The Winning Formula for Making Sales

A few things need to happen for you to make the sale.

There needs to be a problem your prospect is willing to solve. They need to feel your way of solving it is the best way for them, and they need to be interested in solving it now (or at least soon).

These emotions collectively represent what I call tension. People buy emotionally and then justify their purchases logically. If there's no tension, there's no sale.

If there's a simple enough problem, the prospect has done their homework, and the cost isn't prohibitive, selling can be pretty easy. Unfortunately, that's not the case for most of you reading this, despite what you'd like to believe.

I've worked with a lot of teams on their sales processes, and a common thread is clear: most sellers are not very good at building provocative business cases. They expect their prospects to come prepared to buy (with plenty of tension in tow).

I blame any number of gurus and marketing technology companies who have been advocating for years that with the internet in our pockets, your customer knows what they need before they reach out to you. They're also happy to tell you your customers don't want salespeople to be involved in the decision, so you can be sure they're ready to buy when they do talk to you.

Have you ever noticed that the surest way to get someone to follow you is to tell them exactly what they want to hear?

The more a solution becomes complex or expensive, the more necessary the seller becomes. Buyers don't want to be sold to. They want a trusted advisor to guide them. They want someone to see around corners for them, leverage their experience, and identify potential pitfalls before they become real issues. Decisions like these are scary enough. It's even worse when you feel like you're going alone, especially when you feel like your job may be on the line if you make a bad one.

Recognize that there's a certain amount of fear in each one of your prospects as they make big decisions like this, and they need some level of certainty that everything is going to be alright if they do. When you compare that to the position of power you're assuming they're in, the dynamic totally changes, doesn't it?

X = The case for change

Your prospect either has an issue they're trying to solve or an opportunity they're trying to take advantage of. In any case, there's a certain amount of risk involved, and your biggest competitor will always be the status quo.

You need to help them understand that changing the way they're doing things will be a good idea; that the business will be in a better place than it is right now if they make the right decision. If they don't believe they need to do something, they're not going to do anything. 

This is why discovery is so important, and likely why you're not making more sales. Most sellers use discovery as a qualification step. You're discovering whether or not they have the desire and money to buy now, not helping them discover how they win if they choose to act. 

This is what I mean when I say you shouldn't rush through discovery to get to the selling part. Discovery is the selling part.  

Y = Your way of resolving the issue

When you build a business case like that, you earn a lot of credibility. You show them you've done this before, and you can do it again. Remember, your prospect will probably only buy a solution like yours once or twice in their career. You sell this stuff every day. This is the 1-Up position Anthony Iannarino talks about, and there's a lot of leverage there.

Understanding the ins and outs of a problem brings a lot of credibility to your proposed solution. Remember this when you've earned the right to sketch out a strategy. You've been able to tie emotions to the problem. Now there needs to be some logic to the resolution.

It's important to note that you need to have a differentiated solution. Otherwise, you did all the work for someone else to beat you on price. If your solution stands out, they'll either check with your competitors as a formality or forego them altogether. This doesn't just solidify your standing; it insulates your profit too.

X + Y > $

Add their desire to resolve their issue to their affinity for your proposed solution. So long as those combined emotions are greater than the emotion around the dollar amount you're asking for, you've got a deal.

This is the winning formula for making sales. It's always been true.

You know it intuitively. That's why you rush to discounts all the time. But you're adjusting the wrong side of this equation (actually, the inequality, with apologies to the math geeks).

Working the right side is the easy way out. Just reduce the emotional impact of the money. That's pretty easy to do when it's not your money anyway. Working the left side is what professional sellers wake up to do every day. They believe that they solve problems worth solving, and they believe wholeheartedly in the solutions they sell. This takes guts. Without that alignment and integrity, this is almost impossible to do. 

Do you believe in your ability to create this kind of tension and value? Can you see things a little more clearly now?