It’s not enough to just write out the benefits to your product. You need to connect at a deeper level with who benefits and who suffers if you do/don’t make the sale.
No matter how clear you are on your product, you still need to create enough enthusiasm to sell to people who aren’t warm to you. 99% of the time, your clients aren’t going to be immediately interested in buying from you. They might want the benefits, they might even want the product. You just haven’t transferred enough enthusiasm to them for them to buy.
Selling is a transference of enthusiasm
Brian Tracy (but I’ve also heard Zig Ziglar and Jim Rohn say this)
Also, your motivation is going to wane. You can’t “be” 10/10 all the time and the rejection and silent marketplace isn’t going to help that. You need to see a way to push past objections and push past your lack of motivation.
Finally, connecting with who, will help you connect with customers. Remember, in order to sell anything, we have to serve an audience, and when you can’t help but think of who benefits and suffers if you sell/quit, you’ll become obliged to carry on and push forward.
Obliged to sell
Take a piece of paper and at the top, write “Who Benefits?” This is going to be a list of everyone who will benefit if you make the sale. If you convert the customer, and the customer buys, who benefits from that decision.
We’re going to get really deep into it. I want you to start thinking wider and bigger than just yourself and the customer. For example, our product is an email marketing system for authors launching a course. If you make that sale, who benefits? We’re going to write out a list of who benefits and how they benefit.
- The customer benefits because they now have a profitable product that sells well and makes them money
- You benefit because you’re being fairly rewarded for your expertise
- Your customer’s customers benefit because they now can learn a new skill, perhaps changing their life forever (imagine being the marketing person responsible for getting Richard Scarry or Seaseme Street into the public)
- Your bank manager is happy because they don’t have to call you about unpaid bills
- Your customer’s family benefit because they see how important this is to them and how happy it makes them
- Your chosen email platform account manager benefits, they just found a new customer too!
You want to go on and on and on. Looking at who benefits from the close, who benefits from the sale and how do they benefit? Why is this a good thing for them?
Who benefits?
You can list as many benefits as you want for each person too. For example a product like this benefits the customer’s family in multiple ways. They can afford to go on holiday.
They’ll see their Mum, Dad, Son, Daughter etc. succeed at something they care about. Your family benefits, the local economy benefits. Staff and hires benefit. Go wide and big on who benefits as a result of your ability to sell this product.
Imagine the butterfly effect of getting this project off the ground. Imagine how many lives you could affect through closing this deal? Even the smallest marketing funnel project could literally change lives.
Think about how books, cheaper than a meal at McDonalds, have totally changed your life and the life of those around you. It’s not arrogant or selfish to think something could be this big.
Selling is the opposite of selfish
If anything it’s the opposite of that. You’re not just thinking about yourself. You’re thinking about the wider world and the impact you’ll have on hundreds or even thousands of people. When you have this list, it’ll keep you focused on moving forward and getting the work done. But we’re still not done yet. We need to look at who suffers.
Who Suffers?
Who suffers if you don’t complete the sale? Who suffers if you miss the mark and don’t close? Again similar exercise. Grab a piece of paper and write “Who Suffers?” at the top? Now we’re going to write a list of whose life is worse if we miss the sale? How is their life worse? Who suffers and why would they suffer if you didn’t sell this product?
Look beyond you and the customer, look at the people who you wrote in your benefits column. How is their life worse if they don’t buy? Go wide, go big. What about suppliers? Local businesses? If you don’t make the sale are you going to buy the locally made garden table you wanted?
If you don’t close the sale, would your customer’s family be upset seeing how hard your potential customer is working, but without getting anywhere? Nothing is harder to watch than someone you love fail, at something they love doing.
Help me run
I know that, I’ve seen it happen. For a long time, my partner Olivia couldn’t run. She loves running more than anything in the world and it was taken from her. We had a car crash and while I got off better than her, she lost more because it took years of rehab, therapy and failure before she could run at her previous standard again.
I genuinely thank every single therapist and runner and specialist who sold her expensive and lengthy treatment to get her better. We traveled all over the world looking for help and those that could help, charged us for it and I will be forever grateful for their patience and commitment to Olivia to get her running again.
And frankly, I’ll always be disappointed in those that refused to close her. Refused to sell and treat her for one reason or another. The choice about whether the product can help someone or not, is not your choice. Who are you to decide to quit on someone when they need help? Because it’s uncomfortable?
Because you don’t like asking for money? Can you imagine telling someone that they can’t run again because you feel a bit weird asking for money? This “suffering” angle is all about guilt. It’s about putting your feelings and anxieties aside and giving you perspective.
Guilt motivates
Understanding how other people suffer because of your decisions, is how great progress is made. Sticking with the medical angle. Imagine you’re a doctor and you can see someone has broken their leg and it’s bad. Really bad. It’s a compound fracture which, not to dwell on it, means the bone has broken through the skin.
Fractures like this can be life threatening. You as the doctor manage to get the injured person, who is now YOUR patient, to a hospital and you explain to them what needs to happen. You’re going to have to set the bone which is very uncomfortable to say the least.
Even with painkillers, it’s pretty rough. Then we might need to operate on the bone and put some pins in, before sewing you up and giving you more painkillers. You’ll need a lot of rehab and rest and even after it’s healed, you’ll have to take it easy and get back to strength.
Doctors sell
Then, I want you to imagine that the patient says “no thanks” and tells you that they’ll just leave it as it is. And if you don’t think that happens, spend some time in a hospital.
The number of refusals of help from staff, for patients, is crazy high. People will often reject help for lots of different reasons. As the doctor, do you simply accept the response and say “OK!” and go looking for another patient?
Of course not. You’d be considered a monster if you did that. You’d be weak. You’re clearly not in it for the right reasons. You know better than the patient. You know best. You are the expert.
You push past the objections and no’s. You know that their life will be much much worse in the long run for the sake of a few moments of pain and weeks of uncomfortableness.
You know better
You even know that they’ll thank you today if you get it over and done with. Does this mean that when we sell, we ignore the no? Of course not, we do the opposite.
We listen for the no and ask why they’re saying no. We want to know the reasons behind their decision and I’ll leave it to your best judgement on whether to push through it or not.
Do you think they should eat their vegetables or not? Who knows best? Will their life be worse if they never eat their vegetables? Do you think they should go to sleep, or stop eating junk food, or quit their job?
Who suffers if you don’t work and why is their life worse? Write out that list.
