How to not suck at sales

I was talking to a client the other day, and they were wondering why they had entered a sales slump.

He was selling the same offer that had previously gotten deals, and he was still booking the same amount of calls.

He just wasn’t closing them.

After going back and forth and getting some context, I asked:

“Did you figure out why the client wasn’t already getting results with their current system?”

He said no.

Immediately, it was pretty clear what the problem was.

I realised that he just wasn’t going deep enough into the client’s business to ever close deals.

This will absolutely kill your close rate.

And to be honest, even if you did get the deal, if you enter a client relationship without knowing their problems properly, how do you even know if you can solve them properly?

On your sales calls, you need to deeply understand:

• Why they are talking to you, aka what was the trigger for them to accept the call (even if you reached out to them, why would they get on the call with a stranger?)

• What are they currently doing to solve X

• Why is that not working as well as they want it to?

• What have they tried to solve X? Why has none of that been adequate?

• What is their current plan to solve X?

• What is holding them back from succeeding in plan to solve X?

If you don’t understand this, you are wasting your time. How can you even pitch without this stuff?

You end up attempting to pitch them and then getting ghosted.

The reason is because without knowing this stuff, it’s almost impossible to pitch them the solution that hits right into their needs and addresses their objections.

When you’re doing discovery, it’s like getting the answers to the test.

And if you mess it up, you’re just guessing on what to say int your pitch. You don’t know what to avoid either.

For example, a prospect may already have bad beliefs or bad experiences with X method. If you don’t know that going into it, and you bring it up, then you’ve shot yourself in the foot.

Compare that to if you ask the question in discovery, and explain away that belief.

EG:

→ They think cold email doesn’t work

→ You ask them some questions about what they’ve done, and realise there is a clear reason their cold email hasn’t worked before. Perhaps they have never sent enough volume to get leads.

→ You pitch the exact solution, and they understand why their past efforts have failed, and why yours will succeed

Without this, you pitch a solution that they never believe will work.

Good luck closing that.

How to fix this?

Make sure you understand the prospect’s problem deeply.

Ask all the questions listed in the dot points, or know the answers to them (sometimes the prospect will bring it up on their own, make sure not to ask a question they have already revealed the answer to).

And then close.