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A Pocket Full Of Sales Genius

Master the art of zero pressure selling

Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….. (2)

First, who am I?....................................................................................................... (3)

Confidence. Get it, or quit……………………………………………………………….. (4)

Confidently not knowing…………………………………………………………………. (5)

Appearance……………………………………………………………………………….. (6)

How hungry are you?............................................................................................... (6)

Trust is king……………………………………………………………………………….. (7)

Qualifying for success …………………………………………………………………… (8)

Managing expectations………………………………………………………………….. (10)

Identifying problems for customers…………………………………………………….. (11)

You either like me or you like me………………………………………………………. (12)

The secret(s)……………………………………………………………………………… (13)

The advantage of cheering for the customer………………………………………….. (14)

How to position yourself as a home fan……………………………………………….. (14)

The power of ‘Us’………………………………………………………………………… (15)

‘No’. The most profitable word in sales………………………………………………… (16)

Desperation. Kryptonite for sales………………………………………………………. (17)

Identifying problems in yourself………………………………………………………… (19)

Vision. I can see into the future………………………………………………………… (20)

Positively charging your environment ………………………………………………….. (21)

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Establishing relationships with your team and management ……………………….. (22)

Mindset for success……………………………………………………………………… (24)

Objections? What objections?! ………………………………………………………… (25)

Zero pressure selling ……………………………………………………………………. (26)

The psychology of upselling…………………………………………………………….. (29)

The art of agreeing………………………………………………………………………. (31)

Failure breeds success………………………………………………………………….. (31)

Introduction

Whether you've been in sales for the past 30 years, or you're brand new to the game, we've

all heard, seen or worked with that person who can just rock up, and for some reason be able

to sell anything to anyone. They have no product knowledge, no experience in that particular

industry and it seems like they don't have a clue what they're selling... and do you know what

the truth is? They don’t. How do I know this? It's simple, because I'm that guy. And in this

book, I'm going to show you the secret to selling anything, to anyone, at any time. You don’t

need knowledge of the product, you don't need to be an 'Expert', and you don't need

experience in sales.

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First, who am I?

From the earliest of ages, I was a cheeky little bastard, not cheeky as in rude and disrespectful,

but cheeky as in confident enough to go around picking flowers from my neighbours gardens

at the age of 8, then knocking on their doors and selling it to them crushed with water as the

best perfume they'd ever smelt. And guess what, they bought it, all of them did. First lesson

(although I didn't know it then), people buy things, even if they don't really want them. By age

12 I had moved up to selling sweets at school, buying them wholesale from Macro with my

Dad, then selling them individually to the kids on their breaks. Second lesson, people are

willing to pay for things they want. Age 13 to 15 I was turning into an advanced little hustler, I

was buying mobile phones, video games, and consoles from the kids at school (of course)

and selling them in the newspaper (no eBay then). At 16 I left school and got a job as a

plumber, I did this for the next 3 years, hating every day. I finally plucked up the courage to

leave and a few months after turning 20 I started my first business Tom & Simon's Kitchen,

which was a mobile catering company, I'd never run a (real) business before so as you can

imagine I made a ridiculous amount of mistakes, but somehow (you'll discover the secret later

in this book) after 3 months of failing the business took off, and the next 3 years were a crazy

ride of success, going on the radio, making great money, hiring people... the usual stuff.

The only problem is, I was shocking at managing money, so I blew the lot (we'll save that story

for another day). Age 23 I decided to sell the business, and by age 24 I'd got (what most

people would class as) my first real job in sales, as a sales executive for Volkswagen. This is

where I was going to discover whether I was actually good at sales, because the truth is I

didn't actually know at this point, I was confident, yes, but having people come to you to buy

food is a whole world apart from trying to sell someone a car, especially competing against 8

other sales executives. And selling sweets isn't exactly the hardest hustle in the world. So how

did I do? Well, in my first year I finished number 1 in the entire group, not just the dealership,

I came first out of 136 other sales executives. That's taking finance, products and cars sales

into account. I also broke the record for most products and finance sold in the dealerships

history. Did I have any training? No. Was I a knowledge machine on Volkswagen? No. Was I

car lover? No. Did I have any experience in selling anything remotely similar to these

products? No.

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So what's the secret? Over the next few pages I'm going to explain why I believe I succeeded

at such a high level so quickly, and how you can too. Since leaving car sales I've gone on to

being recognised internationally as a business coach and mentor, speaker, expert sales

trainer and the founder and CEO of WE ARE ENTREPRENEURS (wae), a global community

of entrepreneurs that's worked with TEDx speakers, best-selling authors, top level CEOs and

more.

I believe you're about to get a huge amount of value from this short book that will more than

likely change your sales results forever. I also hope you finish reading this book feeling like

you've found someone that you can trust in a sales world that's crowded with dishonest noise.

Enjoy.

Confidence. Get it, or quit

I want to take us back to before I started working at Volkswagen, 7 days to be precise. This is

the day that I'm about to walk into the dealership with my CV and ask to speak to the general

manager. I didn't work with a recruiter, I didn't apply on hundreds of job sites and I didn't

interview competing against countless other hopeful candidates. Why am I bringing this up?

Because the only reason I was able to walk into the dealership and ask for the manager was

because I had confidence, and confidence is the single most important thing you need in sales,

period. If you don't have confidence, you don't stand a chance, you've already lost. And I'm

not just talking about selling yourself to a manager to get a job, I'm talking about everything.

Every phone call, every hello, every handshake, every response, every no, every yes, every

smile, absolutely everything, you need to be confident in every single thing you do and say.

Sales people lose thousands of pounds on handshakes, and I'm not talking about the

handshake that closes the deal, I'm talking about the handshake that greets the potential deal,

the handshake that welcomes this new customer into your life, the handshake that begins the

relationship. If you go to a customer and greet them with anything but a good solid confident

handshake you might as well drop to your knees and ask them how much discount they want.

You need to look them in the eye, have a huge smile on your face and greet them with a good

solid confident handshake, anything other than that isn't acceptable and you've already started

to fail successfully. So how do you get confident?

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There's only 3 ways, learning, doing, or acting. If you don't know, you do, if you can't do, you

act. Simple. And by 'act' I don't mean lie. All 3 will improve your confidence, but regardless,

it's not what you know, it's not what you do, it's how you execute your confidence that matters.

There's plenty of sales people that know everything about what they're selling, the 'product

genius', but still completely suck at selling it. There's also plenty of sales people who have

been 'doing' all their life, and still suck at selling. In the interview for Volkswagen the sales

manager started telling me what the average salesperson makes, I said 'I'm not interested in

being average, what does the best salesperson make?' He laughed. I was acting like I was

going to be the best, I was confident, and it worked. I'd never sold cars before, and he knew

that with my CV, I wasn't lying, but I was acting as if I'd been selling cars for the past 100

years. Confidence is everything.

Confidently not knowing

The same applies when dealing with customers. You have to be confident, all the time, and if

you're not confident, you act confident. And again, acting confident does not mean lying. If

someone asks you a question and you don't know the answer, the worst thing you can do is

lie, because eventually you're going to get caught out, and the moment you do, all trust is

gone, the moment you've lost trust, you're finished. So how do you act confident when you

don't know the answer to something? No one knows everything, and the customer shouldn't

expect you to (even though they do). Yes, it helps them make a decision having the right

answers, but just because you don't know the answer now, doesn't mean you can't find the

answer later. This is where managing expectations comes in. If a customer asks you

something and you don't know the answer the best response you can give is 'I don't actually

know that, but I can easily find out, anything I don't know, I'll find out.' As soon as you say that,

they can fire as many questions as they like at you and you can confidently say 'I don't know,

I'll add that to the list' with a cheeky smile. You've managed their expectations and they're

confident that they're going to get an answer later, so they're happy. I used this all the time

when selling cars, and my customers loved me.

I was the least knowledgeable person on our products in the showroom, everyone starts that

way, it never affected my sales though. I used to hear other sales people making up responses

then regretting it later when the customer found out what they said was wrong. There's also

some humility in admitting you don't know something, and humility in sales builds trust

between you and the customer. Honesty in sales is refreshing, the customer will appreciate it,

I promise.

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Appearance

When I worked in Tom & Simon's Kitchen I wore a full chef outfit, when I'm working in my

office I like to wear a suit, when I work from home I like to wear a shirt, when I sold cars I wore

a 3 piece suit. Sound over the top? Maybe so, but I sure felt successful. And if you want to be

successful, you need to feel successful. Your appearance will not only affect how others view

you, it will affect how you view yourself. When you meet others it's important that you make a

strong first impression. If you meet a customer and you're not dressed adequately it will make

them feel more confident about themselves, and less confident about you. The less confident

a customer feels about you, the less control you'll have over the sale. You don't just need to

be confident in yourself, your customer has to have confidence in you. When you dress to

impress, you're not just doing it for yourself, you're doing it for others too. If you look proud

and confident, your ability to succeed increases.

Dressing well and looking good makes us feel better. When we feel good, we have more

energy and treat others better. It's hard to trust someone that looks like they've just rolled out

of bed wearing what they wore yesterday. Having something simple like an unironed shirt will

make people think you don't care about your appearance, and if people don't think you care

about your appearance, what's to make them think that you care about your work? If you want

to start a relationship successfully you need to make sure you look the part. A confident walk

that carries a confident body makes all the positive difference in the world. One of the first

things that people see is your posture and your walk. Wear something that compliments the

confidence in your posture and walk, not dampens it.

How hungry are you?

If you want to join the top 1% in sales you have to be the hungriest person in the room. If your

job involves cold calling, you have to pick up the phone more times than anyone else. If your

job involves greeting customers, you have to greet more customers than anyone else. If your

job involves travelling to different locations, you have to travel further than anyone else. Sales

is a numbers game. You can be the most skilful salesperson in the world but if you don't speak

to anyone you're not going to make a sale. The more fishing rods a fisherman casts, the more

likely he is to catch a fish. We've all heard the saying 'practice makes perfect', this is another

reason why you need to produce the numbers.

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The more you speak to people, the more you get to practice your pitch. If you speak to 100

people, and someone else speaks to 20 people, as long as you use 'Plan, Do, Review' you

should improve 5 times as fast. So you won't just produce 5 times the results, because where

they might be converting 2 in every 10 to begin with, with your increased practice and improved

pitch you might now be converting 4 in every 10. I can't express enough how important it is to

produce more numbers than anyone else. Producing more numbers creates a snowball effect.

When you produce more numbers you get more practice, when you have more practice you

become more skilful, when you become more skilful you produce better results, when you

produce better results you become more confident, when you become more confident you

produce even better results, and when you produce even better results you become more

motivated. And so the success spiral continues. It all started with speaking to more people.

This is the power of taking massive action.

The same adverse effect happens if you don't produce the numbers. You get less practice,

less practice means you'll be less skilful, when you're less skilful you'll produce fewer results,

if your results aren't what you wanted you'll become less confident, when you become less

confident you'll produce even fewer results, when you produce even fewer results you'll

become completely demotivated. This happened simply because you didn't produce the

numbers. This is the negative effect of not taking massive action. Massive success in sales

requires you to take massive action, nothing less. If the phone rings, you need to be the first

one to pick it up. If a customer walks through the door, you need to be the person waiting to

greet them. When it comes to speaking to a customer, if you're not first, you're last. Choose

to be the person that everyone is chasing.

Trust is king

If your customer doesn't trust you, they won't buy from you. Your customer needs to trust you

from the second they meet you, to the very end of the sale, and after. Trust is either there, or

it isn't, there's no in-between. A customer either trusts you completely, or not at all. When the

customer trusts you, the ball is in your court, when the customer doesn't trust you, there is no

ball at all. Trust isn't the icing on the cake, it is the cake. The moment a customer starts to lose

trust in you, doubt starts, and doubt kills sales. If you want to be a master at sales, you should

make trust building the primary objective of any relationship. We've all heard 'people buy from

those they trust', listen to this saying, and live by it.

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The best way to build trust is to be honest, there's no secret, and it isn't difficult, but for some

reason a huge amount of sales people fail to build trust, their ego is either too big and they

slip up trying to make themselves appear perfect, or they oversell their product or service

making them appear insincere. Either way, both is a disaster for a salesperson and should be

avoided at all cost. Be yourself, be honest, and focus on truly helping the customer. A customer

can sense when a salesperson is just out to help themselves, they can also sense when a

salesperson is genuinely wanting to help them through the process. Choose to be the person

that focuses on creating a positive outcome for the customer, rather than yourself. If you take

care of your customers, your customers will take care of your sales.

Qualifying for success

Failing to qualify or wrongly qualifying a customer will cost a salesperson both time and money.

In sales time is money, so you want to ensure you're qualifying your customer as efficiently as

possible to save you wasting time heading in the wrong direction later on in the process. Not

only will properly qualifying help you make efficient use of your time, but it will also allow you

to produce a more satisfied customer, retain more profit, and produce more upsells. To

efficiently qualify your customer, you simply need to ask the right questions until you have the

right answers. When you have the right amount of answers, you'll be able to offer a product

or service that suits the customer’s needs, or at least as close to their needs as you can

possibly find. The closer you are to your customer’s wants and needs, the more likely they'll

be to buy, and the less room they'll have to negotiate.

There's no specific amount of questions I can tell you to ask, because each product and

service is different and it's your job to find out what questions uncover the variables involved.

But there is one killer question that all sales people can ask that will make your job of qualifying

easier, quicker, and more productive... 'What are your 'must haves' and what would be a

bonus?' This one question has saved me countless hours looking for and presenting offers

that my customers would never have been interested in. It allows you to focus on finding the

product or service that you know your customer wants. It also allows you to search for what

they consider a 'bonus', and every bonus that you find closes the room for negotiation. It's a

win, win. They get the product or service they want, you get to retain the profit. There's also

another fantastic question that you can ask right at the beginning of the qualifying process that

will save you both time and wasted energy chasing lost hope... 'If I can find the product/service

that you're looking for are you in a position to make a decision today?' Again, this one question

saved me countless hours trying to close people who were never going to buy on the day.

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It also reassured me that if I do put in the time and effort finding the right product or service

then there's more than likely going to be a deal at the end, so I felt more motivated to do so.

Not only that, but by asking this question when the customer does come back with a 'yes' they

themselves are going to be much more likely to go ahead with the deal, because human nature

tells us that in general people don't like to go back on their word. In fact, you'll find that people

don't like to go back on their word so much so that even if the product isn't exactly what they

were looking for, as long as it's close, they'll still be more likely to go ahead with the deal just

because they said 'yes' earlier when you asked if they were in a position to make a decision

today. And as long as you have built a positive relationship with the customer, they'll feel like

they won't want to let you down, so that decision will more often than not be a 'yes'.

Another benefit of asking this question is that it allows you to avoid becoming the pushy

salesperson. Let me explain; let's say you don't ask the question 'If I can find the

product/service that you're looking for are you in a position to make a decision today?' and

because of this you fail to realise that the customer never had any intention of buying on the

day. Naturally you're going to think that after you've gone through all the effort of finding the

perfect product or service you’re going to secure the deal, especially after you've found your

customer exactly what they came in to buy. Except this is where your assumptions were

wrong. They didn't come to you buy. They never had any intention of buying! They came to

you for information. But you don't know this, because you didn't ask the question, and because

you failed to ask the question you're now going to start trying your best to close a customer

who's never going to buy. You're going to meet resistance, you're going to keep trying, you're

going to meet more resistance, and then you're going to become pushy. And do you know

what the worst part of this is? If you'd have just asked the question you could have provided

the information and focused on building a solid relationship so you could secure the deal when

the customer was in a position to buy. But instead you became pushy, and because of this

you've now put the customer off buying from you all together. So you haven't just wasted more

time and energy, you've also lost any potential of a future sale. Basically, qualifying is essential

if you want to make the best use of your time.

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Managing expectations

There's a big difference between a customer who's happy and realistic, and one that's happy

and unrealistic. It's your job throughout the process to ensure you are creating a happy realistic

customer. Anything other than this is going to spell disaster later on in the sale. It kills me

when I see salespeople promising the world early on to get the customer excited, only to have

it come crashing down later on when they realise 50% of what was said can't be achieved. If

you want to be successful in sales, you have to manage expectations from the earliest

opportunity. It's better to be honest and manage expectations early, than it is to string people

along only to have them find out for themselves later on and walk away from the deal because

of it. The sooner your customer becomes realistic with what's achievable, the sooner you can

focus on completing the sale by making it happen.

For example, if a customer came up to me wanting to buy a certain car for £10,000, and the

price of that car was £14,000, I'd be much better off saying 'Sorry, this car is out your price

range, let's look at a different model' than I would be saying 'Okay let's go for a test drive then

see what we can do.' The sale is never going to happen, because the customer has completely

unrealistic expectations. You're just going to waste your time and be disappointed later on

when the customer walks away because they can't afford the car. The same applies if I was

training a sales team for the weekend, if I was quoting a company £5,000 for 2 days’ worth of

training, and they said to me 'Simon we'll pay you £5,000 but only if you come for a week' I'd

be much better off offering them 2 days training and Skype support than I would be trying to

negotiate on something that I know will never happen.

Managing expectations will also allow you to retain more profit and increase the likelihood of

upselling, because instead of having to squeeze all of the profit out of a deal just to try and

make the sale, you're going to present products or services that your customer can afford, that

do have profit. And if your customer can realistically afford the product that you're offering,

instead of having to squeeze your own margins to make a deal, you can squeeze the

customers budget that little bit further to produce an upsell. If you want to join the top 1% in

sales, you need to become a master of managing expectations. If someone is completely

unrealistic, the best thing you can do is tell them so. Just like the delivery of your 'no', your

response to managing expectations is crucial. You need to be friendly, but direct and straight

to the point.

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Identifying problems for customers

You may have heard the saying 'People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a

quarter-inch hole.' The same applies for anything you're selling. The customer isn't there

because they want to buy your product or service, they're there because they want to solve a

problem. The sooner you can identify their problems, the sooner you can focus on having your

product or service be the solution to that problem. If you've got a marketing agency a customer

isn't coming to you because they want you to manage their marketing, they're coming to you

because they want to increase leads or visibility. If someone is coming to buy a car, they're

not coming because they want a car, they're coming because they need to take their kids to

school or get to work. If someone is hiring me to speak, they're not hiring me because they

want me to speak, they're hiring me because they want me to motivate their team and produce

more sales.

The best sales people don't just stop when they've identified current problems however, the

best sales people look at how their products or services could also solve future problems.

Identifying future problems also creates golden opportunities to upsell additional products or

services. For example if you run a social media agency and a customer is coming to you to

increase leads, and they're going to be spending £1,000 a week to achieve this, they're more

than likely going to run into problems handling the increase in leads when it does happen, so

if you can identify this problem before it happens and present it to the customer this creates

the perfect opportunity for you to pitch them on CRM (customer relationship manager)

software to help manage the additional leads. When I was selling cars it was identifying the

potential of future problems that allowed me to sell the amount of additional products that I

did. A lot of sales people just sell on the immediate benefits of their products. But what about

future benefits? And future problems it could help solve?

Let's take alloy wheel protection on a car for instance, an upsell that usually costs around

£300. I heard other sales people pitching the product saying 'If you scuff your alloys you can

claim and they'll repair them so it will keep your alloys looking new'... this is okay, but I can

guarantee you it won't be as effective as saying 'The average alloy wheel costs £100 to repair,

so when you come to sell your car and it has 4 scuffed alloys it's going to knock £400 off the

resale price, as long as you use this product it will pay for itself because of the increase in

resale value and you'll have the benefit of keeping your alloys looking new for the entire time

you own the car.'

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Notice how I didn't focus on the immediate benefit of keeping the alloys looking new. I focused

on the future problem of a decrease in resale price, then I allowed the product to solve that

future problem, then additionally I talked about the alloys looking new. In my experience, you

have a much higher chance of selling something if you can identify a problem, then show how

your product of service can help solve that problem.

You either like me or like me

When it comes to building a relationship with your customer, your 'likeability' factor will make

a huge difference to your end result, and not just your conversion rate, but the entire

profitability of your sale. If you want to stand any chance of making decent money in sales,

your customers have got to like you. The more people like you, the more they'll spend with

you. The more they spend with you, the more money you'll make. Do you remember me saying

I'd tell you why Tom & Simon's Kitchen took off? This is why. People loved us, we were two

young lads trying our best to make something of ourselves. People were rooting for us to

succeed, because they liked us. It certainly wasn't the food, at least to begin with anyway, in

fact, the first fish & chips we ever served the customer said to us 'Lads, you can't serve that'.

True story. And yet, people kept coming back. Why? Because they liked us. Of course, you

do eventually have to offer a decent product. After countless days of trial and error, our fish

and chips went on to win national awards. Getting people to like you as a salesperson isn't

easy though, people are already coming to you with their guard up and a preconceived notion

that all sales people are out to make money, and it's true, we are there to make money, but

that doesn't mean we're there to scam people, be disingenuous and unfriendly.

There's many things that will help you to be likeable as a salesperson, smiling for one, being

upbeat for another. People like happy people, it's a fact, so even if you're having a bad day,

you need to appear not to be, it's time to act again. In sales you can't smile enough, people

used to call me 'The Smiler' at work, that should tell you something. They also used to make

ridiculous laughing noises when I came into the office because they could hear me laughing

with my customers across the showroom. It was always a compliment, because I was the one

winning my customers over. I'm not going to go through everything that can make you likeable

as a person, because there's a countless number of factors that come into it, but in the next

chapter I am going to share with you one of the biggest secrets to my success in car sales,

and how I was only able to implement it because my customers liked and trusted me. Your

customers have got to like you if you want to stand any chance of achieving high success in

sales.

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The secret(s)

This one secret made me thousands every month. Before I share this with you, I do have to

state that this only works if you can use someone else as the decision maker in the deal, i.e.

in car sales if someone asks for discount, traditionally the salesperson will go to the managers

and ask for the discount, so the managers are the decision maker, not the salesperson

themselves. But do you know what? And here’s another secret first, anyone can be your

decision maker in a deal, you don't have to make the decision yourself, or at least, you don't

have to appear to make the decision yourself. Working on your own? Ask the cat if you can

offer discount. Why is this so unbelievably beneficial? Because you don't become the 'no'

person, the moment that you're the one saying 'no' that's going to have a negative effect on

your relationship with the customer, and if you want to maximise the profit in a deal, that needs

to stay as positively charged as possible. You need to be the 'yes' person, someone else

needs to be the 'no' person. Okay, so what was it that made me thousands every month? And

I don't just mean thousands, I mean thousands above all the other sales people. The secret

that makes the difference between an average pay check, and a fantastic pay check. The

difference between a deal with minimal profit, and a deal with maximum profit. Here it is... you

must be on the customer’s team. One of the costliest mistakes salespeople make is wrongly

thinking it's them and the decision maker (management) vs the customer. Sales people are

taught to work with the decision maker to close the customer. This is wrong. Yes, you still

need to work with your management but if you want join the top 1% in sales, you need to flip

this approach on its head, and you need to work with your customer to close the decision

maker. Sound backwards? Good! It is.

Here's why this approach changes the game. Let's take a football match as an example,

traditional sales teaching would mean that you would be the fan, your decision maker would

be the team you're supporting, and the customer would be the opposing team. Surely when

you see it like this it's pretty obvious that no opposing team will feel good without a fan? Well,

that's exactly how your customer feels when you've decided to work with the management to

close the deal. Who's there to support the customer in this approach? No one. You're choosing

to cheer for the opposing team, instead of them. So now instead of you being on their side,

you're on the oppositions side, and that's not a good place to be, because it's hard to like a

fan that's cheering on the team you want to lose. And if your customer starts to dislike you,

you can wave goodbye to maximising the deal. You need to be on the customer’s side,

cheering for them, the whole time.

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The advantage of cheering for the customer

The moment that you stop working with the decision maker to close the customer and start

working with the customer to close the decision maker, the customer loves you. You've now

switched from being an away fan, to a home fan. And what team doesn't love their home fans?

This one single switch in approach will make a huge amount of difference to the profit potential

of a deal. Closing becomes easier, retaining profit becomes easier, and upselling becomes

easier. All things you need to become a master of sales. If your customer can visibly see that

you're rooting for them they'll trust you more, they'll listen to you more, and they'll be much

more likely to act on what you say. All three of these are a winning formula for maximising the

profit in a deal. Getting a customer to listen to you is essential for closing, retaining profit and

upselling. If a customer isn't listening to you, you've lost control, and losing control in sales

means it's game over. The good thing is, as long as the customer trusts you and likes you,

they'll listen to you, and if they're listening to you you're in control. If you're in control, and

you're on their side, you've primed yourself to be in the best possible position you can be for

preparing to close a deal.

How to position yourself as a home fan

So, you've done a fantastic job of staying honest throughout the process and your customer

trusts you impeccably. You've been smiling throughout (even if it's on the telephone) and

you've done such a great job of building the relationship that the customer is now considering

making you their new best friend. You now have complete trust, and the customer thinks you're

awesome. It's just about to come to deal time and you want the customer to know that you're

supporting them, not the decision maker. How are you going to do this without making it

obvious? You’re not. You're going to make it as obvious as possible. So much so that you're

going to tell them. This is where you can use the fact that you're a salesperson to your

advantage.

Remember how everyone thinks sales people are out to make money? Don't shy away from

this fact. Now it's time to turn this in your favour by telling them that you're there to make

money. Why? Because you're now going to be working with them to close the deal, so it's

perfectly fine to tell them that you get paid for securing the deal for you both. Because then

you're both invested in turning this into a positive outcome. They get the product or service

that they want, you get paid, and you’re both happy.

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Too many sales people shy away from the fact that they make money and avoid the whole

'commission' thing at all cost treating it as if it's an enemy of the deal. This is the worst thing

you can do, you just look shady trying to avoid the conversation, the customer puts up their

guard, and now all that hard-earned relationship building that you've been doing has gone out

the window.

Instead of avoiding it, own it. Unless the customer says straight up that they'll buy your product

or service at full cost when you present the offer, which is rare, the best thing I've found that

you can say to them when they counter offer is 'Look, at the end of the day if I don't make a

sale, I don't get paid, so I want to get you a deal as much as you do, I'll do my best for us.'

Once again, they'll find your honesty completely refreshing and the trust factor will be solidified

once more, and let's face it, they know you're going to earn commission anyway. I used this

one liner in sales all the time and when you deliver it effectively it works unbelievably well.

The power of 'US'

Notice in the one liner I didn't say 'I'll do my best for you'. I said 'I'll do my best for us'. This is

crucial. First, the 'us' solidifies that you are now a team. Second, which is the most important

reason as to why you say 'us' instead of 'you', by saying 'us' you are reiterating the fact that

you are working with them to produce an outcome that you both want. Why is this beneficial?

As soon as your customer understands wholeheartedly that you want to secure the deal as

much as they do they automatically assume that you'll do what you can to close the deal. And

this is true, you are going to do what you can to close the deal, but you certainly aren't going

to rip the profit out of the deal and give everything away. In fact, quite the opposite is going to

happen. You're going to retain the majority (if not all) of the profit, you're going to be able to

sell more add-ons or upsells, and you're going to successfully close more customers. How is

this going to happen? Because now, when you say 'no' your customer is going to listen to you.

Think about it, you're much more likely to take the word of an ally than you are an enemy. This

is exactly how your customer now sees you, as an ally. And that's certainly the most favourable

position you can put yourself in if you want your customer to start listening to what you say,

even if it isn't what they want to hear. This is the thing about sales, you need to understand

that not everything that you're going to say is going to be what the customer wants to hear.

The key to successfully keeping a positively charged relationship between you and the

customer is learning how to deliver what the customer doesn't want to hear in the least

damaging way possible. Anyone can deliver good news and keep a customer happy, but only

the best sales people can deliver a 'no' and still keep the customer happy.

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'NO' the most profitable word in sales

Knowing when and how to say 'no' in sales will determine how successful you are. Learning

how and when to say 'no' when your customer starts to negotiate will be one of the most

profitable investments of your time. I recommend you pay close attention to this chapter. It

doesn't matter what you're selling, being able to say 'no' confidently is essential for retaining

profit and maximising deals. Your ability to say 'no' will be the differentiating factor between

being average at sales, and amazing. And do you know the crazy thing? Most sales people

are terrible at saying 'no'. They either get their timing wrong, or their delivery, or both. If you

want to maximise your deal, you need to get both perfect. The good news is that achieving

both the timing and delivery of your 'no' isn't difficult, so much so that by the end of this chapter

you'll know exactly how and when to say 'no' like a pro. Mastery will just come down to practice.

Okay, let's start with timing, as this is the easiest. It's as simple as this, the sooner you say

'no' the more convincing you'll be. Hesitation creates doubt, doubt kills sales. That doesn't

mean you say the word 'no' as quick as you can, but it does mean you avoid any hesitation

and deliver your 'no' as convincingly as possible. How frequently should you say 'no'? If you

want to maximise your deals, the answer is every single time your customer first comes up

with a counter offer. That's right, every single first counter offer you should say 'no'. Even if

you know the offer is doable, you should say 'no'. Here's why. Average sales people accept

offers, the best sales people make offers. Accepting an offer just because you 'can' will have

negative consequences on your long-term profit and cost you countless thousands in

commission. If you want to join the elite, never accept the first offer.

How you say 'no' is just as important as when you say 'no'. There's skill in the execution.

Remember, as sales people we are the 'yes' people, the decision makers are the 'no' people.

This allows our relationship to stay positively charged. At Volkswagen when a customer made

a first counter offer, no matter what it was, I would reply 'Sorry, I want to do a deal, but there's

no chance the manager will accept that.' You'd be amazed at how many people would just

come straight back with 'So what do you think they will accept?' Or just automatically increase

their offer. And they don't just come back with a slight increase, because of the immediate

response and delivery of the 'no' the increase is often substantial.

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In my first year in car sales I made the company over £100,000 more profit than the least

successful salesperson, I more than doubled his profit, a huge portion of that came from my

ability to say 'no' effectively. Think about it, and I'll use car sales as an example, but this can

be applied to any product or service based sales, let's say I was selling a Volkswagen Golf,

the car costs £20,000 and there's £2,000 profit in the car, I've presented my offer and the

customer comes back with an offer of £18,000. If you hesitate with your response you're

guaranteed to be playing with the bottom half of that profit, so you'll be pushing for anywhere

between £18,500 and £19,000 (if you're lucky). For arguments sake let's say you deal in the

middle and sell the car for £18,750, that means you've taken a profit of £750. On the flip side,

let's say you have learned how to say 'no', there's no hesitation with your response and you're

confident with your delivery, you execute to perfection. With this approach, unless the

customer can't afford the car (which means you've done a poor job of qualifying), you're

guaranteed to be playing with the top half of the profit, you're going to be pushing for anywhere

between £19,500 and the full £20,000. Sounds unrealistic? Try it, and see how effective it is.

You'll be amazed at the results. Why does this work so well?

Like I said earlier, because you didn't hesitate with your response and delivered it with

complete conviction your customer immediately thinks that their offer is completely unrealistic,

so instead of coming back with a slight increase, they come back with a much larger offer. I

was able to build such a strong relationship with my customers they'd often come back with

'What do you think they'd accept?', of course this is where you can name your price, or, if you

want to retain all the profit, you can simply say 'We don't usually accept offers, but I'll see what

I can do.' Then you ask, and come back with the figure that you choose. Okay, let's go back

to the figures, and again for arguments sake we'll say you didn't manage to keep 100% of the

profit, but you did execute the 'no' to perfection and because of that you managed to deal at

£19,750. That's means you've taken a profit of £1,750. That's £1,000 more profit than £18,750

deal. So even though the increase in price of the deal compared to the other one is only slightly

over 5%, the overall profit of the deal has increased by more than 130%.

Desperation, kryptonite for sales

Desperation in sales is fine, as long as you as the salesperson have absolutely none of it. If

desperation exists, it needs to come from the customer, not the salesperson. From the

customer’s point of view, there's nothing worse than a desperate salesperson. They usually

come across as pushy and overly aggressive.

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Being desperate in sales will also put you at a disadvantage when it comes to closing the deal,

because the customer will be able to see that you're desperate to make a sale, and if a

customer knows that you're desperate to make a sale, they'll assume (usually rightfully so)

that you're going to be overly flexible to close the deal. As a salesperson you need to avoid

desperation at all costs. You need to learn how to handle the continuous pressure of being

close to your target, because the truth is, in sales, even if you're in the top 1% you're going to

be close to your target at some point of the day, week, month or year.

Being in the top 1% just means that pressure will come sooner, rather than later. The best

sales people understand that pressure is a part of the game, they also understand that they

are the creators of the pressure that they put themselves under. Let me explain, and we'll take

selling IT software as an example. Let's say you're targeted with selling £200,000 of software

in May, and by May 15th you've already closed 8 deals and bought in £180,000 worth of

business. Based on the results you've achieved so far that month your confidence is going to

be sky high and if you just continue what you're doing you're going to reach your target, and

because of this the pressure that you're going to feel about reaching your target that month is

going to be minimal, hence, you are the creator of the pressure you put yourself under.

Now let's say it's May 29th and you've only done £100,000 worth of sales, you're 50% towards

your target and you've only got 2 days left to achieve it. The pressure you're going to feel is

going to be immense, and this is where most sales people start to become desperate. This is

the worst thing you can do, because it's only going to create more problems and produce even

less results. The fact is, unless you can create a miracle, you're going to miss your target. So

the best thing you can do in this situation is realise it, take the pressure off yourself, then start

to identify the problems which caused you to be in this position in the first place. Because

unless everyone is missing their target, there's a reason you’re here, and they're not. It's your

job to find out why. Once you've identified your problems you can look at working on them so

you can improve your results for the next month, allowing you to feel less pressure and avoid

becoming desperate. If you want to avoid desperation; minimise pressure. If you want to

minimise pressure; smash through your target as early as possible.

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Identifying problems in yourself

This is completely different to identifying problems for customers, because instead of

identifying a problem to try and sell a product or service, you're going to be identifying a

problem to sell yourself on the improvements that you need to make in order to join the top

1%. Investing time in improving yourself and your skill set will be the best investment you ever

make, because no one can ever take your skills away from you and you'll be able to carry

them with you for the rest of your life.

It shocks me when I see a salesperson at the bottom of a leader board, then I go back 6

months later and the same salesperson is still at the bottom of the leader board. It doesn't

shock me because I'm surprised to see it, it shocks me because there's no excuse for it. Sales

is a skill, and skills can be learned. You can learn to become successful at selling, and if you

can learn to become successful at selling there's no reason why you should continuously be

at the bottom of the pack. Improvement starts with realisation, the realisation that your skills

as a salesperson can continuously be improved upon. If there's people above you on the

leader board, you can improve by reaching them or surpassing them. Likewise, if you're at the

top of the leader board, you can improve by leaving the pack even further behind.

Although often in sales you're competing against targets and other sales people, the real

person you're competing against is yourself. The real thing you should be focusing on is being

better today, than you were yesterday, and becoming better tomorrow, than you are today. If

you focus on continuous daily improvement, it's impossible to fail in sales. In order to improve

your results as a salesperson you need to analyse everything that you do. From your

composure to your decisiveness, your 'hello' to your 'goodbye', your smile to your handshake,

your walk to your talk and everything in-between. You should look at everything that you do

and see where you can improve.

A fantastic strategy for success in sales is using the principle of 'Plan, Do, Review’. First you

plan what you're going to do, then you do what you've planned, then you review what you've

just done. Then you simply repeat this process. If you follow this formula, success is inevitable.

Your success is inevitable because regardless of where you're starting from, you'll eventually

weed out your weaknesses and mistakes only to be left with strengths and positives. That's

not to say your strengths can't continuously be improved upon too though, quite the opposite.

It's your strengths that make you special, not ironing out your weaknesses.

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It's your strengths that will make the difference between you being average, and being

fantastic at sales. You can still improve on your weaknesses and be average at sales if you

don't capitalise on your strengths. Ironing out your weaknesses will help prevent you losing

money in deals. It's your strengths that will help you take your deals to the next level, the level

that puts you in the top 1%. You should focus on continuously improving your strengths, whilst

ironing out your weaknesses.

Vision. I can see into the future

Remember the drill? And remember the hole? Vision is seeing the beautiful piece of art that's

going to hang from the wall. If you want to become a master of sales, you have to master

seeing into the future, not literally of course, because that's impossible, but you have to master

seeing the possibilities of what the future might hold for the customer who's potentially going

to buy your product or service. Those that lack vision will see a car, those who have vision will

see the journey that car will take you on. Those that lack vision will see leads, those who have

vision will see the increased income and the new office that those leads will provide. Those

that lack vision will see only what's in front of them, those that have vision will see the potential

of what's around the corner. If you want to increase vision, stop thinking about what is, and

start thinking about the potential of what could be. The potential is what your customer is really

interested in, the more you showcase the potential of what your product or service has to offer,

the more likely you are to make a sale.

It's important to note that I said 'the potential' of what your product or service has to offer. I'm

not talking about what it actually has to offer, like features, I'm talking about the potential of

what the offer could produce, the benefit and beyond. The reason that I say 'benefit and

beyond' is because there's a traditional sales saying that goes 'Your customer isn't interested

in what your product does, your customer is interested in what your product does for them.'

But I'd say having vision takes this saying one step further, having vision doesn't just look at

what your product does for the customer, having vision looks at what your product could

potentially do for the customer in the future too.

Let's take an umbrella as an example, the feature could be that it has unbreakable spokes

and wind resistant material, the benefit is that you'll stay dry and spend less money on

replacing umbrellas, vision is seeing the interview your customer just nailed because they

turned up dry with a coffee in their hand with the money they saved. Okay, I know that's

probably quite an extreme example, but hopefully it gets the point across.

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Vision is not just seeing the benefit, vision is also seeing what the customer could potentially

achieve from the benefit. The bigger the picture that you can build in your customers mind,

the more likely they'll be to purchase. Every realistic potential that you can highlight will

increase the desire to purchase. Take note that I said 'realistic', if you're trying to entice your

customer to buy on the potential of what could be, and that potential is completely unrealistic

then it will have the opposite effect. Your customer will just think that you're trying to say

anything to get them to buy, they'll start to doubt everything you said previous, and you'll lose

trust. Build vision, but be realistic when doing so. Here's an example of realistic vision building,

let's take a can of coke zero. The feature would be zero calories and zero sugar, the benefit

would be that it's healthier than regular coke, the potential benefit is that you could lose weight

and look fantastic on your next beach holiday.

Positively charging your environment

Staying positively charged yourself is essential for staying at the top of your game in selling.

If you want to stay positively charged yourself you have to work on creating a positive

relationship with your team. Regardless of how positive you are as an individual, if the entire

team around you is negative, it will eventually bring you down. Even if your team consists of

just one other person, you have to ensure that you're both running on the same high level

frequency as frequently as possible. If you're playing the solo game, you need to understand

that you are in complete control of the energy that exists in your environment. You have to

work on keeping yourself in a positive mindset. Any negativity in the work space should be

avoided because regardless of how you try to hide it, it will have a negative impact on your

results.

Your team plays an important role in your success, not necessarily because their skills will

directly affect your results, but because their mindset will. If your team doesn't have the right

mindset for success they will create a negative environment for you to work in, and that's the

last place you want to be if you want to achieve positive results. You can choose to become

the leader of the pack. You can choose to be the positive energy source that lifts and

enlightens your team. Regardless of how negative someone is, positivity attracts. People want

to be around positive people much more than they do negative people. But if that positive

energy source doesn't exist, negativity will continue to spread.

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Someone once said to me 'There's only a few negative people in the world, they just get

around a lot.' I love this, it's so true. How often have you gone in a room only to hear everyone

in that room bitching and moaning about how bad their day is. Do you think everyone suddenly

started complaining at the same time? Do you think everyone is coincidentally having a bad

day? Of course not.

One person decided to start moaning to someone else, and instead of that person choosing

to look at the positives in their situation, they started to focus on the negatives. Then they

turned to the person on their left, and so the negativity continued to spread until it had

consumed the entire room. All it would have taken was for someone to decide not to consume

the negativity, and instead focus on the positives and pass that on and the negativity chain

would have been broken. But do you know why they didn't? For one reason, because it's

easier to agree with someone than it is to disagree. This is the thing with sales though, if you

want to be successful, you have to take charge and be the positive influence in your

environment. If someone is being negative you can't agree for the sake of agreeing, it will cost

you your success if you do.

You either walk away and avoid the negativity, or you counteract it with positivity and try at the

very least to neutralise the situation. You can choose to let the negative energy bring you

down, or you can choose to stay positive and focus on bringing others to your level. There are

some people however that regardless of how much you try, just can't be helped. No matter

what you say or do they believe that for some reason life is against them and they're going to

tell the world. They've become so accustomed to complaining that having a negative attitude

has become the norm. It has completely consumed them. The reason that you'll never be able

to help them is because they don't want to be helped. They're happy being negative, and if

someone's happy in their situation, they won't change it. When you meet people like this, take

note, and make it part of your mission to avoid them, they'll only bring you down if you don't.

Establishing relationships with your team and management

When you have a positively charged environment relationships between yourself and your

team and management are able to flourish. Just like priming your customer ready for the close,

priming your environment to allow relationships to prosper will have a hugely positive impact

on your results. Working with your team and management effectively will allow you to bring

out the best of your ability, and if you want to join the top 1% you're going to need the best of

everything you have.

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The fact is, your team and management can help with your progression, or hinder your

progression. So it's always best to aim towards building a positive relationship with all of your

colleagues.

At WE ARE ENTREPRENEURS (wae) I put a huge amount of effort into the team and making

sure they're happy with their work and surroundings. I want the team to enjoy working together.

A happy workforce is much more productive than one that isn't. I care about my team, and

because of that they care about the mission that wae is on. It sounds simple, but the best way

to establish a good relationship with others is to work hard and treat people with respect.

People like people who work hard, they also respect them, and if you show respect back, it's

a win win. We've all heard the saying 'treat others how you like to be treated', this doesn't just

mean you should be nice to people. People like genuine people, people who are real with

themselves and others. People often face management and turn into a completely different

person.

They become reserved and overly nice because they're scared of saying something wrong or

out of line. The problem with this is that management are people too, and they know when

someone is being overly nice. Playing it safe will get you nowhere in this world. Your

management will have much more respect for you if you just be yourself. At least then they

know who you really are. Challenging management decisions is not always a bad thing either.

When done in the right manner, it will also earn you a great deal more respect with upper

management if you're right. And even if you're wrong, as long as you've challenged the

decision in a constructive manner you'll still earn respect just because of the fact that you had

the courage to speak out. I've also found it to be much more effective to work with the people

you're competing with, rather than against them. If you focus on working as a team, you'll

achieve much higher levels of success than you would if you all decided to run solo. When

you work in a sales environment you'll be much more productive if you all cheer each other on

and celebrate one another success. It's also extremely motivating too. When you work as a

team you can bounce ideas off each other, see what others are doing well and discuss how

you can all improve. You can also help lift one another when you're having a bad day, and

let's face it, even the best go through it, so the support can come in handy.

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Mindset for success

If you want to be successful at sales, you have to start by having the right mindset for success.

If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will. You have to believe that you are able to

become the best, or you never will. As Henry Ford once said 'whether you think you can or

think you can't, you're right.'

Like I mentioned earlier when I said in the interview at Volkswagen 'I'm not interested in being

average, what does the best salesperson make?', I wasn't just saying this because I was

acting confident, I said it because I believed I would become the best. I believed in myself, the

manager believed in me, and because the manager believed in me, he hired me. In order to

join the top 1% you have to think and act like the top 1%. Success doesn't happen by chance,

success happens when the right preparation meets the right opportunity. You have to prepare

yourself to be successful, and that starts with your mind.

As Jim Rohn once said 'Formal education will make you a living, self-education will make you

a fortune.' If you want to join the elite you have to be willing to invest your own time and energy

in making it happen. Just like priming a customer for the close and priming your environment

to allow relationships to prosper, you have to prime your mind for success. Relying on anyone

other than yourself for creating your own success is a dangerous strategy to play and will more

than likely end in failure. You should treat every piece of training and support that your

company, management, and team offer as a bonus, and nothing more. You are responsible

for your own success. It's your job to find out what's working and what isn't. It's your job to find

out what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. It's your job to find out what needs

to be improved upon and what needs to be capitalised on. Realising that you are in control of

your own destiny will allow you to throw all excuses out the window.

Excuses slow the path to improvement. If you slow the path to improvement you'll hinder your

chance of becoming successful. Leave excuses behind and focus on what needs to be done

in order for you to become the best ‘you’ you can be. One of the greatest sayings I've ever

heard is this 'your mind is like a garden, your thoughts are the seeds, you can grow flowers,

or you can grow weeds.' I don't watch the news, I don't listen to the radio and I don't read

newspapers. Why? Because I'm very selective with how I choose to cultivate my mind. What

you think about directly influences how you feel and how you behave. Choose to absorb things

that will have a positive impact on your mind and leave the rest behind. Your future self will

thank you for it.

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Objections, what objections?

In sales you're going to come up against a multitude of objections, the good thing is, once

you've learned to master them all, you can simply repeat the process of overcoming them.

First, what is objection handling? Objection handling means responding to the buyer in a way

that changes their mind or alleviates their concerns. A lot of sales people argue with their

customer or try to pressure them into backing down because they don't understand or haven't

learned how to handle objections properly. The only thing that's usually achieved with this

approach is a customer who's even surer of their reason as to why they're not going to buy.

Also, as soon as you start arguing with a customer or pressuring them in a wrongful situation

you can wave goodbye to any rapport you've built. If a customer has an objection, it's better

to address it early. Usually the longer a customer holds an objection, the stronger that

objection becomes. You can address objections by asking questions throughout the process.

Here's a secret that I use when objection handling, I've always found that asking questions

using words that are associated with being positive will produce much better results in terms

of leading to a sale than ones that are more direct. Let me explain.

A standard question that's taught in sales to identify objections is 'Do you have any concerns

so far?' I would never say this. Instead I would say 'I'm assuming you're happy with everything

so far?' Some people might say that this is avoiding the objections, I would say that it allows

the customer to focus on the positives and by doing so they usually overcome their own

objections. Also, if they do have a significant objection they usually speak out so you can still

address it. I've found the more you focus on objections, the more your customer focuses on

objections. I believe it's much more effective to counteract objections by bringing the customer

back to their 'why' than it is to keep trying to neutralise objections. Your customers 'why' is the

reason they're there in the first place. If you can persuade a customer to focus on their 'why'

they usually stop looking for objections and start focusing on how they can make the sale

happen.

A common objection would be 'the price is too high', if you hear this it doesn't mean the price

is too high, it means you haven't done a good enough job of delivering the value. When you

hear this, don't try and convince your customer that it's not expensive. Instead, build more

value then bring your customer back to their 'why'. Another common objection is 'I can't afford

it', usually this doesn't actually mean they can't afford it, it means they can't justify spending

that money on your product or service.

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Again, the best thing you can do is bring your customer back to their 'why'. What's the reason

they're there in the first place? Why have they come to you? We know that it's because they

have a problem they want solving. If they don't buy your product or service, that problem is

still going to exist. They're still going to be in the exact same position that they were in before

they came to you. They don't want that. Have your customer focus back on the problem that

bought them to you in the first place.

What I've found, although there's a multitude of objections that you will hear, there's only 4

core reasons as to why that objection exists. Either the customer doesn't believe your product

or service offers enough value, they don't trust you, they don't like you, or they don't trust your

company. That's it. All of the objections you face can be whittled down into one of these 4 core

reasons. Being liked and building trust in yourself and your company all comes from the

relationship building. Once you master relationship building, the only thing you need to focus

on is building as much value in your product or service as possible. An objection comes from

a lack of desire, the more desire you can create, the less objections you will face. Think about

it, 'I can't afford it', 'it's too expensive', 'I'll have to think about it', 'it's not the right time', 'it's not

for me'... All of these come from a lack of desire.

If your customer had the ultimate desire to buy your product or service they'd find a way to

afford it, they wouldn't think it was too expensive, they wouldn't need to think about it, it would

be the right time, it would be for them. The reason your customer lacks desire is because

you've failed to build enough value into your product or service. If you focus on building value

you'll increase the customers desire, when you increase the desire of your customer they'll

start to justify why they do want your product or service, rather than why they don't. If you

focus on relationship building and value creation, most objections will take care of themselves

through the customers own desire to purchase.

Zero pressure selling

Zero pressure selling is how I sell. I rarely pressure sell and never use forceful tactics to try

and get someone to buy something. You can only be successful in sales using zero pressure

selling if you are able to build the strongest of relationships with your customers. It requires

an ultimate bond and for your customer to not only like you, but trust you implicitly. If you don't

have a complete bond between you and your customers and you use zero pressure selling,

you'll produce average results at best. There's a skill to selling, and the truth is zero pressure

selling basically takes all of the skill out of the selling.

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The tactic behind zero pressure selling is to take all pressure selling out of the equation and

rely solely on the strength of your relationship to secure the sale. The advantage of doing this

is that by taking all pressure selling out of the equation you keep ultimate trust with your

customer and your relationship has the potential to remain as strong as can be. The reason

that I say 'potential to remain' is because zero pressure selling doesn't guarantee your

relationship will be as strong as can be, everything you do to build your relationship prior to

using this tactic as a close is what secures the sale. This tactic requires you to focus everything

on building the strongest relationship possible, and very little on the sale itself, especially the

close. The close comes from the trust and bond in your relationship. You build a relationship

so strong that the product or service becomes secondary, and buying from you becomes the

primary objective.

Most sales people find zero pressure selling risky because you have to be okay with your

customer walking away from the sale. However, just because someone walks away from the

sale, doesn't mean they won't buy from you. When you master building the strongest of

relationships you're okay with people walking away from the sale because you have complete

confidence that if they are going to buy, they'll come back and buy from you. Another

advantage of using zero pressure selling is that you rarely, if ever, experience buyer’s

remorse. When you take all pressure out of the equation and allow the customer to make the

decision themselves, it's extremely unlikely that they'll pull out of the deal because you've

given them the space and time needed to make a decision that they're sure about.

I'm not saying you should use zero pressure selling, because it requires you to be a master at

building relationships. But if you do master building relationships you’ll enjoy zero pressure

selling as a way to sell because you focus on making friends, not sales. Understanding people

is the key to being successful with zero pressure selling. The fact is, most management or

'pushy' sales trainers will tell you that you should never intentionally let someone walk away,

and you should do all you can to close the deal then and there. I just want to clarify before I

continue that letting someone 'walk away' does not mean you're giving up any attempt of

closing the deal. Intentionally letting someone walk away means you allow them to 'talk to their

wife or husband' or 'let them check their finances' or 'let them think about it'. You basically

agree to understand their reasoning for not purchasing then and there and allow them the time

necessary to make the decision. You hear it all the time in sales... 'Don't let them walk', 'If they

walk you've lost the sale', 'Close them or lose them'.

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Based on everything that I've experienced dealing with customers and closing more people

than anyone else I've ever worked with, both on the phone and in person, saying that you

should never intentionally let someone walk away is wrong.

How can I say this with absolute confidence? Because I confidentially let people walk away all

the time. I'm the person who's done the relationship building. I'm the person that's learned

about this individual. I'm the person that knows the most about them in this sales situation. I'm

the person that understands their emotional state and frame of mind better than anyone else

in this current situation. And if I'm completely confident in my ability to build the ultimate

relationship with this customer and I completely understand how they're feeling throughout the

process in any given moment, surely I'm the person to decide when the best time to try and

close this individual is. I can say with absolute confidence that if I tried to pressure the

customers that I intentionally let walk into buying then and there, I would have lost far more

sales than I did by allowing them the time they needed to make the decision. Not only that,

but had I managed to pressure the odd customer into the close, they'd have been much less

likely to return to me in the future because it would have had a negative lasting impression on

our relationship.

Zero pressure selling doesn't mean you never attempt to close, far from it. All sales situations

should inevitably be working towards the close. Zero pressure selling means that when you

do come to attempt the close, and your customer has a reason not to buy then and there, you

have enough faith in your ability to build trust in your relationship that you know your customer

isn't just making an excuse, and that it would be much more beneficial to keep the strength of

your relationship by allowing them the time needed to make the decision, than it would be to

try and pressure them into the close. Many sales people who pressure sell never see their

customers again, because it's a completely off-putting and unenjoyable experience. If you're

only focused on immediate gain and short term success then perhaps pressure selling is for

you. But if you're looking for long term sustainable growth, growth where your customers buy

from you time and time again, then zero pressure selling is a winner.

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The psychology of upselling

When it comes to upselling, it's safe to say the more upsells you make, the more money you'll

make. So it's only natural for a salesperson to want to master the art of upselling. Just like the

sale of the original product or service there's pushy ways to upsell, and non-pushy ways of

upselling. As you know by now I much prefer non-pushy techniques because it allows you to

keep a solid relationship with your customer. That's not to say pushy techniques don't work,

quite the opposite, but it certainly means the customer will have a less enjoyable experience

if you do use pushy techniques, and if they have a less enjoyable experience they'll be less

likely to buy from you in the future. Many businesses rely on repeat business. So if you can

master the art of upselling without being pushy, it's going to be favourable for your future.

When I sold cars I produced more upsells than anyone else. The number 1 tip that I can give

you before we start looking at techniques is that people follow the crowd, so if you can produce

upsells frequently it will put you at a massive advantage over those that don't, because straight

away when you present your offer you can confidently say things like 'most people also have...'

and 'the majority of my customers will also get...' or 'everyone I've sold to this week decided

to take...'. As soon as you express that most people have done something your customer will

become much more receptive to hearing what that 'something' is. Okay, so now you

understand the advantage of becoming a frequent up seller, how do you become one?

One of the best strategies I believe you can use is to be suggestive with the questions you

ask prior to presenting the upsell. For example in car sales a product they offer is paint

protection. So I would say something like 'Do you like to keep your car in good condition?'

Then when I came to present the paint protection product I would say 'now I know how you

told me earlier that you like to keep your car in good condition...' Then I would go on to talk

about how the paint protection will keep the car in good condition. If you have a digital agency

and you're building a website for a client you could say 'I'm assuming more leads would help

your business grow?', then when the website is complete you could say 'I know you mentioned

to me the other day that more leads would help your business grow...' then present your PPC

campaign or social media marketing strategy. If you're a coach or consultant and you're

working with a client you could say 'do you think you would benefit from having...' then go on

to present whatever that thing may be. The earlier you can ask these types of questions the

better.

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The first reason is that you get to find out whether your customer would actually be interested

and benefit from the upsell. If they're not interested, it gives you time to look at other upsells

that they may benefit from. The second reason it's best to ask these questions early is that the

closer you get to the upsell opportunity, the more it looks like you only asked the question

because you're trying to upsell something. Deliver the questions early, but not early enough

that they will forget what you talked about. Another hugely powerful thing about asking

questions like this is that they are 'yes' questions. You're asking them knowing that more than

likely the response is going to be a 'yes'. So when you do come to present your upsell it

appears to the customer that the reason you're offering this upsell is because they suggested

that they would benefit from what your product or service has to offer. Additionally, the more

a customer says 'yes', the more likely they are to continue saying 'yes'.

Another strategy for upselling is to present your first offer with all of your upsells included. This

is advantageous purely on the principle that it's easier to work backwards and reduce the

overall cost, than it is to work forwards and increase the overall cost. If you're selling a product

for £10,000, and you have 5 upsells priced at £200 each, it would be much more effective

starting straight at £11,000 with all 5 upsells included, than starting at £10,000 with none

included and trying to upsell each one individually. People like prices that go down, not up.

This is more effective when the upsells don't add a huge increase to the percentage of the

overall deal.

If you have a marketing agency and your customer comes to you looking for Facebook

management and that usually costs £2,000 per month, it would be unrealistic to try and upsell

Google AdWords and SEO upfront for an additional £4,000 per month. Yes, you might

eventually work up to this but if you present this straight up you'll more than likely put your

customer off because they'll think you're just trying to make money from them. With larger

value upsells like this it's better to secure the original work, deliver results, then justify the

upsell using the proof from your results. Another mistake that I often see sales people make

when upselling is failing to upsell anything because they became greedy, or pushy. If a

customer knows about one of your upsells without you presenting it and they say straight up

'Oh, by the way I'm not interested in buying x', the worst thing you can do is then go ahead

and present that upsell at the end of the deal. You will just annoy the customer, they'll think

you don't care about what they want, and the chance of you upselling anything else will have

just been drastically decreased. The best thing you can do in that situation is understand the

reason why the customer isn't interested. If it's plausible, agree with it, then move on and work

on upselling your other products or services.

31

The art of agreeing

No one likes people disagreeing with them, especially a customer. The more you can agree

with what your customer has to say the stronger a relationship you'll build and the more your

customer will like you. In selling, you need to take your own personal preferences out of the

equation and put yourself in your customer’s shoes. You aren't agreeing just for the sake of

agreeing, but you are going to do your best to understand the reasoning behind a decision so

you can agree with the reasoning. For example if a customer says 'I like this product in green'

the last thing you should say is 'I like this product in red', because you want the customer to

focus on building in their own mind what is going to be the perfect product for them. You'd be

much better off asking 'What is it about green that you like?' and then finding out that green is

their favourite colour. You can then offer better guidance and support moving forward based

on the customers preferences, rather than your own.

For some salespeople, their ego is too big and they feel like they have to argue with or correct

the customer. Don't do this. It will only have a negative impact on your relationship and

because of that your results will suffer too. Instead of disagreeing with what the customer has

just said, try to understand the reasoning behind it. If you want the customer to agree to

purchase, you must be agreeable first. One of the strongest ways that you can build a

relationship with your customer is to find a topic or interest that you both like and agree on.

The more you can both agree, the better off you'll both be.

Failure breeds success

I would like to end this book talking about failure, because I believe if I hadn't have allowed

myself to fail in the past, I wouldn't have written this book, nor would I have achieved the level

of success I have in sales and business. Opening yourself up to the possibility of failure will

allow you to be brave and make bold moves and decisions, and unless you want to be

average, you have to be brave and bold with your decisions. No one ever achieved anything

great in life playing it safe. If you want to stand out from the crowd you have to walk in the

opposite direction. Remember this; nearly everyone around you is playing it safe.

It's human nature to follow the crowd, and most people do. But if you know that the crowd is

playing it safe, and playing it safe isn't where success lies, then you have to take charge and

be the controller of your own life and you have to walk in the opposite direction. You have to

go against what human nature tells us to do, you have to go against the crowd.

32

If you were walking South and you saw a huge crowd of people in front of you suddenly stop

walking South and start running North, naturally your survival instinct will kick in and you'll

more than likely start running North too. This is perfectly fine for survival, because you know

in general if that happens there's a very good reason for it and you'd better start running too.

The only problem is people carry this on in other areas of life. And one area that this doesn't

play favour to is the achievement of financial success or joining the top 1%, because the fact

is the majority of people aren't doing what's required to be successful in these two areas.

So if you follow the majority, you'll be heading in the wrong direction. They aren't reading the

right books, they aren't taking massive action and they're not making brave moves and bold

decisions. They're playing it safe. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with people who

want to play it safe, you choose the life that you want to live. But I am saying that if you want

to excel in life and you don't want to be average, then you have to choose to not play it safe

and go against what the majority of people are doing. Just before I started my first business,

Tom & Simon's Kitchen, I told my plumbing boss the idea and he said to me 'that will never

work'. A lot of people laughed at the idea and it appeared that no one other than me and Tom

believed that it would work. Did we choose to listen to them and let their words discourage

us? No. Why?

Because everyone who thought it wouldn't work was in a position that we didn't want to be in.

It was the majority, the sheep, the people who just follow the crowd, the people who have just

played it safe all their lives telling us that it wouldn't work. Thankfully, we were young and

hungry enough to believe in our own madness. And it really was madness. I had no prior

experience of catering and I'd never run a business. I quit my plumbing job the next day after

we came up with the idea, got a £5,000 loan and a £3,000 overdraft, and bought the first

catering van off eBay. Quite literally when we started I didn't have a clue what I was doing,

and neither did Tom. That business was the very definition of throwing yourself in at the deep

end. I made more mistakes in the first 3 months of that business than I had my entire life. But

do you know what? I also learned more from making those mistakes than I had the previous

3 years of being a plumber.

We failed hard, but we also failed fast. And that's one of the secrets to success; failing fast.

The faster you can fail, the faster you can learn. The faster you can learn from your mistakes,

the faster you can start applying your new knowledge in the right direction. Many people dwell

on their mistakes and failures, don't be that person.

33

Accept the fact that mistakes are going to happen when you're pushing yourself to achieve

greatness. When you do experience failure, learn from it, pick yourself back up, and give

yourself a pat on the back.

It means you're already ahead of the majority of people who are playing it safe inside their

comfort zone.

As you’ve read this book, you’re one of the few hungry people leading the way for others to

follow. If you’re interested in taking your development to the next level, why not join a

community that supports you as you grow?

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