new book Exactly How to Sell is to slow people down and help them be strategically more curious.
Doing this helps you collect more evidence and enables you to care more compassionately about your prospects’ outcomes.
Techniques For Being A Better Salesperson
There are two techniques that you can try out to be a better salesperson.
The first is to remain curious at all times. A common mistake is jumping to a point of assumption or certainty too quickly.
So before you jump to a conclusion, just ask three more questions to sense-check your point of view.
The second thing you can do is pre-brief the most important conversations in your life rather than debriefing them.
The worst time to think about what you’re saying is when you’re saying it, so decide ahead of time what the important conversations are in your life and plan for them.
Is It Magic?
Do you want to know a secret? The magic words that EWTS methodology provides are not actually magic.
They are, in fact, 23 deep-rooted principles around influence and persuasion disguised as ‘magic’ words.
This methodology is simply a practical framework that works when applied to real-life situations. While the book can provide many conversational tools, the EWTS Certification program goes one step further.
Through the levelling-up process of Certification, you receive even more tools and techniques that will help you sell demonstrably better.
Let’s look at one example of how this is done. We’ll use the ability to extract more information from people.
How often do you use the phrase ‘tell me’ when you’re trying to learn about someone?
Even if used with the best intention, the question is a command order and can create friction between parties.
Try swapping out ‘tell me’ for ‘help me’, and you’ve got the recipe for a frictionless Critical Conversation.
When you swap your tell me’s for help me’s, all of a sudden, it’s easier for the other person to tell you the truth.
Try saying: Help me understand: what are some of the things that we could do differently here? What adjustments can we make in the way that we’re approaching you that may result in you potentially giving us a serious opportunity to work together?
It’s a lot harder for somebody to be able to respond with excuses or denial. It’s the same as where the truth is.
Everyone is just one meaningful conversation away from a significant change. What will yours be?
How Can Exactly How to Sell Help You?
Exactly How to Sell is a sales guide for non-salespeople.
It is for individuals who want to drive commercial outcomes in their lives but don’t see themselves as ‘natural’ salespeople’.
It talks you through everything, from being properly prepared, to knowing your market and identifying your prospects.
Crucially, it will teach you different closing techniques that many non-sales people struggle to execute. The book features six precise closing techniques so that you can find the best one for your particular situation.
One example of the techniques that you will learn from this guidebook is the structure of your sales presentation.
The structure of a sales presentation should consist of three parts: the beginning, the middle, and the end. Easy, right?
Most sales presentations make the mistake of being all middle.
The ones that do this will look like this:
- No purposeful frame has been created at the beginning
- No solid call to action or clarity about what the next steps are.
It’ll just be a ton of information sharing how brilliant you are, without any order or cohesion.
What should your beginning be?
The beginning of your sales presentation isn’t the beginning of the conversation. It’s the beginning of the moment when you start to be able to deliver your ‘pitch’. The very first thing you should try to do is to share why you’re presenting.
The middle needs to detail your history and credibility, as this will be what builds your value to your prospect
And the end needs to summarise exactly how you can help their problem.
Only once you have hit all of these points can you close and present your next steps.
Your presentation should be gift wrapping and packaging your solution. With your beginning, you have to set it up and build the box. You then have the middle to fill the box with all your goodies. Finally, you must have that meaningful end to it.
The secret to effective selling is a good framework. What’s yours, and is it working?
If not, then Exactly How to Sell could be the answer!
