BUSINESS SKILLS
Selling is Coaching your Customer
THE SECRETS TO UNLOCKING TOP SALES PERFORMANCE SUCCESS
By Guy Anastaze
The “raison d’être” of your business is customers. Whether you have a small, medium or large business, whether it is new or mature - customers are essential for its survival. This is why you must take care of them over the long term and is the fundamental reason why selling is coaching your clients.
First of all, your customers know in their heart what they want, even if their preferences are not always fully conscious or clearly expressed or felt. They are also quicker to recognise what they do not want, which sometimes provides interesting avenues to better understanding what they actually want. In any case, your role as a salesperson, sales manager or boss of your own business is to help your customers become aware of their needs, of what they really want, what they love, to clarify the options open to them and the realistic choices that result in the end. In short, to help them make a choice that benefits them in the long term.
Moreover, any purchase is an act of change. But people do not like change. Hence the resistance to saying yes…particularly to a sales- person. Consequently, your second role is to accompany your client in this act of change, to measure their ability to find within them- selves and around them, the resources to tame this fear of change, and finally to be fully - and consciously - happy with their choice.
These two facets of the business coaching profession – making your clients aware of their choices and helping them to accept their final one – are at the heart of the successful seller attitude.
Now, what are the essential characteristics that a seller can draw from a professional coach to develop a strong customer relationship over the long-term?
Americans often say: “People buy from people they like”. Even if there is some truth in the saying that one buys more easily from someone who is nice, it is more appropriate to say: “People buy from people they trust”. You can be a very nice person, but if you don’t inspire trust, it’s unlikely that you will close deals.
This is one of the reasons that the sales profession is sometimes poorly perceived. Too many people have placed their trust in some- one and were disappointed. Whether they were taken advantage of or if they let themselves be taken advantage of doesn’t change any- thing. It is therefore essential to develop a well-deserved position of trust, built upon the repetition of small events that reinforce this trust day after day.
Trust is built over several months… and can be destroyed within a few seconds. This truth is obvious. And yet, it is too often disregard- ed. For example, as trust is established, certain beginner salespeople avoid saying things that could be disturbing to their clients, because they are afraid of damaging this trust and thus they adopt counter- productive behaviour. Instead of using the freedom that the estab-
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lished trust has afforded them, they restrain and forbid themselves from using the strength of their sincerity. Yet trust is truly attained when one can (almost) say anything.
Trust is built on a foundation of three main components: sincerity, respect and empathy.
By being sincere, your client knows that they can count on you and that you firmly believe in what you are proposing. They may not always agree with you, but they know that you are telling the truth. This starts a dialogue that is honest, open and enriching. Sincerity enables you to build together on a sound basis.
Respect provides your client with a protected interpersonal space. It enables and encourages them to reveal themselves. Confidentiali- ty can be established.
Empathy creates a compassionate communication environment and reinforces the protected interpersonal space established by respect. Empathy is an intrinsic capability that humans have naturally, even if they don’t use it as much as they could. In addition, empathy can be developed and strengthened through different methodologies, such as the Non-Violent Communication approach of Marshall Rosenberg.
These are some of the essential characteristics that will distinguish a salesperson as one of the best in their profession and make them a valued interlocutor sought after by their clients. In “Authentic Selling: How to boost your sales performance by being yourself”, we explore more about whether selling is an art or a science? Why is sales an unpopular profession? How can its nobility be restored? What makes a salesperson truly successful over the long-term? And – above all - why selling starts when customer says no! The book will help you to unlock these secrets and more.
guy@anastazebusinesscoaching.com www.theauthenticsellingbook.com
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