How to Sell If You Hate Selling

A guide on how to sell and persuade.

Do you want to make more money sharing your wisdom with the world?

Me too. So, how do we do that?

First, you create value and solve a problem. Second, you learn how to sell people on the fact that they need your solution to their problem.

Screeeeeech.

I can hear some of you hitting the brakes in your mind.

“Selling? I hate selling. I’m terrible at selling. And besides, selling is for sleazy, slicked-hair salesmen like Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross.”

Listen, I understand your resistance. My parents were always making snide remarks about salespeople, and always looked at sales as a battle between buyer and seller.

But selling makes the world go round… and it makes the world better, too.

“To sell well is to convince someone else to part with resources — not to deprive that person, but to leave him better off in the end,” says author Daniel H. Pink in his book, To Sell Is Human.

Even if you’re not a “salesman,” the truth is that in every conversation, email, and interaction you have each day, you are selling.

In that, you are persuading. We are always trying to convince another person to share our point of view, to accept our offer (whether of assistance or of commercial intent), or to do something we want them to do.

Take, for example, getting your children to brush their teeth.

You show them the benefits. You give them a deadline. You mention the consequences for missing said deadline. Can you see that you are always selling, persuading, and convincing?

Here’s the good news about selling. If you can hold a conversation with a barista at Starbucks, if you can listen patiently, and if you can follow a system, then you can become a good, if not great, salesperson.

To help you become better at selling and persuading so that you can make the world a better place, I’m giving you 5 Sales Secrets from my good friend, Bedros Keuilian. No one is better at selling in a “California Cool” style than Bedros. He’s the sales guru that other sales guru’s (like Frank Kern) go to for advice.

Several years ago, I hired Bedros to help me go from zero-to-hero in terms of my phone-sales skills. It’s an essential part of my business transformation, because selling via phone and in face-to-face conversations is how I convince people to attend my Unstoppable Mastermind or to hire me to speak at their events.

The best way to get better at sales calls is to do more of them — and to get expert feedback on how to get better.

Each week, Bedros and I would practice a sales call with him acting as a prospect for my Perfect Life Workshops (now, Unstoppable Mastermind events).

After several calls and dramatic improvement in my abilities, I asked to see the master in motion. We switched our roles. I played the part of a potential coaching client for Bedros’ Domination Day program (of which I’m a client) and had him take me through his sales process.

Here’s what I learned watching the master at work.

1) Pump-Up the Positive Past

• Focus on the prospect’s positive results (acknowledge what they have already accomplished)
• Prove the concept (that your system works)
• Demonstrate your expertise (solve a problem for them, thus proving your system)

2) Gap-Up the Present Reality

• Show them the gap between where they are and where they want to be
• Show them what’s wrong with what they are doing now
• Show them they are good at X, but need help with Y
• … and that Y is the most important variable in their future success

3) Set-Up the Future (“Future Pace”)

• Show them you know secrets that will change their life (solve another problem)
• Show them what their life will be like in the future once they’ve used your solution
• Show social proof (sprinkle in case studies proving it will work for the prospect)

4) Level-Up the Offer

• Clearly communicate the value
• Clearly communicate the deliverables
• Clearly communicate the expectations of the program

5) Close-Up the Sale

• Remind them the value of the results are worth 10 to 100 times the investment
• Close the sale, confirm the sale, and take the payment
• Clearly communicate the next steps in the program

Oh, and there’s one more thing. It’s a bit of a warning, actually.

Bedros taught me not to “talk myself out of a sale.”

It’s a habit many beginner sales folks do. We keep on talking, promising the world, and saying things that don’t need to be said.

Once the client is committed, resist the urge to keep yammering on. Instead, close the sale, confirm it, take payment, and tell them to await further instructions from your team member in charge of delivering the experience.

That’s it.

The formula for improving the world and bettering your life is simple. Create value. Sell the value. Deliver value.

If I can do it, so can you.