Selling is for losers.
Sean, what are you talking about? Grant Cardone talks about selling.
Yeah, there’s a difference, there’s a difference. I sell millions of dollars of every year, but I’m never selling. Selling is an action. Selling is trying to sell someone your product and/or your service that might not even be interested in. You’re doing all the work. I don’t do any of that stuff. I’m never selling, but I have a client waiting list. How is that possible that you’re never selling, yet you have a waiting list?
See, if you do things correctly, you shouldn’t have to overtly be selling your product. You shouldn’t have to basically be talking to someone, pitching to someone, hoping that they say yes. There may be an occasion in your lifetime you need to do that, but if you do the few things I’m getting ready to tell you to do, you will have a waiting list and you won’t be selling. You won’t be overtly trying to talk people into buying what it is you have.
Great Marketing Sells for You
The first thing is, is that my marketing and my company is so good that it sells for me. What do I mean by that? When people reach out to my companies, the heavy lifting has already been done. I don’t have to take them up that long elevator ride, where you know where you have to build credibility, overcome objections, create interest. We know the sales process, then we get the three nos and we keep coming back with the yesses. I know how to sell. I’ve sold before. That’s work.
What I do now is not selling because our marketing is so good. It’s so effective that it preps them. It gets a warm buyer ready? So I don’t have to do that heavy lifting. They see a Super Bowl ad, they’re ready to buy. They’ve been introduced to my layered marketing where they’ve heard testimonies on the radio, and each one of those testimonies are a pain point that I know they have. By the time my company engages with them, we’ve already planted the seed. We already know that the beautiful bush has grown, we just gotta pull that little flower off and put it in the vase. It’s waiting for us.
So great marketing does a great deal of the selling for you.
Results Sell for You
Result sell before you get there. You have statistics. You have case studies, you have testimonies. These are the results. I don’t know about you, but I have bought from people before I ever spoke to them, I knew I was going to buy. The only question was whether they could perform what I needed in that time frame, or whether it was in stock, or whether it was something I was willing to pay that amount for, but the sale was made. They had great marketing. It overcame my objections and my cynicism.
Your Reputation Sells for You
Our reputation sells for us. We have a reputation of achievement; Better Business Bureau A plus rating, having won every award in our area for what our company does. That is a reputation that sells.
Why is it that there’s some coaches that would never be out of a job, for some reason they got let go from their team, they would have a job within an hour? It’s having a reputation that sells.
What I’m trying to tell you is, there’s a contrast. You always have to sell your product and/or service, I’m completely aware of that. But this aggressive cold calling and pitching to people that have never heard about us or we’re not even sure if they’re interested in our product, you gotta go through the three nos, you’ve gotta come back a week later with the follow-up. That’s exhaustive selling.
I don’t do that. I don’t do that, but I have a waiting list. Why? I’m taking you through why, right now.
My Previous Clients Sell for Me
My previous clients sell for my company and me before I even get there. A third of everybody reaches out to us and tells us we did a great job with someone they know’s project that they want the same thing.
So my previous clients have already made the sale for me.
The Ineptness of My Competition Sells for Me
We had a competitor that came into our area this past year, and they came in with a big break and I thought they might be able to compete with us. Other people have come to our city because it was one of the top 10 cities in America to live in. So it’s a very popular city. Great economic numbers, great demographics, it touches all the boxes so all the big franchises come here. I’ve sent two of them packing, but I had another one this year. And so what I normally do is I have one of my partners become a customer and go through the sales. Reach out to them and try to get an estimate. And my partner sent me a text, he said, “We are good, I just met the Three Stooges,” They literally had a three-person sales team trying to sell him and they were so unbelievably inept.
I had a deal that kind of kicked in with one of my advertisers because when this competition moved into town, it increased my advertising rates. I had no competition for a while, but now they wanted to raise my rates because now I had competition.
They were kind of pitching this company against me and I reached back out to them and said, “Hey, no, no, you can keep them. I don’t mind them advertising with us, because there’s such a contrast between them and us, they do the selling for us”.
We literally saw our sales go up. It increased the demand for what we do because they were so bad. We were such a contrast that our business went up, even with competition in the area. The ineptitude of my competition sells. By the way, they didn’t make it a year. If you’re coming to our town and you want to compete with us, bring the vault. You better be prepared to open up the vault because we will out-market you.
I haven’t aggressively sold anybody. I haven’t cold called anybody here. I haven’t talked to a cold lead here, I haven’t had to go through “the three nos”, yet.
My Questions Sell
When I’m speaking to potential clients, my questions sell.
All the partners do all the selling in our company. That way they got skin in the game. I believe that you have to be able to sell to be a partner of mine. It’s part of the criteria.
So the partners all oversee their divisions and they’re the lead sales person. They can hire somebody underneath of them, but they’re the top dog, and we’re not pitching. We ask questions because questions create pain. Questions reveal weaknesses, wants, and needs, and reveal the problems they have.
Stop selling, that’s my point. If you’re selling, you’re making a mistake. Questions sell because questions will hit a pain point. How long have you had this problem? how long have you been wasting this money? How long have you gone without getting the kind of results that you’ve wanted? Questions create pain. Stop pitching. Start asking questions.
My Storytelling Sells
I weave a story together when I meet a potential client where the hero of the story is our company and we help the dame in distress. That’s the client. We’ve had a reputation of doing this that’s weaved into the story, and we create a compelling character that you want to cheer for.
Questions sell. Stories sell. Hard pitching and closing don’t sell. So what I’ve learned is clients love to buy, but they don’t like to be sold. They’re only sold if you’re selling, but they’re buying if you do things I’m talking about.
