We’ve all heard or seen a sales pitch. It goes something like, “look at my this, you need this, let me tell you about this, you should want this, you should really buy this,” etc.
But, that’s the trouble with the traditional sales pitch – it is often unsolicited, immediately putting the other person on the defensive. They feel the need to defend themselves while the one doing the selling feels the need to jump.
It’s highly unlikely you’re going to close a sale when you’ve created a wall between you and your client. The key is, according to the host of The Foundation podcast and founder of the group Selling On Purpose, Frank Mocerino, to “help facilitate your client in discovering what they want and align yourself with them.”
Mocerino has personally negotiated over $6 million in deals, across a wide range of markets, in the last few years. He’s developed a unique method of negotiation based on the psychology of decision-making and the principle of selling on the foundation of integrity.
I caught up with him to talk about his game-changing sales strategy on this week’s podcast episode, “How To Overcome Your Fear Of Selling w/ Selling On Purpose’s Founder Frank Mocerino.”
Mocerino shares, “You should just throw the idea that you should pitch someone out the window. The way people decide [to bite is after] they need to come to an understanding from themselves. Once I started understanding the way people were actually making decisions, what I said didn’t matter as much, my tonality didn’t matter as much, but what mattered was that I was there to help people discover undiscovered problems in their life or business.”
Mocerino has found that the secret to selling boils down to these five steps:
Step #1: Ask Powerful Questions
In order to align yourself with your client, you need to understand what is going on in their mind when they are making a decision. Your role is to ask them powerful, clarifying questions to help them uncover the root of their problem before identifying a solution. Think about the last time you bought a car. If the salesperson was effective, they asked you what you were gonna use the car for, what features you wanted, how important gas mileage was, etc before you made the purchase.
Step #2: Connect Them To What They Really Desire
Ask them what their ideal experience would be like a year from now — where they want to be financially, the kind of experiences they want to have, the freedom this would afford them, and what this looks and feels like. Shift the focus away from their problems and connect them to what they are truly after.
Step #3: Facilitate A Discovery Process For Them
Don’t tell them what they need — help them to come to an understanding of things for themselves. Your ability to listen is what’s most important here. Mocerino says, “be interested rather than interesting.”
Step #4: Align Their Solution With What You Can Offer
Most people don’t realize they have a broken decision-making process.This is the trick to getting them to feel like they thought of your product before you even mentioned it. When they’ve identified a solution, frame your product as the perfect match.
Step #5: Refine Your Approach
Make sure to take note of what isn’t working, as well, so you can make adjustments and be more effective in the future. Mocerino says, “If you’re anything like me, you just want to focus on the things you’re doing well, and if somebody tells you that something isn’t working for them, or they question what you’re saying, you want to go bury your head in the sand. But that was exactly where I knew I could learn the most from.”
This article was originally published on Forbes
