Sales vs Game?

I’ll sell water to a well

I used to be in sales.  I wasn’t particularly good at it, because I didn’t know what I know now.   I thought sales was like game. It’s not actually. They draw from the same source (persuasion), but there’s enough difference that you need to be up one level to appreciate it.   I believe 10 years later, I’m one level up from what I knew about sales.

That time in my life wasn’t a total loss. Rarely anything is.  There were things that I learned.  I used to love these things that “overcame objections”

One of my favorites was “The List”.

So the situation is that

• Prospect doesn’t want to buy life insurance,
• Because it’s too expensive
• They  can’t fit into the budget

So “The List” breaks down this way.

I agree that Insurance is really expensive.  And you totally couldn’t fit that in to your budget.

Let’s look at your budget

*break out a sheet of paper and a pencil at the kitchen table.  It’s important to tear a sheet out of notebook, because you want to make it look you’re breaking the “presentation”.  A “real” salesperson would have a worksheet*

What’s on your budget?

• Rent? Mortgage?  Let’s say it’s 800
• Property tax? Another 100 a month
• Utilities? Electricity, gas, water…that’s 150 a month at least
• Food – Even when you cook at home, you’re spending a 100 a week
• Student loans? Can’t forget those
• Car payment? They get you with that, can’t be without a car
• Car insurance? I wish I was selling car insurance, geez that’s a lot
• Child care? ….(you get the picture)

The prospect, who wants to be out of this selling situation, wants to please you the seller by doing something that you want.  The sub-communication is that if they do what you want, but don’t buy anything, they can be okay psychologically.  They don’t feel that they’ve lost.

Let’s start to add them up

*make a big show of getting out the calculator*

“Then you gotta add in savings and retirement…”

This is even better when you get the prospect to write down the #’s

*Turn to to the prospect*

• Man is this a lot of money to you.
• This is what it takes to raise a family nowadays.  Man..
• Prospect – Yeah
• I say – it really looks like you can’t afford it
• Well it was nice meeting you..
• *I start to gather up my things*
• *leave the paper on the kitchen table, lay the pencil across the sheet*
• Prospect looks relieved and smug – they beat this sales guy!
• I say “But before I go, lemme ask you one question..”

“When you’re gone, who’s going to take care of your family?”

That’s when the prospect becomes a client.

This isn’t a bit that you can directly translate into a routine for a night club. But the idea is that you let the prospect get something on the sub-communication level – make them think they beat you – and then you come back at them from a direction they aren’t expecting.