Let's start with the basics. Anyone, anywhere, and anytime can learn to sell. You don't have to have a natural gift for it. In fact, if you have ever held a conversation with anyone you probably were selling and didn't know it. Selling is more than goods and services. Selling can be an exchange of ideas or persuading someone you are right about a subject. If you have ever wrote a paper in high school, you were selling. So if you have been selling your whole life, why should you learn how to sell?
It is important to learn how to sell so you can be more precise in how you do it. Like sharpening a blade so when you use it you don't have to work so hard. Even if you never use what I am teaching you to make a living you can use this in your everyday life when you talk with someone or when you write that paper for high school or college or if you decide to write a book.
Now that we know why we are learning this where should we begin. Jordan Belfort tells us that every sale is the same. The fastest way from beginning to end of a sale is a straight line.
Beginning——————————————-End
Everything you do should fall on that line. When you take a customer down the straight line your customer becomes more certain. How long the line is depends on your customers level of certainty the customer needs to be at before they buy. Some people need to be absolutely certain and others only need to be a little certain.
So how do you begin? Jordan also teaches that upon meeting you need to take control of your customer. You of course do not force your will on someone. They will hand you control if you are: sharp as a tack (you're on the ball, you're quick), enthusiastic as hell (you come in with the right energy), and you are an expert in your field (when someone is an expert we tend to allow experts to tell us what to do to fix our problems)
Now that you have control over your customer what do you do with it? David Sanders says you set your customer's expectations. Figure out what time frame they have set aside for this meeting, their objectives for this meeting, allow them to tell you their agenda and you share with them yours. Allow them the ability to say yes or no at the end of the meeting and make sure they understand that is okay either way. Share with them that we will figure out the next steps together at the end of the meeting.
You have control and expectations are set so the next step is gather information. What is your customer wanting and needing and why. This will clue you in on your customers pain and can be used later to get your customer to that absolute certainty. When the pain threshold is high your customers need to be more absolutely certain will also be high. Whereas when the pain threshold is low you don't need your customer to be as certain to be willing to buy.
You have discovered the problem now have a solution. You wouldn't want to go to the doctor and then they tell you they don't have a clue how to make the pain go away.
So to recap; show your customer you are the expert, set expectations, gather information, discover their pain, solve their problem. These are the basics for any sale.