Why We Love This New Sales Magic (and why you should too)
Access to information has created an amazing magical opportunity for success in sales and you’re invited to the magical mystery tour.
But before we whip out our wands, and pull the same old rabbits out of our hats, we have to understand that the old tricks no longer work.
It’s an illusion to think that selling is the same as it ever was–that sales pros can still strategically release information in exchange for a clients’ business. It’s an illusion because, although most of the treasured information is still hidden, it’s hidden in plain sight.
Everyone has access to similar information. Everyone knows the tricks…or at least they think they do.
Sure, the slightly better sales magicians have learned slightly better tactics. They ask open-ended questions to uncover the problems their clients know they have and then <*presto*> the sales magicians provide the solution with a flip of the cape. They may magically create doubt in the accuracy of the information. They sell benefits. They’re sales geniuses. And the client claps, perhaps enjoys the trick, and leaves.
Then the sales magicians continue to look for new audience members. They wisely prospect because they are in Transactional Selling mode. The solutions are bold. Their offers include valuable experience, wild success, and unsurpassed integrity. It works. They’re top producers. They sell, prospect, rinse and repeat. From transaction to transaction they go.
Magic looks easy. But it isn’t. It takes planning and practice or eventually the audience figures out it’s just a trick. But great selling is not a trick. This becomes obvious when sales magicians have their secrets revealed and their sales successes compromised like a drunken spoiler audience member slurring, “I know how she did that!”
That’s what a shift in the economy does. That’s what causes the Transactional Selling model to falter. Transactional Selling is less resilient to economic fluctuations…and less susceptible to long-term client loyalty.
How do you compete when everyone reads the same headlines (as well as the same conclusions that are drawn for all of us in no more than 140 characters)? Make it rhyme and it sticks over time. Say it enough and we’ll believe that stuff. Show up to sell with those Sortafacts and you’ll be just like everyone else.
How do you compete when your production claims are publicly quantified to be somewhat less than your competitor? When your integrity is inaccurately tarnished online by vindictive haters? When your clients and customers need to cut costs at the exact same time that your competitors are there with their scissors?
That’s when you may have to decide that you don’t want to compete strictly on price. That’s when your customers begin to realize that the magic they need isn’t found in your same old tricks, but rather in your distinct ability to magically unveil the exact problems that they never even knew they had.
Before this shift happens (and it always does) you might consider a change from the old-timey tricks of Transactional Selling to today’s magical model of Arousing Curiosity.
Strategically shifting from a Transactional Selling model to an Arousing Curiosity model inoculates top sales pros from these crushing eventualities. It is also more positively correlated with long-term loyalty.
This shift takes planning and study. It takes moving from information collecting and spewing, to information absorbing, synthesizing, and challenging.
For some sales pros, client loyalty may not be worth the time it takes to cultivate it. It’s hard. But for those of you looking to build a resilient, long-term business based on the new selling magic, here’s your bit of Abracadabra.
Start by embracing you inner contrarian. Challenge yourself to think of new ways of looking at headlines, data trends and predictions. Pretend you’re wrong about everything you know about your industry. Let new assumptions wash over your mind. Piss yourself off.
Think of challenges your clients and customers face that they’re blind to. Figure out what these new ways of thinking could mean for your client. Begin to create inciting insights.
The Curious Brain Courtesy of Charlotte Caron
This shift takes bravery and an appreciation of constructive tension. You may not be looking to solve problems that your clients instinctively know they have. Your planned shift to identifying problems and challenges that your clients have never thought of may not create much of a short-term love-fest. It will, however, create a resilient respect-fest. You may get less happy agreement and more contemplative eyebrow furrowing and concern. That’s perfect and a sign that your clients have become curious. Only then will they follow their curiosity to your unique solution. They will practically do your selling for you.
In a way, you’ll still be peddling information, but it’s your own proprietary information. When you’re sharing your unique insights, evaluations, syntheses, and analyses of problems, then your competition simply disappears <poof>. The real magic happens when there is only one way to access the solution…and that’s you. Voila.
Becki Saltzman is the author of Arousing the Buy Curious: Real Estate Pillow Talk for Patrons and Professionals and the founder of Arousing the Buy Curious, the place where the Sexy Mind Science of wildly successful sales is unleashed.