How to become a Great Salesperson – The Sales Manifesto

I wanted to get into yoga here in Valencia, Spain, so I ended up calling all of these yoga places. Each person I talked to was somewhat helpful, spoke decent English, but they did not know sales. They even had trouble writing my name down for an appointment.

In the worst case scenario they would give me a price and end the phone call by telling me they would just see me around. In the best case scenario, they pitched me and told me a bunch of features, but failed to mention the benefits and just said to come over to their location. This is what they think is sales. If you are in yoga and want to go to Valencia, you are probably going to make a lot of money because this is what the competition is like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFIKvfM9SbM

The right sales process

If I was doing yoga sales, I would first check and see if the customer had a need for my yoga classes. I would ask questions like, “Why are you looking for yoga classes right now, why exactly do you want to do the yoga class, and what does it mean to you?”

For me, just like any other guy, I want to go to yoga classes to meet girls. I would not tell a yoga sales person that this was my intention, but if she has been doing this for a while she should know to ask some questions to find out which of the benefits to emphasize based on my interests. If they would have asked questions and connected their benefits and value to me, I would have signed up right there on the phone.

What else should the yoga salesperson have done?

Validate the customer

The yoga salesperson should have validated if I had the money to pay for the yoga classes by saying, “Right now we are running a premium, yoga, coaching class.” This implies that it does cost money and this will help eliminate the people who want something for free or an extremely low price. You can use this as a screen to see if they actually have the money, too.

Also, by asking if I had the time to take the classes, this will help remove the people who sign up for yoga classes and do not show up. The yoga salespeople will make more money in the end, and they will not have as many people asking for refunds.

You can take people’s money even if they do not plan on showing up to their classes, but if you are planning on 20-year-long goals you will get there through long term relationships by being ethical, moral and honest.

Install Urgency

I would install urgency into the offer because all good companies do that. By explaining to the customer that they can join in the next three days and they will be on time to make use of the promotional period, they will be more likely to respond positively. You can do this even if the promotional offer never actually ends. Installing urgency into your offers will make you get a lot more sales.

Install trust

Also, I would install a sense of trust in the prospect because if they do not trust me, it will not matter how good the product or service is, they will never give me their credit card number, they will never give me the cash, they will never do what I need them to be able to do to run my business, and they will never get the value I am trying to offer them. This all comes from not scamming people, being an honest salesperson, and being ethical because customers sense honesty and they will be more eager to work with you and contribute to the conversation if they can trust you.

These are all powerful techniques to install into your sales calls. Most salespeople do not do these and it is mind boggling because any salesperson that does not use all of these parts is either crazy, or leaving tons of money on the table. If you are missing one of these parts, without even looking at your funnel I can tell you that you will double your income and conversion rate if you can learn how to implement these.