What if you became aware that there was a ‘sales attraction potion’ you could take to prepare yourself to meet people when you’re selling. This ‘potion’, when taken, allowed people to relax, connect and communicate. Real dialogue happened and people could be helped and served. This connection allowed the engagement and dialogue that sales managers, salespeople and sales trainers have been trying to make happen for years. This ‘potion’ is real and the connection it allows, is necessary if consumers are to get what they want, increase sales and enable a business is to grow.
What if I told you this ‘potion’ has been around for years and really works? You’d be first in line. “Sign me up”, and “Where do I get more?” are the most common responses. The cynical salesperson wants to know how much it costs. What if I told you it’s free and the supply is unlimited? Well, guess what, it’s real, you can take it all the time and it will not only increase your sales, it will change your life.
Most salespeople are infected with a ‘sales repellent virus’ that their companies, sales managers and sales trainers have handed out this ‘virus’ unknowingly, for free, for years. Even more importantly, when a salesperson is left alone they catch this ‘sales repellent virus’ and even help spread it. What if I told you when economic conditions get tougher the strength of the ‘sales repellent virus’ increases and more is handed out? Most people in the profession of sales think…’Not me, I’m couldn’t be infected with this virus’…but this virus has been growing for several decades and if it isn’t treated with the ‘sales attraction potion’ it’s will eventually make salespeople extinct.
The result of the majority of salespeople having the ‘sales repellent virus’ for many years now is that selling has become more difficult and the relationship between salespeople and consumers has become damaged. In fact this relationship is so dysfunctional people don’t want to talk to salespeople and salespeople think ‘buyers are liars’. With most salespeople infected with the ‘sales repellent virus’ consumers have become conditioned to avoid salespeople whenever possible and only engage when they have to. The most common responses to becoming aware of this ‘virus’ is, “What are you talking about?”, and “How can I make sure I don’t have it or spread it?”
We’ll get to, how to avoid the ‘sales repellent virus’ and how to get healed if you have it but it’s more important to understand that there’s an antidote, ‘sales attraction potion’, that can be used, and when used, will increase your sales, make customers and build your business.
Remember, the supply of ‘sales attraction potion’ is unlimited and free!
However, even when you know what it is and how to use it, you’ll have to take it every day and you’ll have to keep taking it every time you engage someone in a sales conversation. In short, the ‘sales attraction potion’ is simple to use but wear off easily because other people will be trying to give you the ‘sales repellent virus’.
This usually happens unknowingly and if you aren’t careful it’s easy to catch the ‘sales repellant virus’!
Let’s investigate the ingredients in the potion and the virus that are the same. They include skills, attitudes and actions that are necessary in the profession of sales but insufficient without taking the ‘sales attraction potion’. These three ingredients are the ones companies, sales managers and sales trainers have been teaching and salespeople have been using for years while infected with the ‘sales repellent virus’. Next, there is the active ingredient that attracts or repels people. The ‘repellent virus’ makes people avoid and even lie to salespeople while the ‘attraction potion’ connects and starts healing the consumer and salesperson relationship.
By now, I know you’re ready for the active ingredient…The ingredient that causes the ‘potion’ to attract and the ‘virus’ to repel, is a salespersons’ intention when engaging consumers. Before a salesperson speaks and as they try to sell someone, their intentions are felt intuitively by consumers and either attracts or repels them. The consumer then decides unknowingly, preconscious, to connect or avoid the salesperson. The salesperson’s intentions create their demeanor, presence and attitudes and cannot be faked. What the consumer feels or reads is the genuine intention from the salesperson.
The effects of the active ingredient in the ‘virus’ the salesperson has is evident when consumers avoid talking to or opening up even when salespeople ask good questions and genuinely cares about the people they are trying to sell but is infected with the ‘virus’.
‘Trying to sell’ is the active ingredient in the ‘sales repellent virus’. The ‘virus’ even sabotages skilled salespeople who believe in their product and company, care about the consumer, but unknowingly are infected! Even they will repel people more often than they attract them. You can’t hide the virus from people…it is always showing!
The best example of the effects of the ‘sales repellent virus’ or intention to sell, can be witnessed in a new home sales office when watching the interaction between consumers and salespeople. If there is a salesperson and a temp in the sales office and a consumer comes in, they will most often engage the temp and avoid speaking to the salesperson. I’ve personally witnessed this and over the years had many new home salespeople confirm this behavior by consumers. It’s amazingly interesting that the consumer is attracted by the ‘sales attraction potion’ the temp has taken or repelled by the ‘virus’ salesperson is infected with. The consumer will engage the person that is not infected with the ‘virus’ that contains the intention ‘to sell them something’.
Most companies, sales managers and sales trainers want salespeople to say the right things to create a better conversation with consumers. They want and teach salespeople to ask better questions and be better listeners. The problem is, when salespeople try to do this, while infected with the ‘sales repellent virus’, consumers won’t engage them and the engagement or conversation stalls. As long as a salesperson is infected with the ‘virus’, sales will continue to be difficult and the relationship between consumers and salespeople will grow more dysfunctional. In short, people will keep avoiding salespeople until they become extinct.
The active ingredient in the ‘sales attraction potion’ is the intention to help, serve and do what’s best for the consumer. The intention to make customers, not sales, is the missing ingredient and cannot co-exist with the intention to sell. In fact, I’m convinced the intention to sell is the spoiled version of the intention to make a customer. The ‘virus’ wasn’t and never has been anyone intention to spread. It just mutated over the years from paying to much attention to the desired results companies, sales managers, salespeople and sales trainers wanted to create, instead of paying attention to what would create the results. There is too much concern over what we want and not enough concern over what customers want. It’s also obvious that in a difficult economy we spend more time worrying and obsessing over the numbers and less time concerned about the customers concerns so the effects of the ‘virus’ worsen and spread.
When the ‘sales attraction potion’ is taken, the missing link in the sales conversation happens…a connection between the salesperson and the consumer. This connection causes or allows a conversation or real dialogue to take place so a healthy relationship can begin. This is the power of the ‘sales attraction potion’; it makes the consumer/salesperson connection happen and allows the other ingredients in the ‘sales potion’ to be used to best serve the consumer.
The steps of a sale process, which have been taught for many years in various forms, only happen when this connection is made. Consumers only engage salespeople who have taken the ‘sales attraction potion’. When the connection is made, people are served, customers are made and sales increase while business grows.
Salespeople who regularly take the ‘sales attraction potion' are more energized because they enjoy their profession more, adding to their success!
