Even if you HATE selling and pitching, what if there was a way to pitch and sell a product or service, without coming across as pushy or salesy, that always worked?
I’ve used this on everything from services, to software, products, courses and consulting.
It never fails.
And best of all, it never ever feels like you’re selling.
Because to me, the best sales calls are more like conversations, rather that pitches.
I remember a pitch I was asked to give a few years back to a bank.
Actually I think they were the investment firm of the bank, but either way.
It was for a marketing and software package.
I had an estimate of around $15,000 a month but thought it could go much higher.
The other people who turned up to pitch had binders – BINDERS – of stuff with them.
Some of them had those plastic crate box things.
Flipcharts, presentation boards, the works.
Personally, if a marketing agency pitched me like that, I’d think “I wonder how much all that shit cost?”
Anyway, I was there literally by myself.
Everyone else had teams of people.
One of them asked me if I was in the right place, because when I told them I was there to pitch for the project, they said “but you haven’t got your deck with you?”
Inside the room, there were four people sat round a table. I knew the process was short pitch into longer pitch.
And, I also knew that they had been pitched to for AGES.
If anything, they’d want to just get rid of me.
I think they were definitely surprised when I didn’t have a flip chart and presentation boards.
I didn’t even had a written proposal.
My opening move was to ask them a question.
“What’s the biggest problem you’re trying to solve right now?”
Initially, they were taken aback. Shocked almost.
But sure enough, one of them opened up and started telling the main problems they were trying to solve.
“Ok, what else?” I’d ask.
And they’d tell me more problems.
Every few minutes, I’d repeat back what they’d said and repeat “anything else?”
When they couldn’t think of any more problems they were trying to solve, I’d ask them to prioritise them.
“So what’s the biggest problem you want to solve then?” (Notice how that’s the same as the first question, but often it takes a few minutes to get to the big one).
When they agreed on a core priority problem, I ask them “why?”
“Why is that the priority?” and rinse and repeat.
Get their reasons, repeat back every few minutes, ask which reason was the most important.
“OK, why that?” I’d ask again.
Now we’re getting into it.
You see, customers have problems. They’re always very simple.
And if they’d come to us and just say “I want to make more money, work less and be less stressed” they’re worried we’d judge them.
If they clearly stated “I want to make $1M a year and only work 3 hours a day and be admired by my peers” they think we’ll make fun of them or scorn them.
So they come up with clever and complex cover stories for their goals and problems.
“We need to build a holistic community to support our sales engagements while driving more profit from core members.”
Why?
“Because we’ve exhausted our email list”
Why?
“Because we want to make more money with the resources we have.”
Ask “why” a few times and get to the core problem they’re dealing with.
Then, read yesterday’s email to see how to continue the conversation.
P.S. I not only got the project but landed a retainer for thousands a month. I moved from “pitching” to managing future teams who were brought on board.
