Selling Without Being Salesy: The Kind Way to Sell

Sales and Personal Growth

Egy to play in the Major League, it’s counterintuitive that if you just keep doing what you’re doing today, that you’ll just keep growing. But eventually, you hit a ceiling or a wall. What got you here won’t get you there. So, I needed to learn something different. And what he taught me allowed me to double my business in one year.

Presentation Introduction

What’s up, beautiful people? The video you’re about to watch is my presentation that I just did here at RGD Design Thinkers. It’s called Natural Born Seller: To Tap Into Your Natural Gift to Influence and Persuade.

All right, hi, everybody. So happy to be here. I feel like I did something wrong, and I was sent to jail because it’s been like four or five years since I’ve been here. I’m so happy to be here. A couple of different things. Number one is I just realized something, and that I’ve been doing something wrong all my life. I’ve been saying Toronto, and the “T” is silent. It’s so. I’m supposed to come out here and say hello Tana, is that right? Okay, you learn something new every day. Okay, some points there. I’m going to jump right into my presentation here, and hopefully, we’ll have some time for some Q&A.

Observations on Sales and Personality

The first thing I wanted to share with you is I have this observation. This observation is that when we talk about sales, we tend to think that if you’re big, boisterous, extroverted energy, then you do sales. And if I know my people, most designers are introverts. Just by a show of hands, how many people self-identify as introverts? Okay, all right, and everybody else, what are you doing here? Because it’s not real, right? So here’s the problem. The problem I see is that the extroverts are gregarious. They’re Social Butterflies. They have The Gift of Gab, you know what I’m talking about? They can walk into a room full of strangers and strike up a conversation and feel like family right away. And I’m outside in the window looking out in the cold like, how do I do that? ‘Cause I can’t. And they’re Charming. They draw people to them, and they seem to get all the glory. And this is a struggle I think a lot of creative people deal with because you’re in the back room, you’re doing the work, the good work, and you don’t get the reward. I’d like to change that. And perhaps one of some of the most famous salespeople are people on this list, but I want to draw your attention to one person in particular, Jordan Belfort. He’s the The Wolf of Wall Street. You guys have you seen that movie, Leo DiCaprio, Wolf of Wall Street? And so he’s doing all these aggressive things and manipulation and selling a lot of junk bonds. And so we kind of have this impression that you have to be like this to do this. So what about all of us? What are we supposed to do? And I’m here to try to empower creative people to make a living doing what it is they love. So we kind of have to entertain this idea of sales. And I’m not talking about just selling your idea, selling your vision. I’m talking about sales like sitting in front of a client and being able to do a business transaction with them.

Perception of Salespeople

So if I were to ask you all, how do you feel about salespeople? What kind of image would come up to your mind? Maybe they’re very aggressive, manipulative, and we have that classic used car salesperson vibe that we get from them. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been the victim or had to sit through a timeshare sales pitch. I have, it’s horrific. So don’t go for the free breakfast. Nothing in life is free, okay? And I almost bought a Timeshare I didn’t want. So you get this really icky feeling about it. And so if we walk around, we have this impression that to sell is to be like a snake, well then we’re not going to want to do it, or we’re going to have a bad attitude towards doing it. That feels fair, right? If you hate doing something, you’re not going to get good at it. So I think what.

Identifying Obstacles and Solutions

So if you want to be more effective in your skills of persuasion or helping clients achieve that, you have to identify what’s the obstacle or the challenge that’s getting in the way. That’s clear, right? If there’s no obstacle, then there’s no friction; they’re already in the desired future state.

Understanding Spending Behavior

Number two, you have to understand this, that people know this already. You know this as well, that only by spending money will the problem go away. I’ll give you a really basic example. If you need to make a flyer and you don’t have a printer, you know you have to go to a print shop and have it done. If, for whatever reason, your plumbing explodes at your house at a really inconvenient time (and I guess there’s no convenient time), you know that the only way you can do this is either you know how to fix it or you have to call somebody to come to your place and fix it. We have to spend money to make a problem go away. So it doesn’t feel so gross, and people already know this when they’re reaching out to you.

Now, this is a critical piece of information. How much they spend is proportionate to the size of the problem relative to the person who’s buying, not to you, but to them. So what you want to do is you want to start looking for big problems to solve as it relates to the potential buyer of whatever it is that you do. Small problems, small budget; big problems, big budget.

Qualification and Trust Building

Number three, when a prospect reaches out, when they call you, when they shoot you an email, when they slip in your DM, you are already qualified. So many of us feel like, “Oh, how do I prove myself to them? What do I need to say?” The fact that they’re taking out time from their day to reach out to you means they’ve seen enough already. So you don’t need to sell them at all. So at the beginning of the conversation, you have goodwill, and everything that you do afterwards is either going to erode or build on that will to build or diminish trust. Keep this in mind.

Understanding Client Options

Number four, and I think this is something that once you realize, it takes a lot of pressure off your back, and that is not all clients or not all prospects or clients—they have at least three options that I’m aware of. They can hire you, of course, that’s a preferred option; they can hire someone else; or they can do nothing at all. So when I started out my career as an entrepreneur trying to build a design practice, I always felt that there was only one option. Anybody ever feel this, like, “You must hire me”? That’s a lot of pressure to feel to have on that call. So you’re bringing a lot of nervous energy, and it’s going to affect the way you talk, the way you behave, and the way that you listen. So when you realize this is.

Serving Clients with Integrity

Great, because your job on that call, in that meeting, is to help them understand their problem and get clarity about what they need to do so they can make the best decision for themselves. I know you can hire someone else, so let’s have a conversation about what your needs are to see if there’s a potential good fit, and if there is one, that might warrant another conversation. And sometimes, the best thing you could tell them is, “I don’t think you need to do anything at all.” So, we don’t want to sell, what we want to do is we want to help the clients align or decline align with their goals, with their resources, with their outcomes, and get them over their challenges, or to say, “This is not a good fit.” Not a good fit, you don’t have a real problem or you don’t have a problem I can solve.

So, we’re going to make this shift. We’re going to go from being self-centered, talking about what it is that we do, how beautiful the things we make are, and the equipment that we use, or our process. We want to shift away from us to focus on the clients. So, we have to have an attitude or a mindset of serving others. We use this word in two areas that I can think of, usually in church and usually in the military, “Thank you for your service.” We’re willing to do something, put someone else’s needs ahead of ours.

Number two is we want to shift away from giving advice or advising people what to do. And what we want to do is get really good at asking questions. Beautiful open-ended questions which we’ll dig into more a little bit later. We want to shift away from talking and listening more. And you could use this game, whoever asks more questions wins, whoever asks more questions is in control of the relationship. Think about that and then just listen.

The next thing we need to do is when the clients tell us about the last bad experience they had with a creative, what we need to do is we need to look at that and feel that with them and empathize with what they’re going through. We have to empathize in that they have a lot of other problems that they’re dealing with, not just the one that we want them to focus on. And this is how we build meaningful connection with people. And the last part is instead of selling, we want to summarize. So, we want to serve, we want to ask, listen, empathize, and summarize. And that happens to be This Acronym of sales. We’re going to reframe it, have the mindset of service, we’re going to ask more questions, and the cousin asking questions is listening, we want to empathize, and we want to summarize. And if you do this and you follow this exact framework, you’ll never have to sell again or at least you won’t have to sell in the way that feels super salesy.

I was really attracted to this book written by Zoe Chance, and the book is called Influence Is Your Superpower. And so, Zoe posits this idea that we all have this natural ability to influence people pre-language. When you wanted to be fed as a baby, you know what to do. When your diaper was dirty, you knew what to do. So, in a way, then we’re all natural born sellers. And we have to tap back into the energy and maybe set a different example of what it means to sell so that the world doesn’t feel like it’s so icky and gross.

And before I continue on, I have a little confession to make. I’m not a sales trainer, I’m not a sales expert, I haven’t received any formal sales training. In fact, I used to hate selling. I hated it. And I want to do something here. I want to dispel this idea that’s been perpetuated throughout design schools in that if your work is good enough, you won’t need to sell. How many people have heard this? How many people have said this? How many people believe this? Because there’s a lot of you out there. So what happens is if we believe this, then we never acquire the skills that we need to flourish as a business, to have a conversation with business owners, and we’ll always be relegated to the person who works on the box. Nothing wrong with that, I think there’s a lot to love about that, but that should be by choice, not by default.

So I’m going to tell you in a little bit about how I shifted away from hating sales to actually loving it and feeling really good about it. And I’m a bit of a sales nerd, and I only use the word nerd because it allows me to steal a joke from Don McMillan, and I’ll share it with you. Don McMillan is a really a true nerd, he’s a comedian that uses graphs and venn diagrams. So I’m going to show it to you right now. Right, so he says that to be considered a nerd, you have to have three things. You have to be really smart, you have to know what you’re talking about, okay? To be a nerd, you have to be socially awkward, I see all of you. Okay, we’ll just look down at each other, it’s all good. And you have to be really obsessed about certain things, that’s what is required to be a nerd. And I am a sales nerd. Okay, so then he asked this question, like what if you’re really smart and obsessed, what does that make you? That makes you a geek. And what if you’re really smart and

Embracing Quirks and Lessons Learned

You’re socially awkward? Well, that would just make you a dork. So, you know, we can all figure out who’s who in this room in a little bit. Okay, so then the big question is, what if you’re obsessed and socially awkward? That would just make you a stalker. See how he makes use of this beautiful diagram? So, this is kind of where we all net out. You’ll have to figure out whether you’re a nerd, geek, dork, or a stalker. It’s okay if you are one or the other, I won’t judge you.

So then you might be sitting there asking yourself, “Well, if he doesn’t know anything, he’s not an expert, he’s not been trained, why am I here teaching you or talking about sales?” Well, because I think it’s a critical skill for you to have that’s going to take you to the next level. And My Story begins here. I started my design firm in 1995 and in 2002 something seismic changes my life, everything is different from this point.

I meet my first and only business coach, he since passed away, his name is Kier McLaren. And Kier asked me about my sales process. And to give you some context, back when I was working, I’m like five, six years into my business at this point, and I’m getting to a certain point and I’m feeling really good about how it is that I’m able to do what I do. So, he’s like, “So what’s the problem then?” I said, “Here, I feel like I’m hitting a financial ceiling that every job where we bid above $200,000, our win rate drops down to about one in every five jobs. It was horrible because it was extremely demoralizing. I just felt like I was throwing stuff at the wall and nothing was working, and it was just really bad for the morale for the team and everybody.” And it turns out, I had been doing everything wrong. Everything wrong. And I was just shocked when he told me, “Chris, how this is how you’ve learned how to do sales?” “Yeah, because no one ever taught me.”

So, here’s the big lesson that I learned. He said that when you get to a certain level in your life and you’re working on projects north of $200,000, you have to understand something. The clients can hire anybody in the entire world. They can literally hire anybody from the UK, from Canada, from Asia. So your level of competition has completely changed, you know that right? I said, “No, I didn’t.” So he said, “You’re using a minor league strategy to play in the Major League.” I was like, “Whoa, oh my gosh, okay.” So it’s counterintuitive that if you just keep doing what you’re doing today that you’ll just keep growing, but eventually you’ll hit a ceiling or a wall. So, what got you here won’t get you there. So I needed to learn something totally different. And what he taught me allowed me to double my business in one year. So in 2002, we’re doing 2 million plus in revenue, gross revenue, not in profit. And this is what it looks like here. So we’re doing about $2.2 million, and in the course of one year, I think it was three conversations, three coaching sessions I had with Kier that allowed us to almost double our revenue to $3.9 million. Never looked back. It increased our close rate from 20% to 75%, to a point in which I felt like, there’s no job I cannot close if it’s a legitimate buyer who has a need and a problem and they’re legitimate considering multiple options. Put me on a call with them, I would close that job.

So I’m going to circle back now, I’m going to tell you five stories and hopefully there will be some learnings here for you. Number one is OES. OES is this amazing fishing lodge on the other side of Canada, it’s on the West Central Coast of Canada and I went there and it’s this beautiful thing. You fly into this remote fishing location where there’s more trees than people and all of civilization disappears and it’s a wonderful thing. I love to do this, and I meet the general manager, that’s him, his name is Ernie. I like to think of him as a Canadian Crocodile Dundee, complete with a Bowie knife. It’s the knife, right there.

Fishing Trip and Opportunity

Behind his hand, by the way, okay, and this is where you spend all this time, and towards the end of our trip, it’s like a 4-day fishing trip where we literally live on that Lodge, never touch feet on the ground again for 4 days. One of my fishing buddies, somebody I had just met, a guy named Jeff, says, “Chris, with all that you know how to do with design and marketing and all that, you know how to do, I bet you Oles could really use you right now.” I’m like, “Yeah.” He goes, “Did you ever think about talking to them?” And this is me pre-learning how to do sales. I’m like, “Yeah, but I don’t know what to say.” He goes, “Yeah, I’m gonna go talk to him. I’m going to get you the gig, and we’ll work together.” And so he goes into the lodge. It’s the last day; we’re waiting for our plane to come in. He goes into the lodge, he sits down. I can only see from the outside, very much like the introvert way to do things, looking through the window. I’m like, “What is he doing?” They talk, there’s some nodding. I’m like, “Oh shoot,” and I started to get upset at myself. I’m like, “If I had the courage and the skills, I wouldn’t have to have Jeffrey go in there and talk to Ernie for me so that he can take most of the money and pay me something. Is that… can you touch a sore spot here, everybody?” So he comes out, he looks at me, I’m like, and he’s like, and what I’m like, “So did you get it?” He goes, “No, what did he say?” He goes, “I didn’t know how to ask him.” I’m like, “Some people all talk, right?” Okay, so here’s the thing. I went back into that room, and I sat down with Ernie, and I knew time is drawing close here because I feel like the engine of the airplane’s coming. I could hear it roaring in the distance. I’m like, “Shoot, now’s your moment, this is it.” So I asked Ernie something. He said, “Ernie, I love being here. This is an incredible place. You must be booked solid all the time.” And then Ernie pauses and he looks at me. He goes, “Actually, that’s not the case. Our season’s getting shorter.” Season getting shorter because it’s not fishable? He goes, “No, because there are fewer people booking fishing trips.” And he told me something. He says, “Our clientele are literally dying because they’re all older, and eventually, they die, and they don’t have a way to attract young people so they can’t replenish their clientele.” And then this is…I saw an opening, and it was like the skies had parted. My gosh, a wonderful place, I love it, and they’re getting fewer and fewer clients. So I told Ernie this thing. I said, “Ernie, I don’t know if you know this, but in the outside world, the real world, I work in marketing and design. I would love to help you. Does this warrant an additional conversation?” He goes, “Chris, I’d love to talk to you.” So we exchanged information, and eventually, a year later, I wind up doing a bunch of projects for them, including a video marketing ad, everything. So the learning from this story is that you have to have the courage just to ask. You have to have a conversation with a person, and that’s all it is, just to have a conversation to find out something that they want help.

Identifying Pain Points and Offering Solutions

With the current state, our seasons are getting shorter, clients are literally dying, so I don’t know what to do. I’ve done too many things, and nothing seems to be working. And once you find that pain, you can ask for an additional meeting or for the sale. Make sense? If you’re enjoying this video, I just want to ask you to hit like, make a comment, and possibly hit subscribe. So what I would love for you to do tonight, tomorrow, whatever it is, that you have an opportunity to learn to ask questions with the intention of just learning about what it is that somebody’s trying to accomplish and find out what is holding them back. It could be a mental state, it could be a tool or resource, and just try to serve them to get in the practice of learning how to do sales the correct way. And you need to do this in practice before you actually stand in front of a real client because when you stand in front of a real client, you have all the habits you’ve had, and you’ll try to pitch and sell, and you’ll forget everything we talked about today. Is that clear? Okay, please try to do that, and you’ll start to see there’s a whole new way of doing this, and all of a sudden, you’ll start to become the most interesting person to the person you’re talking to because you know what people love? They love attention. It’s all about me, so give them more attention and see what happens. So don’t pitch and don’t sell.

The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

Story number two, have you guys read this book, The Win Without Pitching Manifesto? If you haven’t, I highly encourage that you go pick up a copy of this book today. I’m not affiliated with Blair Enns in any way. I’ve helped him sell lots of books. He’s Canadian as well. Read the book, study the book, then act on the book. So I had this idea since there are 12 proclamations, these manifestos that Blair has written. I asked him on a social media audio room called Clubhouse, “Hey, why don’t we do 12 nights of The Win Without Pitching Manifesto? Each night, we’ll deconstruct one of the manifestos.” Right? He’s like, “That’s a lot of nights, Chris.” I’m like, “You want to do this or no?” So we wind up doing these calls. Just out of curiosity, was anybody in Clubhouse Live for any one of those calls? Okay, there’s like seven or eight people in there. Cool. That’s kind of the fate of Clubhouse, anyways. It’s all right. Okay, so with Blair, what was happening was he was describing a bunch of different things, and we went into this roleplay mode where we asked people to pitch to a sales expert. And Blair is kind of dry and a little cantankerous, so I knew this is going to be comedy gold here as you get a bunch of awkward designers trying to pitch Blair something, and they tried and burned each and every single one of them. And you know what I did in conversation? I turned to Blair virtually and said, “Hey, Blair, you know, I noticed something. I love the design of your books. You use these cloth-covered books. It feels so well designed. And I’ve seen some of your presentations. It feels different to me. Are you happy with the way that’s going?” He goes, “No.” “What about the printed materials that support your workshops? Are you happy?” He’s like, “No.” I said, “Is this a problem you’d like to have solved? Because I think I might know people to help you.” He goes, “Absolutely.” Now, my friends who were on the call knew exactly what was happening because they’re signaling to me in the DM like, “Dude, you’re selling him right now, aren’t you?” I’m like, “Yes, but don’t say anything.” And Blair did not even know I was just pretending he was ready to buy a service from me. And then what happened was we would end the conversation, I told him.

Sales Conversations and Problem-Solving

And he laughed. He goes, “See, that’s what sales sounds like. It sounds like a conversation between two friends, and that’s what it’s supposed to be like.” So what you want to do in a sales conversation is you want to manufacture problems. You want to find something that they already really care about. So it was an observation. Neutral language, lots of open-ended questions because I didn’t want to lead him anywhere. I didn’t say, “I’ve seen your marketing materials, and they suck.” I just said, “I noticed a difference between what I love and what you’re doing now.” So I know many of you might do this, especially if you’re a little bit more aggressive. You slip into the DMs and say, “Hey, look at your website. I’m a big fan. It sucks. You want to hire me?” No, you’re rude. I’m just going to delete that and block you right now. So when you have this conversation, hopefully, a problem surfaces that you can help them with, and you can flow really seamlessly into a solution and propose something. Selling is conversational.

Fitness Coach Sales Funnel

Story number three, this is not what he really looks like, but he looks a lot like this person. If you know who I’m talking about, you’ll know in a second. So I’m friends with a graphic designer who’s turned into a fitness coach. Kind of looks like this. Okay, and I noticed something. He shifted his career from designing logos to just working out, and he’s very fit, six-pack, eight-pack abs, the whole bit. And I noticed something. He posted something on social media and says, “Hey, I have a resource that I want to give to three people. If you need help with getting fit.” I was like, “I know you.” So I reached out to him on Facebook like, “Hey, I’m interested. I need some help.” And then he DM’d me right back, and he said, “Are you serious or just curious?” Yeah, I’m really serious. I’m trying to get that six-pack abs. I don’t know if it’s possible, but I am really serious. Okay, so he then scheduled a call with me, and I was a little surprised because I thought I was going to get a free resource, of what he said, and I didn’t know it, but I stepped into a sales funnel. And those of you who are hearing this story are like, “Dude, I could see it a mile away.” Well, to me, I didn’t, because it felt conversational between two friends. So we get on the phone, we do a Zoom call, and he asked me, “Why is getting fit really important to you?” I said, “Well, I need energy. I want to be a positive role model for my kids, and I’m vain. I want to look good in the clothes that I have. I’m just telling you the truth.” He goes, “Okay, well…” So he gets into this whole thing, and he asked me one more question. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is getting fit to you?” I said, “It’s eight.” And here’s the thing that he did that I wasn’t expecting. He goes, “Why is the score not lower? Why is it not a six or five?” I said, “Well, I just told you it’s really important. I believe in action, and I want to make sure my kids have a positive role model to follow, and I want to be able to do this for a really long time. I’m 51 years old, and I want to do this for another 10 years at least. I know my energy is related to how fit I feel.” Notice what he just did there. He asked me to tell him what’s important to me, and he made me prove to him how important it was by asking me, “Why isn’t the score lower?” Tony Robbins talks about this. The number one driving character or behavior for people is the need to be consistent with ourselves. He didn’t sell me anything. He just kept asking me, “Why is this so important? Why not do something else?” And he got into the emotional part of it, not the data-driven part, because he also knows that people buy based on emotions, not on facts. So by asking the right questions, the clients will sell themselves. This is what I mean to sell without being salesy. It’s the art of having conversation and asking big, beautiful, wonderful questions in service of other people.

Designer’s Plight

Story number four is Carrie. That’s not her real name. Carrie called me in a panic. She goes, “Chris, I’m just really tired and frustrated at what’s happening.” And she told me that there was another designer who was in the same coaching community as her who was ripping off her website, her language, and talking about doing brand strategy. And every time she gets a conversation with a prospect, what happens is she’s underbid.

Taking Control of Sales Conversations

Every single time, at less than half of what she’s proposing, and she didn’t know what else to do, and it really affected her. She was the primary breadwinner for her family. Okay, so they said, “Carrie, if you see the problem more than once, whose fault is it? Is it their fault or is it your fault?” If you see the problem more than once, well, of course, it’s her fault. She hadn’t changed her game at all. So I gave her some clear instructions. I said, “You know what I want you to do? I want you to raise the objection first at the start of the call. If you know every single time it’s going to be about money, say this before we get started: ‘I just want to let you know, I’m most likely going to be the highest person who’s going to bid on this. Is your primary decision based on how cheap it is or based on price?'” And so I told her to do something: flip the conversation, take the power back, tell the person they should talk to other people first, and if they find out what they need, there’s no need to have this conversation with you at all. And I said, “But before you let them go, I want you to educate the client about what to look for, what are the warning signs that somebody doesn’t know what they’re talking about?” She goes, “Oh, I could do that.” I said, “Yeah, yeah, it’s called Throwing Shade on your competition, duh, come on.” And then you end it with this super powerful move and say, “Call me only if you don’t feel fully confident in the options that you have.” Here’s the crazy thing: Carrie gets a lot of sales calls. So she got someone who called the very next day. This very same day. And then she calls me back the next day, she goes, “Chris, you won’t believe what happened.” I’m like, “What?” “I did what you told me to do, and they’re not calling me back.” I’m like, “So, what’s a surprise?” I said, “Just wait it out. It may not work out, who knows?” And then, surprise, surprise, a couple of days later, the same client reaches out and says, “You know what? I asked them the questions, they didn’t give me good answers. I don’t feel good about this. Let’s talk.” And in making this one change, Carrie then went on for the next year to double her revenue. And she said, “I’ve made more money in four or five months than I have all of last year doing this one thing.” So, sadly, Carrie and I stopped talking. She’s just too busy with work, go figure.

Perfect Sales Pitch

Okay, last story I want to share with you is the most perfect sales pitch I’ve ever heard in my life, and I want to share it with you. Okay, all right. So we usually work with sales reps, and we wanted to try something different. And this person I’ve never talked to would get on the phone, and he goes, “Chris, do you know what we do?” I’m like, “No.” He says, “Can I have a few minutes to tell you what we do?” I’m like, “Sure, sure, go ahead.” He goes, “What we do is we take away the pain point of what you’re feeling. Let me make a wild guess here. When you work with sales reps, it takes too long to see results. It could take three or four months before you find out if you’re going to get any new leads. And the way that sales reps work traditionally is they knock on doors, they make calls. You have no idea what they’re doing, how they’re doing. All you do is get a bill every month for the money that they’re spending, and you’re paying them the retainer. And then if you don’t like what you get with them, you have to start over, and you’re going to burn another three

Understanding Client Pain Points and Building Credibility

Months, so what is this really costing you? I’m like, wow, this was incredible, and I don’t know what he said after that, but all I knew is we hired him because he spoke to me. He touched on my pain points. It felt like he was looking into my soul, and this is the tool that you can use without getting into too much of the gory details.

So, if you can identify the top three pain points your clients have all the time, try this one technique. Bring it up at the beginning. Say something like this, “Whenever I speak to customers or clients just like you, they usually tell me their top three biggest problems are,” and then fill in the blanks. Just try it and see what happens. Okay, now what you want to do is if you don’t have enough data, don’t do this. If you’ve been in business for some time and you keep hearing certain things, then you can do it. So, don’t guess, be specific. And if you’re able to nail this, it’s an instant credibility builder.

And then when you’re done saying it, ask this one question, “Is that right?” And what you’re looking for is, “That’s right.” Okay, a couple of things you can do to prepare for this next sales call. So, here are things you may want to take a photograph of this, you don’t need to, but ask yourself this question: What pain does your client experience that’s functional, financial, or emotional? Just workshop it with yourself. You need to figure this stuff out, and you should if you’ve been in business long enough. You will know the answer to this question.

Number two, what negative outcomes are your clients fearful of or trying to avoid?

Number three, this is the important one, what objections or accusations might new clients raise with you? Most likely they’re going to raise issues about experience, um, vertical expertise, about price, probably about timeline, and about the size of your team. It’s usually one of those five things. So, what you want to do is you want to write them down, and you want to start thinking about what the answer is going to be, prepare for this.

So here’s a quick reminder: Sales is not convincing, it’s not persuading, it’s not manipulation. Selling is helping. It’s about being curious. Selling is learning. Selling is an act of generosity. So that’s a lot to remember in process. So serve, ask, listen, empathize, and summarize. I just want you to focus on the two key skills. You don’t need to know anything else. If you can do these two, asking and listening, you’ll nail this thing. So focus on these two things. To me, when you ask a really good question, it’s like magic. You open the person’s mind.

And there’s a great book, I don’t know if you read it, it’s called “The Coaching Habit,” and there’s a framework in there that Michael Bungay Stanier talks about. I’ll share the questions with you, but I didn’t realize this is an amazing sales coaching book. It’s not, it’s about something else. But as I read it, I’m like, “That’s how I sell, this is perfect.” Number one, he says, “Be slower to give advice. Ask more questions. Be curious longer.” And here are the six or seven questions that he has, and the ones that I highlighted for you is, “What’s on your mind?” And then you keep asking, “And what else? And what else?” And then you ask, “What’s the real challenge for you?”

On a sales training call I did with my group, I literally just read the script, and I didn’t even respond to anything the other person said. I just literally went down the list and, like, that was amazing, Chris. I’m like, “Thank you, I just read a script, here’s a script, you can use it too, it works.” So if you’re terrible, just literally read the script. Okay, the next thing you need to know is if you ask because you don’t listen, the question is worthless. And people do this all the time, and you, they’ll do this later today with you. They’ll ask you a question about what, how your life is going, and then their eyes will be somewhere else. They don’t really care. So you have to listen. They’re twins, asking and listening. So you want to do this thing that Kevin Dye talks about. It’s called full value listening. Full value listening is whatever the other person says is the most important thing you’ve ever heard. You have to listen with great attention to detail, with what they’re saying and to feel what they’re feeling. The mistake that I’m talking about here is when you ask a question, they give you an answer, the very next.

Sales Techniques and Strategies

Months, so what is this really costing you? I’m like, “Wow, this was incredible,” and I don’t know what he said after that, but all I knew is we hired him because he spoke to me, he touched on my pain points. It felt like he was looking into my soul, and this is the tool that you can use without getting into too much of the gory details. So, if you can identify the top three pain points your clients have all the time, try this one technique. Bring it up at the beginning, say something like this: “Whenever I speak to customers or clients just like you, they usually tell me their top three biggest problems are,” and then fill in the blanks. Just try it and see what happens, okay? Now, what you want to do is if you don’t have enough data, don’t do this. If you’ve been in business for some time and you keep hearing certain things, then you can do it. So don’t guess, be specific. And if you’re able to nail this, it’s an instant credibility builder. And then when you’re done saying it, ask this one question: “Is that right?” And what you’re looking for is, “That’s right.” Okay, a couple of things you can do to prepare for this next sales call. So here are things you may want to take a photograph of this. You don’t need to, but ask yourself this question: What pain does your client experience that’s functional, financial, or emotional? Just workshop it with yourself. You need to figure this stuff out, and you should if you’ve been in business long enough. You will know the answer to this question. Number two: What negative outcomes are your clients fearful of or trying to avoid? Number three: This is the important one. What objections or accusations might new clients raise with you? Most likely, they’re going to raise issues about experience, vertical expertise, about price, probably about timeline, and about the size of your team. It’s usually one of those five things. So what you want to do is you want to write them down, and you want to start thinking about what the answer is going to be. Prepare for this. So here’s a quick reminder: Sales is not convincing, it’s not persuading, it’s not manipulation. Selling is helping. It’s about being curious. Selling is learning. Selling is an act of generosity. So that’s a lot to remember in process. So serve, ask, listen, empathize, and summarize. I just want you to focus on the two key skills. You don’t need to know anything else. If you can do these two, asking and listening, you’ll nail this thing. So focus on these two things to me. When you ask a really good question, it’s like magic. You open the person’s mind. And there’s a great book. I don’t know if you read it. It’s called “The Coaching Habit,” and there’s a framework in there that Michael Bungay Stanier talks about. I’ll share the questions with you, but I didn’t realize this is an amazing sales coaching book. It’s not. It’s about something else. But in it, as I read it, I’m like, “That’s how I sell. This is perfect.” Number one, he says, “Be slower to give advice. Ask more questions. Be curious longer.” And here are the six or seven questions that he has. And the ones that I highlighted for you is, “What’s on your mind?” And then you keep asking, “And what else? And what else?” And then you ask, “And what’s the real challenge for you?” On a sales training call I did with my group, I literally just read the script, and I didn’t even respond to anything the other person said. I just literally went down the list, and like, that was amazing, Chris. I’m like, “Thank you.” I just read a script. Here’s a script you can use it too. It works. So if you’re terrible, just literally read the script. Okay, the next thing you need to know is if you ask because you don’t listen, the question is worthless. And people do this all the time. And you, they’ll do this later today with you. They’ll ask you a question about how your life is going, and then their eyes will be somewhere else. They don’t really care. So you have to listen. They’re twins: asking and listening. So you want to do this thing that Kevin Diaki talks about. It’s called full value listening. Full value listening is whatever the other person says is the most important thing you’ve ever heard. You have to listen with great attention to detail, with what they’re saying and to feel what they’re feeling. The mistake that I’m talking about here is when you ask a question, they give you an answer. The very next question should be a follow-up to the answer they gave you. That’s how you know you’re listening. And I see this happen all the time. Somebody asks a question, you get an answer, and then just ask a totally different question, unrelated to the first question, because then you feel like, “Oh, I think you’re reading a script right now.” And unfortunately, this is how most podcasters interview people. They have 75 questions, they literally just go from question to question. And when they do this to me, I’m bored out of my mind. Okay, so there’s a stack here. You start with the current state when you’re listening, like, what is going on right now in their life? Okay, cool. I get that. What is the desired future state? Where would they like to go? What kind of transformation, what kind of result, what kind of change do they want? And what is standing in their way? How would they measure success? What is valuable to them? If you can find out what this is, you’re going to do a great job at it. And then when you hear all these things, you’re going to process it. You’re going to do something that Kevin refers to as playing back and summarizing. And it’s very important that you use the same words that they use. If they say, “I’m really fatigued with this thing,” don’t say, “You’re really tired.” Say, “Fatigued.” You’re using exact same language because language is important and it matters. You change the word, you change the meaning of it. And then when you summarize all of this stuff, you say, “Did I miss anything? Is this correct?” It’s an opportunity for you to learn new information. And then, “Nope, I think you got it all.” Here’s how you close the sale. You ask a hypothetical question. We all love asking hypothetical questions. An if-then question. So what I heard you say was blah, blah, blah. So if you saw a solution that did this, this, and that, in this time, for this amount of money, then you would be willing to move forward. And you’re waiting for an emphatic yes. Not a pregnant pause, not a strained yes, an emphatic yes. When you get the emphatic yes, you say, “I’ll have a proposal to

you by end of business day today. I’ll follow up with you tomorrow. Is that okay?” So you’ve gone through the problem. You talked about the price. You’ve gotten verbal agreement from them that this is how they want to move forward. And you won’t realize how powerful this is in terms of them committing to their own words and ideas. That’s the secret. So I found this quote from Jeffrey Gitomer. “Don’t tell your customers something they don’t know about you. Tell them something they don’t know about them.” That’s a big unlock. Asking great questions will give you an unfair legal competitive advantage. If you make a practice of this, you’ll start to see your close ratio go up, the budgets go up, and your friction go down. So here are some quick here’s some resources for you. People always ask for the book list. There it is. Take a picture. And I have a little scorecard for you. And then I’m going to get off stage. I can’t believe I did this on time. Here we go. Here’s your question scorecard. Every time you advise, talk, make an assumption, you’re ambiguous with your questions, and you’re being too assertive with your tone, take away a point. This is how you decrease trust and goodwill and how you kill rapport. Every time you ask a big, beautiful, smart, specific question, every time you listen intently and play back what you’ve heard, every time you ask a question that is full of curiosity, that’s focused on the client’s needs and not yours, every time you ask a clear…

Q&A Session and Reflections on Selling

Thank you very much, everybody. That’s my time. We got time? We have time for some questions. Yeah, we have two minutes. Um, folks, you can send in some questions for Chris, type quickly if you head to Instagram in the stories, there’s a question box, but I have one already, which is amazing, so someone was fast. What is a mistake that you’ve learned from when it comes from selling? Turning this on you, I’ll tell you, before I learned how to sell, I did something terrible. I thought it was my job to tell the clients what I think they should have, and it did this amount own detriment. So I’d get on the phone, they would describe the brief, and I’d start immediately pitching ideas. We could do this, we could shoot it with this camera and use these lenses and sequence it this way, and like thanks, they hang out the phone, and I’m like, “I don’t know why they never called me back. I don’t know what happened.” So it’s making a lot of assumption and not being curious. That’s the biggest mistake. Do you sometimes think that clients do need you to tell them what to do though? I’m thinking about my own experiences. Yeah, eventually, but I try to make it as painful as possible for them to do all the talking, and I will tell them this when I first learned how to ask these questions and the big sales unlock mystery thing. It was like, “Wow.” I tell them I’m going to talk to you, I’m going to ask you lots of questions, and it might be really uncomfortable, but it’s important for me to understand what your needs are, what inspires you, what a win looks like, where it’s failed, where you’ve succeeded, so I can give you a solution that is tailored for you, and they accept that. So a 30-minute call turns into a 90-minute call, and we’re all exhausted, and you will be exhausted if you’re doing this correctly. But here’s the beautiful thing about this is you only then propose one solution. So back before I learned how to do this, we would pitch and we would do 17 different ideas, 17 different logos, three different storyboards. See, we don’t know, we had no idea. So it’s just a guessing game. Yeah, what are you thinking about in your own business right now when it comes to selling? Well, that’s a good question. I think I did my job right. This is what he needed me to come out and do. Yeah, I don’t think I’m selling anymore. What I do is I try to create content. Okay, I know what it is. Okay, here’s my strategy for selling: make content so good, give it all away for free, as much as possible, with no strings, no funnels, no email traps to guilt you into buying something. That’s it. That’s the secret. There’s a gentleman here who’s working backstage. He goes, “Hey, I just had to say thank you to you for my friend who literally made a million dollars watching your content.” I’m like, “Tell him to send me a check, a million dollars.” She’s like, “Literally, a million dollars. I haven’t seen the check yet. I don’t know, not feeling so guilty.” Are there specific things about selling you are thinking about though? You obviously think about this a lot beyond what you’ve presented. What are you sort of rolling around in your mind? I’m trying to sell you something. Yeah, or even just the sort of like ethos about selling, has anything changed in your thinking in the last little bit? Not changed, but it continues to evolve. And I think if I try to help whoever’s in front of me, all of you or you, to the best of my ability, the selling has begun, it really has. And here’s the weird thing. I’ll just tell this, and I realized we’re out of time. I just finished doing a workshop in Miami with no intention of selling them anything. And all of a sudden, people were like, “I want to buy more from you.” Like, “Oh, okay, let me figure this thing out.” I wasn’t even trying. That’s the most beautiful part of this. So if you help somebody, so if I’m trying to sell you, I would just really get into whatever your business is, and I bet you I can figure something out with you and tell you something you didn’t know. And to that, you’ll start to feel an emotional connection with me. Right now, I feel like it’s a challenge. I’m not doing it right, my FM DJ voice. All right, folks, give it up for Chris one more time. Thank you.