What moves the needle?
There’s only one thing that amateur salespeople love more than Hopium.. and that is wasting time playing “What if?”
🤡: What if the prospect complains to management that I’m not showing them the demo upfront?
🤡: What if I give the prospect a reason not to buy that they hadn’t thought of and they end up not buying?
🤡: What if I say this and the prospect says [insert unlikely response]?
This is peak mental gymnastics and happens because you lose sight of what matters.
You lose sight of what matters because of emotion and/or ignorance (you didn’t know what matters in the first place)
It is a fools errand to try and worry about plan for every single possible scenario that can happen in your deals. You are better served by focusing on the things that move the needle.
This applies to everything in Life.
Take fitness and getting strong for example.. There’s a reason the top minds in the industry like @BowTiedOx talk about focusing most of your energy on progressive overload and eating sensibly.. they are the Pareto Principle of that world. They provide the best effort/reward ratio.
Sales is the same. Only a handful of things will move the needle in a meaningful way.
You are wasting your time & energy playing “What if?” for the rare scenarios. Instead, you should be planning for the most *common* scenarios and the things that move the needle.
This is how you win.
Mastering Common scenarios
Contrary to popular belief, Prospects are predictable.
There are finite reasons the prospect won’t buy from you. And the good thing is you already know what they are. You hear them every day at your job.
The smart salespeople will take note of all the objections they hear from prospects and sort the most common ones into “themes”.. for example:
Theme 1 - Complexity
“Your platform is overkill for what we need”
“How easy will it be to pull reports?”
“Your competitors have simpler solutions”
“How can we manage the transformation & implementation of such a complex software?”
Theme 2 - Capabilities
“How will it integrate with our current environment?”
“What happens if your API integration fails to populate the data?”
“How accurate will the reporting & analytics be?”
“What guarantees do you have on bounce rates?”
Theme 3 - Pricing
“You guys are so much more expensive than your competitors”
“Do you offer flexible billing?”
“Do we have to sign a yearly contract?”
Pause for a second.
Do you believe your competitors are preparing like this? Probably not.
Once you’ve grouped the objections & scenarios into themes, you can then focus your energy on the “how to” of dealing with them.. which is carefully thinking through your prepared responses and then role playing so dealing with them in the moment comes naturally. Role playing is critical because there will be variations of your most common scenarios and you’ll want to stay sharp.
You should be responding to these common scenarios with nonchalance and a sort of bored tone which implies Mastery:
If you want help preparing for these scenarios then you can learn more about my sales methodology here.
What actually matters
There are a few principles that if strictly adhered to will contribute the most to your sales success:
Always Control the Frame
Always be High Status
Focus on their PROBLEMS not your solutions
Always quantify their business problems
Always find out their personal motivations
The closer you follow and implement these 5 principles, the better off you will be. For more reading on these 5 principles you can read my thread here:
Take the leap of faith
Did you ever believe that one day you’d be using sales advice from a random cartoon character online? Probably not.
If someone would’ve told me that one day I’d be a cartoon helping people increase their sales I probably would have believed it considering I’ve always been a bit.. eccentric.
Getting to the next level demands that you acquire uncommon knowledge. And by definition uncommon knowledge is “risky”.. you are diving head first into the unknown.. but that’s where the biggest rewards are.
You have to put your head down and ruthlessly execute on good advice.
You have to “shut up” and listen to those who know more than you do.
You have to take the leap of faith.
Stop consuming the same “best selling” books as your competition.
Stop playing yourselves.
The Sky is the limit
So what’s possible for you if you take the leap of faith? Just ask @BowTiedRedDeer:
I remember when Red Deer began his role. He was struggling to find his footing just like any other newbie.
The traditional sales advice he was given wasn’t working. The gurus & management failed him.
So he turned to the cartoons, and in less than a year he became a top performer. I’m proud of Red Deer and look forward to seeing him reach new heights.
Take the leap of faith, anon.
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Gold as usual
Alfa only