Sales Basics

The secret to sales in any industry is very simple, especially when you are selling a product you believe in and it is something your customer could take advantage of. The secret I am talking about is called TRUST. Every step of your sales process should be leading your customer into trusting you, your product, and your company. Once they trust those three things and your product fits their needs you are sure to get the sale. If a customer does not trust you however, you most certainly will not get the sale and if this is the case you will have to circle back to the beginning and start the process again until you can tell you have gained the trust of your customer. This is what sales is all about. You must always be able to gauge your customer's trust level and if you can tell they are hesitant to move to the next step you should do whatever you have to to take a step back and increase that level of trust until you know they will be ready to make the next step. I personally will never even ask for the sale until I am certain they are going to give me no problems when moving on to payment or whatever the next step is. Below I will show you the steps that I take in this process in order to bring a person from being a total stranger to a customer of my product.

1. Introduction. Your introduction is not really about what you are selling but much more importantly it is about making the customer look at me as the positive and stand-up person that I am. Like I said before, sales is all about trust. Usually, a customer will decide whether or not to trust you within seconds of meeting you. If you do not have your introduction down then you will always be fighting an uphill battle. I like to think of something funny I can say to each person I meet, it can really be the same line you use for pretty much every person but just something to break the ice and differentiate yourself from every other salesman they have talked to in the past. I like to hit customers with a nice southern accent at the doors here in New Jersey for instance. The Ma'ams and the Y’alls typically catch people off guard and make them look at me differently than the last guy that stopped by. I will typically start my intros just like this. Hey how y’all doing today? And I say this with the warmest smile I can possibly muster up. When they answer I usually will say something like, I'm not used to this weather out here quite yet but I'm doing good haha. It's not even really funny obviously but it is really all about your energy that you give off. I always get a chuckle from this because of the way I say it and from there I feel like I have usually already made a friend or at least someone who trusts me enough to listen from there.

2. Beginning of the sales process. Once you have planted that first seed of trust from your introduction, you will now be painting a beautiful picture of your product or service and what it can do for them. I use the beginning of this process to create social proof and curiosity for the potential customer. In solar for instance, I will say something like this. We were actually doing an install on y’all’s neighbor’s house over on ___ street and I just saw y’all got a ton of sun on the house like they do and if y’all were to qualify for the program like they did you won't have to pay anything out of your pocket and you could lower your bill about 30-50% without it ever going up again unlike Atlantic City Electric (the electric company in the area). Then before even giving them a chance to respond I will ask them a leading question. A big part of any sales process is leading questions that will make your customer think about all the ways they can benefit from you and your product or service. The question I will usually ask in Solar is simply, how much are y’all usually paying for electric right now? This gets them thinking about the bills they don't like and I will hopefully get a response like Oh my god it's like $200 a month. Then I can lead into how the solar program works.

3. Building Value. After you have introduced your product or service you will want to show them why it is a good fit for them. Once they have answered the question I have asked I will start going into detail of how solar really works and begin asking more leading questions that will take me closer to closing the sale. No matter how much they say they are paying I will usually say, “REALLY?! Oh, wow y’all are paying A LOT. That is about the same that your neighbors were paying before we put the panels up. Now they are paying $120 a month and their bill won't go up again for the rest of their lives.” I pretty much said this already but I relate it to their neighbors to create more social proof and to get them thinking about what that change could do for them as well. I will not move on from this step until I have clearly gained their interest. This is also a part of the process where I like to build normal conversation about common interests or really anything that will distract them from me being a salesman so that they give me the respect of a normal human being. Once you can tell they are showing interest usually from them asking buying questions about my product then I will move on to the next step.

4. The Close. Once you have peaked your customer's interest it is time to ask for the sale. In solar it is different than a lot of other sales because I will have to set an appointment and come back to close the deal once I have their system design. In most industries you will then close the sale right there on the spot. Either way this is the point where you will ask for the business. As I said before, the important thing about this step is that you don’t ask for the business until you are almost certain they are ready to move on. Typically I will even drag out the value building and conversational step to have THEM asking to move on to the close. I make a friend and then I make a sale not the other way around. When you finally do ask for the sale it should not even be a question but really an assumption. You wouldn't catch me dead saying things like, “So are you interested?” “Do you think this is something that might be right for you?” ABSOLUTELY NOT! I say alright so how do you spell your last name? Ok perfect, and the address? BOOM. I did the same thing but without giving the customer an out. Of course if they still are not ready they will simply tell you but if you have gauged your customers’ readiness correctly this process will go as smoothly as the rest of the process. Then I tell them I will be back out here visiting with another one of their neighbors at _____ time are y’all going to be around after 6? Yeah, perfect I will stop by around 6:30 as soon as I am done with that appointment. Then I set expectations and go back over all the benefits that got them interested in the first place. I make them excited for me to come back and sign them up and then the paperwork is just a formality in the process.