Stop Selling and Start Helping People Buy

Since I first entered the business world out of college 24 years ago (that's hard to write), I knew that success was all about sales. I probably realized that even earlier. I mean the interview process just to find a job out of college was a sales presentation and the product I was selling was myself.

I don't know if I was ever comfortable with the traditional sales approaches, which teach the consultative interview techniques to get to the prospects pain and then through presenting how the benefits of your product matches up with the pain they need to relieve.

Maybe it was because for the first 20 years of my sales career it quite frankly was tough to find the pain that I could solve for company through the company advertising in, or running a promotion with a minor league baseball team. We had to sell exposure, a captive audience, brand/name recognition and good will in their local community. Most of the sales minor league baseball teams make have more to do with creating a positive feeling for the company being involved in something good, wholesome and family oriented in their hometown. Our product was never top of the "must do" advertising budget, usually we were a secondary line item.

I mention this because I believe it set me up to sell from a totally different perspective when I launched my own business. Because for 20 years I had to focus more developing deep relationships with my customers of the baseball teams I worked for, I believe it allowed me to take a step back from the traditional dance in the selling process. I don't believe I ever had to spend much time overcoming the traditional objections most sales people face because, outside of a payment schedule discussion, there really were no objections to overcome. Businesses either saw involvement with their local professional baseball team as a positive, uplifting experience for their business, or they didn't.

Now that I run my own business coaching, consulting and training business called The Achievement Gym, I recently realized that I've had to "sell" very few people on becoming members of the program. Most of the discussions I've had have centered around those prospects "buying" the product that I have to offer.

All new members of The Achievement Gym this year have come back to me months, and in one case 2 years, after we had our initial discussion about joining my coaching program. In each of those cases the customer made the buying decision to buy my product. There was no selling involved on my part whatsoever.

My two biggest clients this year both came to me through referral sources, and it was a far gone conclusion that we were going to work together, and our discussion focused solely on the details of program, and the budget we could agree on. Again, those two clients made "buying decisions" to do business with me before we even had a discussion.

Has it always been this way? Certainly not. It did take me a good 2 1/2 years to create the reservoir of prospects, and referral sources while creating a pool of both present and former program members willing to provide referrals and testimonials that have provided a tremendous amount of credibility in my coaching programs.

It may not be the quick fix to building your business, but it is the long term and successful approach to building your business, and I recommend investing the time, energy and resources to do the same. If you do, I know you will begin attracting customers that will be making "buying decisions" to buy you and your product or service, before you ever speak with them and have "close" them, and I can tell you from experience that is a very powerful and rewarding place to be.

How do you this? Here are some steps:
1) Stop trying to "sell" everybody you meet and show genuine interest in the person you are speaking with as a person, not a prospect;
2) Create a system for staying in touch with people, and provide information of value to them
(create a newsletter, or newspaper clipping service to send articles of interest, etc.);
3) Provide outstanding service to your present customer base and create the expectation at the beginning of the relationship with any new prospect that if they like your product and service they will provide referrals
4) Always keep in mind that the word sell has its roots in Scandinavia, as the Scandinavia word "selzig" means "to serve."

Focus on serving your prospects and you will have more business than you'll ever need.

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