If you had told me a few years ago that I would be advising you to learn how to sell your high-end products and services over the phone, much less that I would be ultra-comfortable doing phone selling myself…well, the truth is, I would have thought you were as mad as the March Hare! And maybe even madder!
Even though I had been in the marketing world for a long time, I never considered doing any phone selling, because for one thing, I’m fairly introverted and I just thought to be a successful phone salesperson, you had to be, well…slick or fast-talking or something. And that, I was definitely not!
I also associated phone sales with sleazy high-pressure tactics or having to read a sales script non-stop as soon as some unsuspecting prospect answered the phone and a myriad of other unsavory things. All of which turned out to be fairy tales by the way!!
And while I did believe all of those things, here’s the real underlying reason I didn’t want to even consider using the phone to make sales.
Scared of Selling on the Phone
I was just plain scared.
Yep. The shaking in my shoes, dry mouth, icy fingers of fear down my spine kind of fear at the very thought of picking up the phone.
And then everything changed.
I remember the day it happened like it was yesterday. I was planning to start a private business Mastermind and I was trying to figure out how to market it. The admission price was pretty hefty, to the tune of thousands of dollars so it definitely qualifies as high end.
I took a look around at what other coaches and consultants in the space were doing and could see that most of them were following the same model. They held a big, in person live event over two or three days and then in the middle of that event, they pitched their ‘platinum’ or ‘diamond’ program or whatever they called it, to the audience. This tended to work pretty well, as they had gotten to know the people over the course of several days, and there was peer pressure and so forth.
At first, I was completely dismayed, because as an introvert, I just could not see myself doing a big live event. Just not my style. So not knowing what else to do, I sent out an email to my list and simply asked them to hit reply if they were interested in knowing more. No sales letter or anything. I didn’t even have an appointment scheduler!
To my surprise and delight, I got thirty replies from people who were interested in knowing more.
You Have to Truly Care
And then it hit me.
I realized then and there I was going to have to speak on the phone to all of these people and try to sell them my Mastermind. Uh oh.
So I took a deep breath, wrote out a few notes, set up appointments and began. After some initial stumbling about a bit, I did ok. I had six people come into that first group. And I went on to repeat that success many, many more times with other products and services.
Since then, I’ve come to realize that to be good at phone sales, you have to be good, not at talking fast or ‘selling’ people, but at establishing relationships and real trust on the phone. You have to be able to present what you are selling in an honest, forthright way that brings out the benefits to the person who is considering buying from you.
And here’s what else I learned. You have to truly care about the other person.
When it comes to sales, you have to truly care about the other person.You have to learn to let go of the outcome and learn to guide the person on the other side of the phone to a decision that is right for them. And sometimes, that decision is to tell them your product or service is not for them.
I’ve learned a lot since those early days. I’ve refined my methods and learned to deal with objections and how to structure a conversation so that the person actually tells me right there on the phone how to sell to them and I’ve also learned to close.
The Secret About Selling
But allow me to let you in on a little secret. Selling is not about the close, it’s all about the opening of a relationship. Whether that particular person buys from you or not truly doesn’t matter. What matters is that you treated them with kindness, with respect, that you truly listened to their concerns and that you…do I dare say it…that you loved them. Not the romantic kind of love of course, but that you loved them for being vulnerable and trusting enough to get on the phone with you, knowing that at some time in their past, they probably had a bad phone sales experience.
Selling is not about the close, it’s all about the opening of a relationship.And here’s another thing I learned. In looking at my fear or my ‘scared’ as I like to call it, I realized there is only one little reversal of letters needed for scared to become…sacred.
Yes, selling is sacred. You see, selling, just like business itself, can be thought of as a sacred calling, because just like people who are called to a vocation like being a pastor or priest, or to medicine or teaching, we entrepreneurs are called to serve…our customers, our families, our communities and our world, through the delivery of exceptional value, caring and yes, love for our customers and clients.
So if phone selling is not all about high-pressure tactics and cold calling, but is all about being authentic and natural and being on the phone with people who want to be there… where do you go to learn to develop this way of selling?
Over the past decade, I’ve leveraged a whole new model I’ve developed and tested over hundreds of hours on the phone, selling products and services ranging from a thousand dollars to over twenty-one thousand dollars, all to individual clients, one phone call at a time. This model allows you to step into your authentic self and not be afraid you are going to ‘get off script’ or make a mistake in the sales process. A model where you develop real relationships with people and many of those people will gladly purchase what you are offering right on the spot.
And even when they don’t, you’ll both feel good about the conversation. You will leave knowing you have done your best to serve them and they leave feeling very, very good about the interaction they just had with you. So good, in fact, that they are very likely to become clients and customers at a later date.
There are so many people who are coaches or consultants or who have other types of service businesses, who so badly want to sell high ticket products and services but who simply are not confident enough to get on the phone. Or maybe they have not even bothered to develop a high-end offer because they didn’t think they had what it took to sell it.
Discover How To Sell High-End Offers on the Phone
So here’s what I did. I’ve taken my Sacred Selling model and I’m teaming up with Denise Wakeman to bring her stellar lead generation and high-end offer development skills to the table and together, we are inviting you to join us in our Sacred Selling course beginning October 3rd.
So listen, stop scaring yourself about selling on the phone and take a look at what we are offering. In addition to Denise’s complete lead generation and high-end offer development system, I’ll be teaching you my S.A.C.R.E.D. selling process, which is a simple but powerfully effective framework on which to base your sales conversations.
I may or may not know you personally, but I want to encourage you right now to go here for more information and to find out how you can be part of this beta group. Plus, we’ve got some awesome bonuses for the first ten folks who join us and we would truly love for you to become part of the Sacred Selling family. And that’s not a fairy tale!
I hope to speak with you very soon!
Feature image:
Quino Al