Most people enjoy being sold to. Why? Because it fulfils a need, desire, or solves a problem. But most people don’t enjoy knowing they are being sold to. Overzealous or pushy salespeople are the nightmares of many buyers. Simply put, they are ‘salesy’. And that doesn’t feel good.
Does anyone really enjoy being labelled ‘salesy’? I doubt it. But we are in the business of making sales right?
So how to increase sales with passion and ease without obtaining the dreaded ‘salesy’ tag? You need to appear genuine and not look like a salesperson.
The customer needs to feel like they want it, and not like it is being pushed on them. How many times have you spoken with a salesperson and just want to get out of there, because he is trying to push something on you that you do not want.
If you follow these steps, it should become easier to make a good impression on customers:
First of all, be yourself. Be natural and don’t whatever you do, try to take on the ‘sales’ persona. It’s really rare that we can act as a different persona and it be convincing. Sadly, we can’t all give Oscar worthy performances! But to even let a smidgen of inauthenticity enter your client’s mind will surely have you labeled as salesy. Instead of thinking so much, just be yourself. If you’re not sure what to say, just listen. You’d be surprised at how far just that will get you!
Ask ‘you’ questions. By that, I mean to ask about the client and the issues or problems they are currently facing. And show genuine care about their answers! Ask what they are looking for in a solution. Listen carefully to the answers instead of rehearsing your next sentence. When you ask ‘you’ questions, you are allowing the customer to open up and share their golden nuggets of key buying criteria. Plus, it also lets them know that you care about their worries, feelings and happiness. This is a good window into what the client truly wants as well. Nothing about that is fake or ‘salesy’.
Use ‘you’ language. Avoid talking as ‘we’. i.e., ‘we can do this for you’, ‘we could do that’. Some people can interpret that as pretentiousness. It also doesn’t help the customer to feel like the sales conversation is a reality. Instead, try ‘you will get this’; ‘you will avoid that’. It brings the conversation into a place that they can directly visualize what accepting your sales offer will be like, and helps them to know that you are addressing them directly.
I just can’t stress enough how important it is for your customer to not feel like they’re being sold to. Following these steps is the start of building a genuine sales process with people and increasing sales. Before long you will be hearing people refer to you as ‘not at all salesy’ which is just what you want, right?!
Make sure to practice this before trying to sell, as said earlier, even if you come across as a tiny bit inauthentic, the customer will switch off and you will just be that salesperson who tried to push their product on them.
Once you come across naturally as authentic and not trying to shove a product in the customer’s face then it becomes a lot easier to actually sell to them. You know what they say, first impressions count for a lot, so do your best to come across as someone a customer really wants to buy from. Consider all of this and customers will feel a lot more comfortable purchasing from you.
Jonathan Mills is the co-founder of Sasudi.com, the world’s first online subscription-based platform that is aimed at making sales easy for Small Businesses. If you’re interested in learning more about being less ‘salesy’, or need help improving your sales, sign up to Sasudi.com for free. You’ll get free weekly tips and be the first to hear when the platform launches!
