Sell Without Selling - Tell a Great Story

“Customers need to know how you will make them money and/or make their life easier and where you have done it before.” – The Customer Connector

How do you sell without selling? The key is to look at things from the customer’s point of view and get to the heart of what is on their mind. What is on your mind? My bet is that when you decide whether or not to purchase products or services, you really want to know only three things:

To achieve sales success without selling, you must be prepared to answer your customer’s three “hidden” questions. Short, concise stories must be prepared to “paint the picture” for your customers and help them make the right decision to purchase from you.

TRUE STORY: Early in my career, I did a nine page proposal to sell less than $2,000 of computer paper. The proposal included a map of our various manufacturing facilities, a letter from the president of our company and tons of other information about our company that had no relevance to the customer. To make matters worse, I brought Jerry with me to the meeting. Jerry was, and still is, one of the best sales people I know because he understands what customers want to know. After failing miserably, Jerry told me that on our next opportunity I needed to just tell a little story that would prove to the customer that we are a successful company, we deliver what we promise and we provide a good product that will make a difference. Everything else in my proposal was just fluff that should be eliminated. Our next opportunity was worth about $40,000 and Jerry’s suggestions helped me concisely explain our value and helped the customer make the right decision.

For you to apply the same lesson, you need to develop short stories (30 seconds or less) that you can pull out of your hip pocket to answer the three questions above.

IMPORTANT: Most people think they already have a great “elevator pitch”. However, STORIES ARE NOT THE SAME THING AS AN “ELEVATOR PITCH”. Elevator pitches are generally all about you. Most of us, that are not naturally gifted at sales, hate to give them and most everyone hates to hear them. Stories are specific examples of how your customers have received a real benefit from doing business with you. In my business today, I hate talking about my services, but I enjoy talking about how my customers have grown their business and how I helped them achieve that success.

Activity: Write a few short stories that follow the outlined format and answer the customer’s three “hidden” questions to “paint a picture” about what you can provide.

• How will the product or service help me (or my company) make money and/or make my life easier?
  
  The Customer Connector example: I can improve sales results through your non-sales people.

• Who has the seller worked with in the past?
  
  The Customer Connector example: I recently completed a project for a large catalog retailer that provided a combination of up-selling and training skills for their customer service representatives.

• What were the results?
  
  The Customer Connector example: The customer ran with the ideas and in one year went from $740,000 to over $1,000,000 in upsell dollars, which represented an average increase from $3.00 to $3.33 per order in additional upsell revenue.

Are you stuck? As you complete this exercise, you probably will notice that you do not understand the business impact you have had for your best customers. If you need help, the next step is to simply ask the question:

• How did (my product or service) impact your business?

Then listen to your customer responses to complete the exercise. Examples that have a specific financial result are the best, but other examples that describe a real benefit can also work.

IMPORTANT: Completion of this activity will give you a core belief in your value, sell without selling, and help your potential customers make the right decision to purchase from you.

Bob Riess is The Customer Connector and can be contacted through www.thecustomerconnector.com or at (859) 240-2550.