Let’s be clear…
Nowhere in the title did I say you can sell “anything to anybody”
You may be surprised to hear others are making that claim.
… Because it’s STUPID.
I don’t care how good you are at selling.
Ain’t nobody gonna sell me a One Direction T-Shirt.
Yet, here’s the Google results for “how to sell anything”
It’s a nice idea in dreamland, but the real world isn’t like that.
Your first step is qualifying.
Is there interest? And then work from there.
Let’s talk about selling pens for a second…
This is a selling challenge used in business seminars across the country.
SELL ME THIS PEN!!
The idea is that if you can sell a pen, you can sell anything.
The Wolf of Wall Street made this challenge even more popular.
Dicaprio (playing Jordan Belfort) calmly asks “sell me this pen.”
Without fail, the recipient babbles on…
- “this pen looks cool”
- “I personally love this pen”
- “the design of this pen…”
The sales dummy gets the pen ripped from his hands, and Dicaprio starts it all over again with a new victim.
So how the heck do you sell a pen?
What are these guys missing?
The secret is that you don’t actually sell the pen. You let the customers sell it to themselves.
When you try too hard to convince someone, they feel threatened.
You look stupid.
Jordan Belfort (Wolf of Wall Street) was asked, “Okay, so how would you sell a pen?”
This is the guy that made $50 million per year selling on Wall Street.
Got a huge blockbuster film named after him.
…And yeah, ended up in prison for 22 months. But the dude still knows how to sell.
Mr Belfort’s answer: The first thing you DO NOT want to do is try and sell a pen to someone that doesn’t want a pen. That’s just stupid.
You need to qualify the prospect.
How long have you been in the market for a pen?
That’s what you ask.
If there’s no interest and obvious, blunt refusal.
Move on.
Why waste time on an uphill battle? Especially in marketplaces with loads of potential customers.
When the prospect indicates interest, that’s when you need to implement your sales skills.
Belfort likes to call this the straight line approach.
My name for it is the “3 Steps to Sale”
First Step — Getting in the Door
This is what starts the initial interest.
You need to find or attract prospects.
Either way works.
Option 1) Find out where prospects hang out.
Put your “interesting offer” in front of them.
This is simple and obviously easy for physical products.
Option 2) Build interest and create prospects.
You do this by having an interesting headline or message that converts indifferent strangers into curious observers.
My favourite way to build interest is with open loops.
An open loop is incomplete information to something of interest.
TV shows do this all the time. They want you to keep watching, so they hint at something interesting about to happen, and then say “tune in next week to find out.”
Pretty clever.
I use open loops at the start of my funnel, to get people in the door and on my email list.
Take a look at the introduction to my email list:
The headline reads “Simple Two Step Formula… This is Weird, But it works!”
There’s actually two open loops here.
The first one is “two steps”
Begs the obvious question “what two steps?”
The second is “this is weird”
Curious observers, at this point, are wondering, “what the heck is so weird about it?”
Second Step — Value Connection + Eliminating Doubt
By this stage, you have prospect(s) that have indicated some form of interest.
With my landing page, new prospects give me their email.
In the brick and mortar space, an indication of interest may literally be a walk into your business place.
There’s an important framing distinction here.
You want to pre-frame the sale, like they’re the one’s looking to buy.
The mistake most sellers make is that they give off the odour of selling too much. That gives prospects the impression that it’s in the sellers best interest that you buy.
You need to convince them that it’s in THEIR best interest.
You do that by asking (aka qualifying) what problem they have.
For example, I would ask “why aren’t you making money online?”
What I’m selling is make money online coaching.
You’ll get a whole range of responses.
Whatever problems the prospect has, you need to either solve or comfort with your solution.
Let’s look at a few scenarios:
#1 — Non-Trusting Prospect.
Let’s say, theoretically, they have been burned with past coaching experiences.
Your sales approach needs to focus on comforting them, and making it clear they will not get burned with you. In this case, I would giveaway a bunch of PRO tips, to demonstrate the immense value of my product. Now they know I’m not here to pull a fast one on them.
It would also help to mention if you’ve been on the receiving end in a similar situation. So if I’ve also been burned making a similar buying decision. I would mention, “I know what you mean, I had the same thing happen to me.”
You’re actually relating yourself to them. People like to buy from someone they know and trust. When you relate with them — prospects trust you more.
#2 — Information Overload.
Sometimes prospects will say they’ve tried making money with Amazon, list building, E-commerce, Kindle Publishing, etc. And nothing seems to work.
In this case, I would say that they are overcomplicating things. The reason many people fail online is because of information overload. It can actually be very simple to make money online. My coaching program shows you the easiest way, and it’s all step-by-step.
The reason for this approach is because this prospect is clearly showing some fear or distrust, due to failing at so many things already. You want to make it clear, that this taste-tasting approach to marketing is the culprit, and you can help them eradicate that problem.
What About Selling a Pen?
Physical products are even more straightforward to sell.
You simply qualify what a prospect is looking for.
So you would ask, “how long have you been in the market for a pen?”
Then you’d go more specific. Further inquiry like “what would you like to see in a pen?”
Once you’ve gathered what your prospect wants, you simply give to them that thing at a price.
Sounds simple, right?
Why does it work?
Let’s talk about two POWERFUL persuasion principles.
- The Continuity Principle
- The Consistency Principle
The Continuity Principle is the idea that when a prospect makes a commitment in something or someone, they feel a pressure to continue further with their commitment.
The power of this is insane.
This is why you see A-Level marketers with sales funnels that start with a cheap product.
The cheap initial offer gets customers in the door.
Then once they’ve made that buying decision, the clever marketer offers more expensive upsells.
While many of those customers would never have bought the upsell first, they are more likely to do so now, because they’ve made a commitment to seller/program.
The cool part is that a commitment does not need to be a sale.
It can also be a subscription, conversation or walk in the door.
With my business, I start with a lead capture page, and then get the sale afterwards.
The subscription into my brand is the first commitment.
Once I have a subscriber’s email address, I send them out many emails.
One of them looks like this:
The purpose of this email is to get the second commitment.
In this case, I’m asking for a REPLY.
Every subscriber that replies to this email will have made multiple commitments to me.
They are now fully in the door.
Now, before I do anything else, I help them with whatever question they have.
After I’ve helped them, I let them know I have coaching. And ask whether they’re interested.
I’ve responded to them, so it’s just common decency to respond back.
With these conversations, I can qualify and figure exactly what is holding my subscriber’s back.
And you guessed it, most of their problems, I can find a way to solve with either my coaching or with an affiliate solution.
All you have to do is walk prospects down the continuity line.
The Wolf of Wall Street calls this the “Straight Line of Persuasion.”
The consistency principle is also going to be important, which is slightly different.
This psychological phenomenon means that people need to feel consistent with their actions.
In the real world, this need for consistency can actually be a problem.
For example, it’s challenging for bigots to shed their racism.
They’ve committed to their belief system, and getting anyone to change their mind, is damn near impossible. You can do it, but it’s an uphill obstacle to say the least.
With selling stuff, we want to be on the right side of consistency.
That means we use our prospects statements/beliefs to our advantage.
If a prospect says he’s ready to make money online. You should remind them, “hey, you mentioned you’re excited to finally start making some money.”
This may not seem earth shattering, but it works.
A prospect would feel silly to request something, be offered exactly what they’re looking for, and then flat-out decline.
That simply doesn’t make any sense. And it’s not consistent.
This works with physical products, too.
Let’s say you get a prospect to qualify exactly what they want in a pen.
Now, you tell them that they’re in luck. You have the exact pen they’re looking for.
For ex, if they want:
- a thin line
- black colour
- sturdy metal clip
All you have to say is, “that’s great. We have that exact pen. It’s right here. Hand them the pen.”
Why would they say no to that?
They wouldn’t.
They’ve qualified exactly what they want. You’re demonstrating that you have it.
If they backed out now, they look like an idiot.
That may be rude to say — but it would be nonsensical. They would have had to simply have changed their minds on what they wanted. And with the consistency principle in play, people do not change their minds overnight. Let alone during a few minute sales conversation.
So really, what I’m telling you is that:
- Qualify what prospects want
- Sell it to them
The best sellers at this stage:
- Eliminate doubt
- Use continuity and consistency to their advantage
Now let’s get to the finale.
Third Step — Closing the Sale
This is actually going to be easier than you’d expect.
Many times, a prospect will buy without even needing a close.
I mean to say, during the second step, they will abruptly sell themselves, and ask for the sale.
And you didn’t even have to ask them for it.
The best sellers don’t sell products. They let customers sell products to themselves.
What if this doesn’t happen?
If you’ve finished qualifying, and the prospect doesn’t make the sale for you.
Yet you’re still confident that you’ve eliminated all looming doubts, and made your solution obviously valuable. Then this is when you would ask for the sale.
My favourite is a simple “sounds good to me — what do you think?”
There are two options here:
#1 — the yes.
This really should be the outcome. After all, they’ve come to you with the problem, and you have the solution.
Self explanatory. Make the sale.
#2 — the maybe
The prospect wouldn’t be here if they had no interest.
So if they decline, it will be because they’re unsure.
The best thing to do here is ask “what’s stopping you from making a purchase?”
Any reason they have for stopping, you simply have to eliminate.
Find out the main reason for their uncertainty, and focus on comforting that aspect.
There’s a bit of an art form here. However, using the steps above, you will make a bunch of sales without even selling to the unsure prospects.
Most people will be ready to buy, if you’ve done steps 1 + 2 properly.
As you get more practice, you’ll be able to convert the “Doubting Dale’s,” too.
Wrapping Up — Did I Sell You?
If you liked this post, I implore you to give it:
- a social share
- comment
- another read
But then, my intention with this post is not sell to you.
Do so at your own prerogative.
Make it happen!
