The New Sales Model: Solving, Helping, Serving

As you read this article, you may think – of course that’s common sense.  Very true, but common sense isn’t always common practice.  We are all in sales. In fact, if you are in business for yourself, your success and the growth of your business or practice will be in direct proportion to how good and how comfortable you are at promoting yourself, your product or service and your company. But fundamentally, you’re selling yourself. By and large people want to have a relationship with someone they like, respect and trust. The key is to replace selling with helping, sharing and solving and looking to create a win-win with your customers. How does this New Model of Selling contrast with the old way of selling? 

The old selling model was as follows:
10% of the time was spent on building rapport
20% on qualifying
30% on presenting
40% on closing

When you think about that way of selling, the first thought that comes to mind is having a pushy salesperson who is trying to get you to buy something. And no one likes the experience of being sold to. The old model was based on the premise that you, as a salesperson, needed to outsmart your potential customer and sell hard in order to get them to buy. It was almost like a tug of war.

In contrast, have you ever watched individuals speak and found yourself listening to every word they said? You felt yourself being drawn in. It happened because they were being genuine, real and authentic. Authenticity plays a huge role in the new model.

In the new model of selling:
40% of the time is spent on building trust
30% on identifying needs
20% on presenting by matching your product or service to the specific needs
10% on the close

The focus is on the Human Element. And the Human element is often the missing link in the more traditional sales process. The most successful sales people, business owners or solo-preneurs are in fact great relationship experts. So your objective is to get the focus off of yourself and focus a whole heartedly on the other person. Always concentrate on building and maintaining a high level of trust. That is true whether you are selling online or offline. Nothing is more annoying than having someone constantly popping into your Twitter or Facebook feeds with a sales message when they haven’t even taken the time to establish a rapport with you.

So let’s take a moment to look at each phase of the new model.

Phase 1: Building TRUST

Here is what matters. Your customers want to build a relationship first. The relationship is way more important than your product or service. You should assume that your customers could buy something similar at a comparable price from someone else. But, the one and only thing, they cannot get by buying from one of your competitors is YOU. YOU are the biggest differentiator. You have to make the most of it. You have to find ways to differentiate yourself from the sea of competitors.

Two of the best ways to differentiate yourself are to concentrate on the relationship not the sale, and to remember that people buy feelings. They buy from people that make them feel good and valued.  Trust is a critical factor in building any relationship, and the quality of a relationship is in direct proportion to the level of trust that exists between you and the other person.

One of the best ways to build rapport and trust is by telling your story. You might have heard that sentence before:  facts tell, stories sell. Your story makes you unique and it will make the communication between you and your customer way more interesting and personal, and as a result, they’ll want to hear more. And the more that they want to hear; the more they are likely to buy from you. 

For information on the entire sales cycle, please read my full article on the Examiner