Being sold to can feel a bit… yuk. Whether it’s someone knocking on your front door, being stopped in the street, or just browsing around a store, it can feel very uncomfortable when a salesperson starts trying to “sell” to you.
The thing is the art of selling isn’t just about pushing a product or service on anybody. It’s actually meant to be about engaging with potential customers, listening to their needs and highlighting how a solution, product or service can help solve that need. When done authentically and thoughtfully it can be amazing.
I mean, that’s it in THEORY.
The practice, however hasn’t always been the case.
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In reality, across all forms of industry and environs, salespeople have been conditioned to sell at all costs. Many have been conditioned to adopt aggressive tactics, using rehearsed scripts that don’t resonate or leaning too heavily on pressure-filled pitches. They’re often driven by numbers, targets, and commissions rather than genuine customer relationships.
They have been told that the are the ones who will make or break a business. In the past, they have been taught tactics that have ultimately been a case of “sell or die”, taking any and every option to do so – even if it’s bordering on unethical.
And while this isn’t the case for ALL salespeople, the few that adopt these forceful techniques often give the entire profession a bad name. The stories of these encounters spread like wildfire, creating an overarching stereotype of the pushy, relentless salesperson that many have come to dread.
It’s no wonder then, that in a world saturated with such tactics, a genuine and honest approach feels like a breath of fresh air. Imagine if instead of feeling the pressure to close a deal, salespeople prioritized understanding the individual in front of them. By seeking to create a true connection and valuing the customer’s needs above the sale, the entire dynamic shifts.
Getting Rid Of The “Ick” - What Stops Authentic Selling?
The notion that salespeople will take advantage, especially when someone is vulnerable or down to their last dollar, is an international cultural memory perpetuated by stories, movies, and real-life experiences. Whether fair or not, the stereotype persists: that given the opportunity, a salesperson might exploit a customer’s naivety or desperation for their gain.
This perception underscores the importance of authenticity in sales. Being genuine isn’t just a catchphrase; it’s a vital shift that’s needed for a salesperson to stand out and create lasting, trust-based relationships.
So, how can one be their authentic self in the realm of sales? Let’s delve into the practices that can help cultivate true authenticity:
1. Listen More, Speak Less
The art of listening is deceptively simple yet profoundly impactful. But true listening isn’t passive; it’s an active engagement where you absorb not just the words but the emotions, concerns, and unspoken needs behind them. When you take a step back, pause, and genuinely tune into what a client is saying, you communicate that their voice is valuable. This deliberate act can turn a transactional interaction into a trust-building dialogue, setting the stage for a deeper, more meaningful relationship.
2. Vulnerability is Strength
In the sales landscape where polished pitches are the norm, showing vulnerability might seem counterintuitive. But it’s this very vulnerability that can break down walls. Sharing experiences, admitting to not knowing something, or even discussing past mistakes makes you relatable. It says, “I’m human too,” bridging the gap between seller and buyer, and fostering a sense of mutual understanding.
3. Practice Active Empathy
Empathy is the act of feeling with someone, not just feeling for them. In sales, this means stepping into your client’s shoes, truly experiencing their challenges, hopes, and fears. This profound level of understanding shapes your communication, allowing you to tailor solutions that resonate deeply with the client’s situation and aspirations.
4. Be Consistently Honest
Honesty isn’t a strategy; it’s a character trait. In a world where clients have a wealth of information at their fingertips, being forthright becomes not just an ethical choice but a practical one. By being consistent in your honesty, even when it’s challenging, you signal reliability. Clients know they can trust your word, laying a foundation for a lasting partnership.
5. Study Non-verbal Communication
While words convey information, it’s the subtleties of non-verbal communication — a raised eyebrow, a hesitant pause, or an enthusiastic gesture — that often reveal true feelings. By tuning into these cues, you can gauge comfort levels, adjust your approach in real-time, and establish a deeper rapport. Mastery over understanding and appropriately responding to non-verbal cues can be the difference between a missed opportunity and a successful engagement.
6. Personal Development
The journey towards authenticity is rooted in self-awareness. This involves consistently reflecting upon and refining one’s approach. By engaging in personal development, be it through reading, mentorship, or seminars, you cultivate a growth mindset. This continuous evolution ensures that your interactions remain genuine, informed, and relevant. One way of doing this is to record your video calls and study where you can make changes.
7. Always Add Value
In an era of information overload, standing out requires more than just presenting a product. It involves enriching your client’s world. By consistently adding value, whether through insights, relevant content, or additional services, you become more than just a salesperson; you become a valued partner in your client’s journey.
8. Establish a Peer Relationship
Historical sales dynamics often placed the salesperson in a dominant position, potentially alienating clients. Today, mutual respect and collaboration are the keystones of successful engagements. By approaching interactions as a peer — valuing client input, encouraging open dialogue, and fostering collaboration — you create an atmosphere of trust and co-creation.
9. Feedback is Gold
Growth is fueled by feedback. By actively seeking and, more importantly, acting upon feedback, you signal a commitment to excellence. Clients see that their opinions are valued and that they play an integral role in refining your offerings and approach. Sharing video clips of your calls with peers and senior managers can be a great way to collect feedback to help you moving forward.
10. Build a Reputation
In today’s interconnected world, word-of-mouth has taken on a digital dimension. A solid reputation built over years can be your most potent sales tool. This reputation is crafted not just through successful sales but by consistently showcasing reliability, authenticity, and a genuine commitment to client well-being.
11. Embrace the Consultant Approach
Gone are the days when salespeople held all the information. Today’s clients are well-informed and seek partnerships rather than pitches. Adopting a consultant’s mindset means shifting from selling to problem-solving, from pushing products to understanding needs, and from one-time transactions to ongoing collaborations.
12. Transparency is Key
Transparency engenders trust. Whether it’s in pricing, product capabilities, or potential limitations, being open and upfront removes the uncertainty that can hinder decision-making. Clients, knowing they have the full picture, can make informed choices, cementing their trust in your guidance.
13. Educate Rather Than Sell
Knowledge empowers. Instead of hard-selling, focus on equipping clients with the knowledge to make informed decisions. By turning interactions into educational opportunities, you position yourself as an industry expert and trusted guide, fostering a deeper client connection.
14. Remember the Long Game
Sales, at its heart, is about building relationships. And relationships aren’t built overnight. By prioritizing long-term client well-being over short-term gains, you invest in a future of sustained collaboration and mutual growth.
15. Ask More, Assume Less
Assumptions can be the invisible barriers that prevent a deeper understanding of your clients’ needs. Every client, though part of a demographic, holds individual concerns, goals, and dreams. To truly connect, you must ask open-ended questions that invite elaboration. Instead of assuming a client needs a particular feature because they fit a certain profile, delve deeper. “What challenges are you currently facing?” or “How do you envision this solution fitting into your daily routine?” By adopting a genuinely curious mindset, you position yourself as someone genuinely invested in their well-being, leading to stronger, more authentic relationships.
16. Balance Logic with Emotion
The human decision-making process is a complex interplay of logic and emotion. While the specifics of a product or service – its features, benefits, and cost – appeal to the logical side, the emotional dimension is often what drives action. Share stories of past clients whose lives have been transformed by your offerings. Paint vivid pictures of potential future scenarios, tapping into hopes, dreams, and aspirations. By balancing data-driven insights with emotionally-charged narratives, you can engage both the head and the heart, leading to richer, more meaningful connections.
17. Slow Down the Sale
In the rush to meet targets and quotas, the essence of relationship-building can sometimes be lost. But the art of sales, especially in today’s competitive landscape, is not just about closing deals but nurturing relationships. It’s about understanding that each interaction is a chapter in an ongoing story. Rushing through the sale can often leave clients feeling overwhelmed or underinformed. Instead, take a moment to breathe. Revisit past discussions, consider the client’s current context, and ensure they fully understand every aspect before moving forward. By demonstrating patience and genuine concern, you signal that their comfort and understanding are paramount, establishing a foundation of trust that can last for years.
18. Cultivate Authentic Enthusiasm
There’s a palpable difference between feigned excitement and genuine enthusiasm. The latter is infectious and can turn an ordinary sales presentation into an unforgettable experience. But authentic enthusiasm isn’t just about the product or service; it’s about the transformation it promises. Dive deep into your offerings, understand their transformative potential, and let that knowledge fuel your interactions. Celebrate the small victories with your clients, share in their excitement, and let your passion become the bridge that transforms potential clients into loyal advocates.
19. Apply “Kintsugi” to Relationship Building
“Kintsugi” or “golden joinery” is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with gold. This practice not only fixes the object but enhances its beauty by emphasizing its imperfections. Similarly, in sales, every interaction won’t always go smoothly. There might be misunderstandings or missteps along the way. Instead of hiding from these moments, address them openly and work through them with your clients. By “mending” these relationship “breaks” with transparency and sincerity, you turn potential pitfalls into opportunities for deeper connection and trust. Below you’ll see a clip with a bit more detail of this in practice with pottery, but really goes through the whole ethos which can be applied to other things.
20. Be Present
In a world of constant distractions, giving someone your undivided attention is a powerful gesture. Focus entirely on the client during meetings or calls, proving that their concerns and aspirations are of utmost importance to you. The most powerful impact you can have with someone, that makes them feel like you really care is being present with them there and then. Not thinking about your sales quota, or that department meeting at 4pm. With your client on the phone.
Authentic Selling - Building Real (And Not Robot) Relationships
The transition to the digital age has reshaped many areas of our lives, and the domain of sales is no exception. As technology has advanced, so has the sophistication of consumers. They’re more discerning and can easily distinguish between genuine interactions and rehearsed scripts. Authenticity has become a key demand, and the usual sales tactics can often come across as disingenuous.
This means that most prospects can smell BS from a mile off nowadays. With this shift in consumer behavior, it’s crucial for sales professionals to adapt and evolve.
Now that we have a firm grasp on some actionable ways to be more authentic, the challenge is to integrate these principles consistently, ensuring genuine, trust-based relationships with clients.
One tool emerging as invaluable in this new landscape is video calls and their recordings. Beyond the ability to connect face-to-face despite geographical barriers, video calls offer a level of personal touch and engagement that text or voice calls might lack. More than that, video call recordings serve as a learning repository. Sales teams can revisit these recordings, not as a form of surveillance, but as a way to reflect, learn, and grow. By analyzing interactions, they can pinpoint what resonates with clients and what doesn’t, allowing them to continually refine their approach. The overarching objective is to improve sales team performance, making sure every interaction is sincere and effective.
But, let’s not sideline our digital counterparts entirely. Automated messages and chatbots, often seen as the ‘robots’ of the sales world, do have their place. They offer efficiency and can handle queries around the clock. However, they should complement the sales process, not dominate it. In a world that increasingly values genuine connection, the human touch stands paramount. Rather than lean on aggressive, outdated hard-sell tactics, the modern sales approach focuses on understanding, listening, and genuinely addressing the customer’s needs.
By integrating genuine human interactions with tools like video call recordings, businesses are poised to not only meet but exceed the expectations of today’s informed customer.
tl;dv Will Save the Day!
Imagine sitting down for a casual coffee with a customer. The environment is relaxed, the conversation flows easily, and you’re both engaged. That’s the essence of what video call recordings aim to encapsulate. They aren’t about “gotcha” moments or catching mistakes; they’re about revisiting those interactions, understanding nuances, and building on the positives.
To help with this tl;dv really is an essential tool with capabilities that amplify the potential of video call recordings:
- Automatic Transcription: Forget about taking frantic notes during a call. With automatic transcription, every word spoken gets captured, ensuring no detail, no matter how minute, is overlooked.
- Multiple Languages Supported: In a global market, language barriers can be a hindrance. tl;dv’s multi-language support ensures you can connect and review calls with customers from various linguistic backgrounds with ease.
- Find by Keyword: Scouring through hours of call recordings can be cumbersome. The search feature lets you jump right to the pertinent parts, streamlining the review process, and making sure you find the right thing to help your prospect.
- Smart AI-driven Insights and Notes: With tl;dv’s intelligent AI capabilities, not only are the conversations transcribed, but the system also gleans crucial insights and notes from the calls, helping salespeople to focus on areas of importance and adopt successful sales techniques.
- Sharing Capabilities: Want your team to learn from a particularly effective sales call? Or perhaps there’s a need to discuss a challenging one? With tl;dv, recordings can be effortlessly shared with the wider team, facilitating collaborative learning.
- Repository Building: Over time, the platform allows teams to create a repository of sales calls. This treasure trove can be invaluable for sales training, refining techniques, or simply understanding the evolution of customer interactions.
- Transparency with Prospects: Here’s a game-changer. The recordings can be shared with potential customers. Not only does this offer complete transparency, but tl;dv will also notify you when the recording is viewed by the prospect. This paves the way for timely follow-ups and boosts the confidence of your potential client in your operations.
Authenticity Is A Salesperson's True North
In the sprawling sales landscape, authenticity stands tall as the true north. Gone are the days when the slick trade tricks defined a salesperson’s worth. Today, it’s about baring one’s soul, keeping it real, and having those heart-to-heart conversations that remind us all: at the end of the day, it’s about people connecting with people.
Yes, tools like tl;dv enhance our capacity to connect. But remember, they’re just tools. The heart of the matter, the pulse that keeps sales alive, is authenticity. So, next time you’re gearing up for a sale or even just browsing around yourself for a purchase, ask yourself: “Is this connection genuine?” Because in a world of fleeting digital interactions, one authentic moment can make all the difference.
Embrace authenticity. It’s the true currency of connection. Let’s not just make a sale, let’s make a memory. Because real sales are never about transactions; they’re about genuine stories waiting to be told. So here’s to real stories, real connections, and a future in sales that feels… just right.
