This episode is part of a 12 days of Christmas read-along of the Selling Like We’re Human book, recorded in 2021.
The book follows a similar concept to what you’re already used to here on the Humane Marketing show with the 7Ps of Humane Marketing and the Marketing Like We’re Human book: we start with the being and then go into the doing.
The 3 parts of the Selling Like We’re Human book are : Being, Knowing and Doing (compared to Rumble, Rise and Resonate of the Marketing Like We’re Human book)
Today I’m reading a small section of Part 3 on DOING, Chapter 9 called ‘A Beautiful Sales Conversation’
"You are having a conversation with smart, conscious clients. They have done their research, gone through your path, rested at severalsignposts, and decided that they want to talk to you and find out how you can collaborate."… Share on X
Excerpt from Selling Like We’re Human, Part 3: DOING, Chapter 9: A Beautiful Sales Conversation
Focus on How You Make Them Feel
And so we find ourselves at the end of your sales path, in the middle of your
Serene Garden, under the big old oak tree. The weather is warm, and there’s
a slight breeze. Bees are buzzing, birds are chirping, and a small swarm of blue
butterflies is sailing through the air.
You’ve made some chilled herbal tea and are getting ready to sit down with
your ideal client to have a beautiful conversation, a sales conversation.
On the following pages you’ll find some suggestions on how to hold the space
for this encounter. Take what feels good, skip what doesn’t.
But most importantly, remember the following:
1. You are having a conversation with smart, conscious clients. They
have done their research, gone through your path, rested at several
signposts, and decided that they want to talk to you and find out
how you can collaborate.
2. Treat them with humility. Hear and see them. They come to you as
whole human beings, potentially in a vulnerable place because they
are asking for your help.
3. And most of all, focus on how you make them feel. This is not
about you and your sales pitch, your checklist, or the money in
your bank account. Forget about you; shift the focus to them.
When I asked my clients, they often put speaking on stage at the same anxiety
level as a sales call. It’s scary because you make yourself vulnerable and risk
being rejected. I’ve heard all kinds of public speaking advice, but it was only
when l met Victoria Lioznyansky that something clicked. Instead of going on
and on how public speaking is all about your message and that you shouldn’t
think about yourself but instead focus on your message, she said the following:
“If you’re not thinking about your audience and how you’re trying to make them
feel, your message is not going to resonate quite as much.” – Victoria Lioznyansky
That’s when the penny dropped. The same advice applies to your beautiful
sales conversations: focus on how you make them feel!
Ditch the Sales Script
I know it can feel scary to think about going into your sales conversation
without a script. But trust me on this!
Take that seven-step sales script you downloaded off some well-meaning site
and get rid of it. It doesn’t help you in your Serene Garden.
Prepare for Your Sales Conversation
That doesn’t mean you’ll just wing it and go into your call completely
unprepared. Quite on the contrary: we’ll come overprepared so that once
we’re in the garden, we can just relax and listen.
Actually, that’s worth an anchor.
#anchor
Just because we’re not following a step-by-step sales script doesn’t
mean that we just wing it. Instead we come overprepared so that
once we’re in our Serene Garden, we can lean back, listen, and hold
the space for our client.
Here’s how I suggest you prepare for the call:
1. Reread your client’s answers from the intake form; write down
some notes.
2. If you have an “icebreaker” question in your intake form, maybe
start the call with a reference to it.
3. Look at your client’s website, especially at what they’re offering or
what they contacted you for.
4. Bonus: subscribe to your client’s newsletter or free download to get
a feel for the way they communicate.
5. Spend some time thinking about which offer will most likely be a
good fit for this client. Have the details of this offer ready if you
need them.
Design your Gentle Sales Conversation
At the end of this chapter, you’ll find a mandala with bubbles in it. I refer to
it as the Creativity Mandala. If you’ve read the first book, you might already
be familiar with it. I’d like you to use this as a tool to design YOUR unique,
nonlinear, and beautiful sales conversation.
But before you do that, we need to address two more things about your
conversation: better questions and respecting objections.
Robots Ask Robotic Questions
Aaaah!!!! That’s me screaming upon hearing the typical “On a scale of one to
ten, how likely are you to want to solve this problem now?” question for the
hundredth time.
That’s the problem with scripts and templates. Eventually, everyone sounds
like a robot reading the same questions off a document.
If you instead flip the script around, or, like in our case, completely ditch the
script, you are:
1. Forced to truly listen to your potential client
2. Come up with better questions
The gap-selling method and related seven-step frameworks will have you
uncover the pain, or the gap, so that you can then sell the magic solution.
This leads to a doer attitude: find out what’s wrong and fix it. And it also
often leads to taking the power away from the client because all he sees is the
problems and he then feels cornered into having to buy if he wants to solve
his problems.
With Humane Selling, we want to give the client the power back. And we
want to make her see the opportunity, not just the problem. Instead of
making it a conversation about negatives, we change it to a positive exchange
focused on the client’s possibilities, goals, and aspirations. So instead of using
the same old template questions, we need to ask better questions that lead us
into a deeper conversation so we can fully understand our client’s situation.
This excerpt is from Part 3: DOING, Chapter 9: A Beautiful Sales Conversation
If what you heard today resonates with you and made you curious about the book, I invite you to get your copy of the new Selling Like You’re Human book at humane.marketing/book2. You can also download the whole 1st chapter for free to see if it resonates.
And I’m also planting a seed about my ‘Marketing Like We’re Human’ program that I’ll run in its live edition starting at the end of January 2022. This is where we take all these concepts from the two books as well as the 7Ps of Humane Marketing to a much much deeper level in an intimate group learning experience. Find out more at www.humane.marketing/program
Get your copy of the ‘Selling Like We’re Human’ book !
Sarah’s Resources
(FREE) Sarah’s One Page Marketing Plan
(FREE) Sarah Suggests Newsletter
(FREE) The Humane Business Manifesto
(FREE) Gentle Confidence Mini-Course
Marketing Like We’re Human – Sarah’s first book
Selling Like We’re Human – Sarah’s second book
Authentic & Fair Pricing Mini-Course
Email Sarah at sarah@sarahsantacroce.com
Thanks for listening!
After you listen, check out Humane Business Manifesto, an invitation to belong to a movement of people who do business the humane and gentle way and disrupt the current marketing paradigm. You can download it for free at this page. There’s no opt-in. Just an instant download.
Are you enjoying the podcast? The Humane Marketing show is listener-supported—I’d love for you to become an active supporter of the show and join the Humane Marketing Circle. You will be invited to a private monthly Q&A call with me and fellow Humane Marketers – a safe zone to hang out with like-minded conscious entrepreneurs and help each other build our business and grow our impact. — I’d love for you to join us! Learn more at humane.marketing/circle
Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Android to get notified for all my future shows and why not sign up for my weekly(ish) “Sarah Suggests Saturdays“, a round-up of best practices, tools I use, books I read, podcasts, and other resources.
Raise your hand and join the Humane Business Revolution.
Warmly,
Sarah
