The Desert of Arizona
Clear 34 Degrees – 6:54 a.m.
I know you’re supposed to be a “great” salesperson if you can sell ice to Eskimos. But really, who would delight in selling things to people who have no use for those things?
Selling ice to Eskimos might make you great at sales, but from my perspective, it means you aren’t so skilled at being a smart or high-quality “human.”
In a day and age where people have an almost unlimited number of choices for solutions to problems, showing up with the ice to Eskimos attitude is stupid.
It’s stupid because people AREN’T stupid. And when you treat them this way, they will find someone else.
Selling things people WANT? That’s smart.
But we in the advisor space have an additional challenge. We have to sell what people want WITHOUT showing up like a salesperson.
Because we can’t just “sell and run.” We have to build our work with clients on a foundation of trust and credibility.
That means we need far more “strategerey” and zero brute force.
When you put your interests FIRST, and broadcast those to everyone involved, you will never have that trust and credibility.
This is where the sales system comes into play. It creates opportunities for prospects to buy without really having to do the hard sell.
Because how the sale closes matters. It affects everything from that point forward.
Yesterday, during a consultation with a 20 year sales veteran, we worked together to create a very simple system to generate quality prospects for a retainer based service. And we did it in a way that begins with trust and credibility.
The result is simple, elegant and attractive.
But before the system, step one is to sell something worth buying.