Selling is about interaction, just like getting a wife or a husband

Don’t over-think it. At the end of the day, selling is a basic human interaction. It is the belief that it’s not that magnifies a molehill into a mountain in your mind; it’s the unnecessary, painstaking analysis that freezes you into paralysis. And what the mind cannot handle the hand cannot, either.
One of the biggest challenges novice salespeople face is the response to the question, “How do I handle the steps in the sales cycle?” How do I prospect, interview, demonstrate, validate, negotiate, close and ask for a referral? Let’s look at some.
How do I prospect (get contacts of people who can buy my product)? In human interaction, how do you get friends, girlfriends or boyfriends?

When I ask the latter in class, the vibrant delegates respond enthusiastically. That’s easy, I’m told. Hang out where they do, blind date; call at work and on and on.
Then I ask, how do you prospect, and the mood instantly changes to funereal. This is serious business; I must be careful how I respond; and slowly the molehill starts growing into a mountain. Don’t over-think it. Just reach out professionally in the same manner you would socially.
How do I ask for a referral? Ladies, when you stop a complete stranger in the street to ask them what they use for their skin to make it so smooth, you have just prospected and asked for a referral. (Incidentally, I’m still floored by this one).

When I ask delegates how they get a referral, again the atmosphere becomes grave. Don’t over-think it. Just be as succinct as the ladies.

Notice how specific the query is: it’s what she uses to make her skin so smooth; not, what makes her look so beautiful. The latter is ambiguous and difficult to answer, just like, “Refer me to someone else who can buy my product” compared to, “Please refer me to your counterpart at ZXV Bank”, if you are talking to a head of operations at a bank, for instance.

Useful response

Just like the lady asking about skin, this query is also specific: it zeroes in on a particular space and makes it easy to get a useful response.

How do I demonstrate? For the phone lovers, how do you show off your new tool? Your eyes are alive with enthusiasm as you take your audience through the features of what your gadget can do. For the technological laggards (like me) you even take a photo, convert it into a PDF document and e-mail while we watch.

And in that instant, you show us the benefits of having that phone. And then you are asked to do a presentation to a prospect, and you mentally remove your T-shirt and jeans and clad in a three-piece suit and your thought process freezes.

Basic interaction

How do I negotiate? How do you bargain with the hawker, the stall attendant, the landlord? You understand his position, understand yours, and then you talk your way through it.

You may never have thought about, it but that’s what goes through your mind every time you start negotiating. Then the bank calls you because you have missed three consecutive loan instalments and you freeze in panic and your mind follows suit.

Don’t over-think it. At the end of the day, selling is a basic human interaction. Learn from social relations and blend them into professional ones and be amazed by the result.

Mr Kageche is a lead facilitator at Lend Me Your Ears, a speech writing and sales firms. E-mail: [email protected].