PRAISE FOR THE SOUL OF SELLING
“This is how selling should be; this is how selling can be; this is certainly how selling will be going forward for those who wish to make a successful career…”
--Aaron J. Webber, Co-CEO and President of UNICITY
“The Soul of Selling brings out the best in people, and gives new life to any sales force or business. Newcomers can win right out of the gate, and professionals can get renewed. People become the source of their own success, energized by their own values and so they get the results they want in a way that fulfills them and inspires others.”
— Murray Thompson, Ph.D., Consultant and strategist to Fortune 100 companies
“Carol helps people enjoy and succeed at selling. They tap into their own authentic passion and honor the people they talk to. They know they’re acting with integrity, so they relax into getting their results with ease and grace. The Soul of Selling shows people how to be good, do well and have fun.”
— Lee Glickstein, founder of Speaking Circles International and author of Be Heard Now: How to Speak Naturally and Powerfully in Front of Any Audience
“Anyone who sells or works with people can use The Soul of Selling’s six steps to get the results they want, and at the same time inspire trust, loyalty, and well-being. It’s a joy to watch this material in Carol’s hands. People soak up new skills, beam with enthusiasm and then go out there and get results they never thought possible.”
— Tom Lenoble, Senior Customer Service Executive and Coach
“I’m inspired! This approach gets people excited about selling and helps them do it in their own natural style. The Soul of Selling ignites that fusion of enthusiasm, personal power, and compassion that makes for happy people with great results.”
— Scott Montgomery, Senior Vice-President, Geographic Expeditions, San Francisco
The Soul of Selling
How to achieve extraordinary results with remarkable ease
(and not lose your soul in the process)
By Carol Costello
This book is available in print at:
Published by New Horizons Library at Smashwords
Copyright © 2011 by Carol Costello
First published in 2005 by BENBELLA BOOKS Dallas, Texas
Smashword Edition, License notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Murray Thompson, Ph.D.
Chapter 1. The Magic Bullet: Why the Soul of Selling Works—Every Time
Chapter 2. How the Six Steps Work: Passing the Hors d’Oeuvres Tray
Chapter 3. What You Get (And What It Costs)
Chapter 4. The Discomfort Dilemma: Why We Want to Stop, and How to Keep Going with Ease
Chapter 5. Step #1: Put Down Your Baggage (And Fix What You Can)
Chapter 6. Step #2: Pinpoint Your Passions
Chapter 7. Step #3: Create Your Speaking Bank
Chapter 8. Step #4: Promise Your Result
Chapter 9. Step #5: Conduct the 10-Touchstone Honoring Sales Conversation
Chapter 10. Step #6: Keep Going Until You Get the Result
Chapter 11. Mastery: Owning Your Sales World
Chapter 12. Generosity of Spirit: Giving and Receiving Support
Chapter 13. The Soul of Selling as Personal Growth: Becoming the Person You’ve Always Wanted to Be
Chapter 14. Your Soul of Selling Synergy Group
FOREWORD
The most sought-after people in business today want more than just money and status. They want a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their work. They want to do well, but they also want to do good. They want to look in the mirror at the end of the day and know that they have made other people’s lives better, that they have lived in alignment with their personal values and that they have fed their souls.
For people in sales, these needs show up in Technicolor. They must produce results, but very few are satisfied with doing only that. The old sales models don’t always allow them to combine high results with personal values. Increasingly, they are turning away from anything that smacks of manipulation, pressure, or lack of respect. They want to be top producers, but they need a sales model that gives them great results and connection with personal meaning and purpose.
The Soul of Selling is this new paradigm. It offers a road map through the new landscape of high performance combined with “soul-fullness.” It is a handbook for the new breed of selling stars. These people get powerful results, but they also follow their own moral compass. They bring their own values to selling, and create meaning in their work beyond the numbers they post. The six steps of the Soul of Selling method guarantee results, but they also guarantee that each potential client or customer is treated with respect and appreciation—whether or not they buy.
This method brings soul to the powerful, and power to the already “soul-full.” People in large, performance-driven organizations get a way to bring forth their own natural integrity and authentic passion. People and organizations already focusing on values and contribution enhance their capacity to produce extraordinary results with honor and ease. The Soul of Selling works equally well for people involved in large corporate ventures, individual professional practices, community service campaigns or organizations, fundraising, multi-level marketing and any venture that asks people to get on board with a product, service, project or vision.
Carol Costello embodies this combination of high performance and personal values. She has put three companies on the map during her thirty-year career in sales, and developed the Soul of Selling method out of her own desire to produce powerful results, while at the same time sustaining and nurturing her soul. She has taught this approach for the last ten years to groups that included top sellers, professional practitioners and soccer moms newly appointed to chair the bake sale. She knows what it means to take a stand for a result or cause, and to bring that vision into reality with integrity, passion and ease. And she has a track record for inspiring others to do the same.
The Soul of Selling can change your life. It can give you the power to bring your own vision to life and make it real, and it can show you how to get those results in a way that feeds your soul.
-- Murray Thompson, Ph.D.,
Consultant to Fortune 100 companies
INTRODUCTION
I began my sales career at an organization that lived and breathed big numbers. They wanted huge results, right now. They didn’t care if you liked it, if you burned out, or if you operated with integrity. The numbers came first, at any cost. If you didn’t deliver, you were toast. I was a sponge, and learned everything I could from them.
Then, driving to work one morning, a booming voice in my head asked, “Is life worth living this way?” The answer was No, and I gave notice that afternoon.
I left there exhausted and somewhat shaken, but with an inexplicable urge to keep selling. I had seen the power of it. I had seen what it was to have a big idea, and then bring that idea into reality so that it made an impact on the world. I had learned what it was like to choose your results, rather than to wait and see what happened. That was irresistible. But how to do that, and remain sane? How to do that, and be a good person? How to do that, and not only save my soul, but feed it?
I thought the answer was selling a different product. So I took what I’d learned at the “boot camp selling” company and joined another company that I believed would make a positive contribution to the world. It did, and I produced numbers that made it a successful global venture. But not without breaking a few arms and legs—the customers’ and my own.
This taught me that it’s not necessarily what you sell that feeds your soul, but how you sell it. I knew how to get great sales results. Now I wanted to combine those great results with honoring and contributing to the people to whom I sold, as well as with my own personal growth and well-being. Most people assured me that these three things—big results, honoring sales contacts, and feeding my soul—couldn’t go together. You might get two of them, but you couldn’t have all three. (The most likely combination was honoring contacts and feeding the soul, but they assured me that I could forget about results with those two in play.)
But I knew it was possible to be extraordinarily successful in sales, and at the same time honor myself and other people. I didn’t know exactly how that worked, but I knew the answer was out there somewhere.
Over the next several years, I was the first Director of Sales at two more start-ups that are still thriving today. In that time, I stepped into more potholes than you can imagine. My advantage was being willing to crawl out of each pothole, dust myself off, learn something and keep going. Gradually, with the help of hundreds of people, I developed a new way to sell. This new method yielded the same big numbers, but it also fed my soul. It gave selling meaning, purpose and inspiration. It gave me a way to thrive, as well as to succeed.
I call this method the Soul of Selling. It has been the making of me, and of many other people who wanted to feed their souls, contribute to others and make an impact on their world. They have used it to launch products, put their business on the map, work in communities and promote large visions like peace and human rights.
We all want the capacity to make our visions real, to make our projects fruitful and to make our products or services successful. When you can “sell” with soul, you can be profoundly effective, and at the same time enjoy and build your personal values, self-esteem and sense of fulfillment.
That is what I wish for you, and that is the purpose of this book. In the Soul of Selling seminar, I try to bring everything I’ve learned in thirty years—all the pothole-stepping, as well as the rich, melt-in-your-soul lessons—into one day. We make good progress, but this book gives you more time to digest the material and make it your own. That’s how it’s designed to work. Take what you like from here, make it your own, shape it to fit your situation and have a ball!
Carol Costello
P.S. Let me know how The Soul of Selling is working for you. Send your feedback and join my community at The Soul of Selling.
Chapter 1. The Magic Bullet: Why the Soul of Selling Works—Every Time
What if you could guarantee the exact sales results you wanted, every time? What if you also knew that you were acting with integrity, that you were honoring and appreciating each person with whom you spoke—whether or not they bought? And what if, on top of that, you got genuine pleasure from selling, and even began to relax into doing it with ease?
The Soul of Selling offers you exactly that. You get extraordinary results, and thrive because you are feeding your soul with personal values, higher purpose and a meaningful contribution.
You are being good, and doing well. This is the “magic bullet” everyone wants. You get people on board with your product, service, project or vision, while still growing into the person you’ve always wanted to be.
The Soul of Selling is a new paradigm for sales. It invites you to shift how you see “selling,” to think of it not as pushing, manipulating, conning, or pressuring—but as a way of contributing to life and feeding your soul. You take a stand for something that you find valuable, and serve others by offering it to them in a respectful, honoring way. When you see selling as service, you are free to go all out. You can bring yourself 100% to the task, and that makes everything easier and more fun.
The six steps of the Soul of Selling guide you through this process, so that you sell with mastery, grace and the results of your choice. Your inspiration comes from within, from your own core values, and so you can renew it, reignite it, or realign it at will. You act with integrity, out of your own natural capacity to inspire. You can finally be yourself, get great results and feel good about how you get them.
You do not have to be a natural seller, or an experienced seller, to succeed with this method. Selling is an acquired skill. I am not a natural seller. I developed the Soul of Selling out of my own desire to make the things that I loved available to more people, and at the same time to succeed in the world, act with integrity and feed my soul. All you have to do to succeed with this method is follow the six steps. Whatever your dreams, your visions, or your goals, the Soul of Selling will help you step up to the plate and make them a reality.
THE FOURFOLD GUARANTEE
The Soul of Selling offers you a Fourfold Guarantee for Results, Integrity, Passion and Ease. When you can make that guarantee, selling is sweet. (And R-I-P-E!) You take the guesswork out of results, and the stress out of selling. Each time you begin a selling project, you know that you can guarantee:
1. Results. You get precisely the sales numbers you choose, every time.
2. Integrity. Everyone you contact is respected, appreciated and honored—whether or not they buy. You can trust yourself never to con, bully, or otherwise manipulate your customers, your product or service, or yourself.
3. Passion. You find a new energy based on what you truly value. Your unique brand of enthusiasm comes to the surface, and makes selling fun.
4. Ease. You can relax. You don’t have to second-guess yourself, your methods, or your motives. You can just follow the six steps, be yourself and enjoy both the process and the outcome.
The Fourfold Guarantee works for professional salespeople, entrepreneurs, first-time sellers, small business owners, bake sale chairs, fundraisers, multi-level marketers, community leaders, individuals with professional practices and anyone else who wants to inspire others to support their product, service, project, or vision.
WHY IS IT “THE SOUL OF SELLING”?
“Soul” is the part of us that craves higher purpose, authentic relationships and meaningful contribution. Webster’s calls it “the seat of real life or vitality; the source of action; the animating or essential part; the moving spirit, the heart.”
“Selling” is simply offering your product or vision in such a clear and inviting way that people see value in it for themselves and come on board. Selling might mean offering a computer or insurance plan in the marketplace. It might mean lining up people for a car wash on Saturday, or collecting money for the kids’ baseball uniforms, or inviting people to join a book group. It might mean inspiring people to be part of a program to end hunger in the world, or to support world peace.
The Soul of Selling is based on three principles:
1. We all want to have a positive impact on our world. You might want to be the top software salesperson in your company, or help win an election, or spearhead an environmental cause. When you know how to “sell” these things in a way that gets results every time, you have the power to change your world.
2. We all want to nourish our souls. We want to be good people who act with integrity and contribute to others. We want to feel good about who we are and what we do.
3. We don’t have to choose between these two desires. We can combine doing well and feeling good. Being a “go to” person who gets results does not mean you can’t also be a good person who supports others. And being a good person does not mean you can’t have a powerful impact on the world. In fact, a person of compassion, purpose and vision can do far more good if he or she also has the power to make things happen. A person who already has the power to make things happen will last longer and stay happier when he or she brings heart, soul and meaning to those results.
Our cultural and corporate values are shifting toward “soul.” For those of us who sell, this means combining big results with self-esteem, higher purpose, growth, contribution and authentic personal values. It means finding a way to be successful, satisfied and congruent—a way to honor both ourselves and others, even as we put our product, service, or vision on the map.
The Soul of Selling gives the quest for the bottom line a moral compass, and shows us how to navigate the new landscape where results and values not only can meet, but also must meet.
The six steps are your handrails. They guide you down the path to becoming an amalgam of strength and contribution, of capacity and compassion, of steady will and generosity of spirit. They call forth your ability to produce extraordinary results, and to do so with meaning, integrity and ease. They foster genuine enthusiasm for sharing what you find valuable, and ask you to be the source of respectful, empowering relationships. They show you how to honor your core values, see your lessons, make gracious course corrections, take a stand for your visions and still get extraordinary sales results. You have the tools to be a force of nature—a force for good.
A SIMPLE, ELEGANT ANSWER
I grappled with how to sell big without selling out for twenty-five years, while acting as Director of Sales for three start-up companies that are still thriving today. I stepped into every pothole out there, climbed out, dusted myself off and figured out what I could have done to avoid the problem.
Finally, I had a map of where the potholes were. I found a way to sell exactly what I promised, and also to know in my bones that everyone I contacted was better off than they had been before we talked. I learned how to inspire myself, and how to keep that inspiration fresh and authentic. I could finally relax and enjoy some peace and ease in selling, as well as great results. I could take pride in what I did, and how I did it. I could enjoy the fruits of being a big seller, and at the same time let it shape me into the person I’d always wanted to be.
For a secretly shy person who wanted both to contribute and to succeed in the world, this was heaven. I saw that selling could be a high calling. It takes courage, grit and a spark that we want to share with others. People who sell deserve all the support and encouragement they can get. I wanted to be on their team.
I broke down what I was doing into the six steps of the Soul of Selling, and started telling people about it. Soon I was teaching a seminar on this approach for people ranging from top professionals who sold millions of dollars’ worth of products or services a year, to people who had just taken charge of their first church garage sale. Experienced professionals and rank amateurs, corporate big shots and fledgling solo practitioners, people who sold products and those who sold services all reported the same outcomes:
1. Whatever their results had been, they got better. They sold more, in less time, with less effort.
2. They enjoyed selling more, and did it with more ease—avoiding burnout and turnover.
3. They took greater pride in what they did, because selling became service.
4. They had a technology that let them repeat their success, and kept them thriving.
WE’RE A SELLING SPECIES
Most of us sell every day of our lives—whether or not we know it, and whether or not we call our job “sales.” We can’t help ourselves. When we human beings find something that is fun or valuable, we can’t keep our mouths shut. We want to share it with the world, or at least a few friends. We want to scoop people up and get them on board, whether it’s asking them to “buy” into a:
~ Widget
~ Professional service
~ Multi-million-dollar contract
~ Friday night dinner party
~ Insurance policy
~ Worthy cause
~ Class or seminar
~ Better results on a customer service team
~ Real estate consortium
~ Local park cleanup
When you know how to make these invitations with grace and mastery, life is easier and more pleasant. When you also know how to get the results you want, life is more rewarding. It doesn’t matter whether you’re motivated by love, power, generosity, profit, altruism, or any combination of the above. It’s great to be comfortable with offering people something you’ve found valuable—and confident that you can talk about it in such a clear and inviting way that they see a piece of it for themselves and get on board.
THE RUBBER AND THE ROAD
Life will always hand us opportunities to “sell.” The only questions are:
1. Will we have fun, or get cranky?
2. Will we contribute, or waste energy complaining that selling is difficult and demeaning?
3. Will we succeed, or will we fail?
This is where the rubber hits the road. At some point, we have to bring the conversation around to results, to specific outcomes and numbers. How much did you actually make in commissions last year? Did you, or did you not, get the contract? How many new clients did you bring in last month, and is that enough to pay the bills? Are people coming to the dinner party, or will we be going out for fried chicken? Will we build the new church, or not? Will what you’re selling in multi-level marketing allow you to quit your job, or do you need to sell more? Exactly how much more?
In my sales seminars, this is the point where everybody’s stomach tightens up. Their eyes narrow, their faces freeze, and I can see the balloons forming above their heads: Sleazy! Manipulative! Why risk being rejected, or failing? Besides, pressuring people is wrong! That’s why I don’t get the numbers. Good people can’t guarantee numbers, or they risk being bad people! Everyone knows that!
This is where the trouble starts—in the seminar, in sales, and in life.
WHAT GOES WRONG: THAT QUEASY, UNEASY FEELING
In the seminar, I assure people that oxygen masks will be dropping from the ceiling. I tell them to secure their own mask first, and then help others. They laugh, but tentatively.
For many of us, professionals and novices alike, “selling” brings up nightmarish thoughts, or at least a subtle but pervasive dread. The only way around this is to tell the truth about it. Before we can proceed with the seminar, we first have to surface all the squirrelly little thoughts that people have about selling and those who do it, about themselves as sellers, about their product or service and about the people they will contact. Otherwise, they will take all these fearful thoughts and queasy feelings with them when they go out to sell.
I give them twenty minutes to write down all this negative mental chatter. Then they call out their answers, while my assistant writes everything down on a huge tablet in front of the room. Some fifty minutes and thirty pages later, we all sit exhausted, staring at the tablet. As my assistant slowly turns back the thirty pages, we see phrases like:
~ Selling is a sleazy game, and only sleazy people play it.
~ Who do they think they are? Don’t they know they’re taking food out of my children’s mouths when they don’t buy?
~ People will know I’m a weasel, and just out for the money.
~ I’m not really that good a therapist, and people will find out if I put myself out there.
~ The vitamins I’m selling aren’t as good as we say they are. How can I stand behind them?
~ People are miserly jerks, so I’ll have to trick them into buying something they don’t really want, and then they’ll hate me for it.
~ I can’t take rejection.
~ I try to be nice but they must see how pissed off and confused I am, so sometimes I don’t even ask them if they want to buy.
~ I’ll fail.
~ I’ll succeed.
~ I’ll feel like a fake, sound like a fake, and even if I’m not faking people will think I am.
Much of what winds up on the tablet isn’t actually true, or even what people really think—but the suffering they experience is real. These queasy, uneasy thoughts and feelings are snaking around in their conscious or unconscious minds, creating havoc and misery. Oddly, there is very little difference between the thoughts of top salespeople and the thoughts of novices. The top producers have learned how to hide it better, to talk about it more obliquely and sometimes not to let it affect them as much, but I am always amazed at what they carry around with them.
The first question I ask is, “How much of this is actually true?” People’s fears are real, but most of them admit that the chances of these fears actually materializing are minimal.
Then I ask, “Can you see why selling sometimes seems hard, and why you don’t always get the results you want or feel great about doing it?” They nod grimly, but at some point as my assistant keeps turning back through those thirty pages of mind-numbing thoughts and fears, someone starts to snicker. The things that go on in our minds are so wild, so abundant, so in conflict with one another and sometimes so ridiculous that eventually hysteria overtakes us and we can’t stop laughing.
After a break, we settle down and start to take apart what goes wrong. Why do we get so crazy around sales?
WICKED OR WIMPY?
The conventional wisdom is that there are two kinds of people in sales. One group gets great numbers, but will stop at nothing to get them. The other group have kind, generous spirits, but they may or may not get results—and so may or may not have jobs, businesses, and incomes.
Nobody wants to be part of either group, so we freeze. We become like deer in headlights, staring into the bright light of our fears. We don’t want to be, or to seem to be, like sleazy used car salesmen. We don’t want to impose on people, lose our dignity, or be rejected. We are willing to forego clients and commissions, and even give up on the dream of having our own businesses, rather than get into the sales game. Even seasoned professionals who have sold billions of dollars of goods or services have these concerns. They wonder if they can call up “the magic” again, and make it work just one more time.
THE “STOP” RESPONSE
Confronted with the choice between Wicked and Wimpy, many people simply stop. They get so hopelessly embroiled in worries that they refuse even to try selling, and take themselves out of the game completely. Others just stand immobile in the middle of the field. They don’t pick up the phone. They close the file with the list of people to call, if they’ve even brought themselves to make the list. They withdraw into themselves, rather than risk that their fears may be true—even when they know logically that most of those fears are ridiculous.
Of course, people who freeze in this way fail anyway. They don’t sell the widget, get the clients, raise the money, or do the seminar they’ve always dreamed of doing. They don’t build their businesses, make their quotas, get their projects off the ground, or share their visions. They don’t grow or widen their worlds, make their contribution, or fatten their pocketbooks.
Their product, service, or vision never sees the light of day, and all the people who might have benefited from it never even get a crack at it. They withhold from people the contribution they might have made, and miss out on financial success, relationships and experiences that could empower, expand and enhance their lives.
That’s what happens when we succumb to the “Stop” Response. But some people can’t stop. It’s their job to sell. Others took on a commitment to produce a certain result, or for some other reason feel they need to keep going, whether they like it or not. They often fall prey to the “Stagger” Response.
THE “STAGGER” RESPONSE
These people stagger forward. They tell themselves and others that they are “out there selling,” but they don’t bring all of themselves to the task. They have one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake. They have trouble picking up the phone when there is anything else to do. They have very clean floors, alphabetized spice racks, defragmented hard drives, living rooms full of needlepointed pillows and garages full of sorted and organized nails, nuts and bolts—but they don’t have many sales. They often feel frustrated, powerless, cranky, and out of control.
They trudge on—but in agony. Agony isn’t a good thing in the sales arena, and so they don’t get terrific results. That makes them even more miserable. Unless they discover some way to combine power and peace of mind, they find themselves with some difficult choices. They can go Wicked, and feel awful about themselves. They can go Wimpy, and probably fail. Or they can keep staggering, and succumb to the stress of playing, and usually losing, a game in which they are only half engaged.
This is no way to live.
WHAT IF?
What if selling were no longer an exercise in avoidance, or in powering over the discomfort? What if, instead, it were a chance to be the person you’ve always wanted to be each day, and at the same time be a star and make fistfuls of money by offering people a product or service you value?
What if you were so clear about the value of your product, service, project, or vision that you loved talking about it, and spoke of it with confidence and joy? What if you could just focus your attention on contributing to the person with whom you were speaking in the moment, and stop worrying about yourself or your results?
The Soul of Selling gives you these things and more. You begin to enjoy picking up the phone to tell people about what you’re offering. You start to think of yourself as the kind of person who can actually say, “I will have twenty people in my seminar this week,” and know that, without fail, you will have twenty people. Or, “I will meet that $500,000 quota.” Or, “I will have three new clients in the next two weeks.”
What if you had fun with selling?
THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU IF . . .
When some people hear the word “selling,” their blood runs more quickly. When others hear “selling,” their blood runs cold. This book is for both groups. It is for everyone who sells, invites, or in any way wants to call people to their product, service, cause, event, project, or vision. Whether you are an experienced sales professional, or recently nominated to get volunteers for the neighborhood association, you can exponentially increase both your results and your enjoyment of the process.
This book is not about marketing. It won’t tell you how to define or reach your audience. It won’t tell you how to write the world’s best flyer or get on Oprah. Nor is it about figuring out people’s vulnerabilities so that you can box them into a corner, ask the perfect questions and either shame or dazzle them into buying what you’re selling.
This book is about talking to people face-to-face, or phone-to-phone—and interacting with them in a respectful, empowering way that honors both them and you. It is about the Fourfold Guarantee for Results, Integrity, Passion and Ease. It is for people who want to take charge of their relationship with selling—and enjoy all the financial, social, emotional and even spiritual fruits that come from selling big and being good.
USING THIS BOOK
This book guides you step-by-step through personalizing the Soul of Selling approach for your specific situation. It is also a place you can come for inspiration and regeneration.
Part 1, The Soul of Selling: How and Why It Works (Chapters 1-4), gives you an overview of the method, the six steps that make it so powerful, the benefits you’ll receive from using it, and how to deal with the Discomfort Dilemma that is always present in sales.
Part 2, Your Six Steps: Making the Soul of Selling Your Own (Chapters 5-10), is a detailed description of the six steps, with exercises to help you tailor each one to your particular situation and use it most effectively.
Part 3, Taking Charge: Becoming the Source of Your Own Success (Chapters 11-14), contains chapters on creating your Personal Sales Vision, giving and getting support, letting selling shape you into the person you’ve always wanted to be and creating a Synergy Group of like-minded sellers.
I suggest you get a special notebook for the exercises in this book. The more you give to this process, the more powerfully it will work for you.
STEPPING OUT
Nobody succeeds in sales without becoming the source of their own success. This method is about getting the ball in your court, and then letting it rip.
Nothing works unless you embrace it wholeheartedly and give it a chance to succeed. Researchers are discovering this about diets. Fats, carbs, proteins. Everybody has a different idea about how to combine them in order to lose weight. It turns out that the type of diet doesn’t make much difference. What matters is how well people follow whatever diet they choose.
I invite you to try this method for three months. If you use it rigorously, my guess is that you’ll start to fall in love with selling, and with the results you’re getting. If you have questions or want to share your own discoveries, please contact me at The Soul of Selling.
Most people don’t believe that you can both sell big and be good until they see how it’s done. That’s the subject of Chapter 2.
* * * *
Chapter 2. How the Six Steps Work: Passing the Hors d’Oeuvres Tray
How can you be a good, honorable, person of integrity who doesn’t manipulate or con people in order to get sales—and still guarantee the exact results you want, no matter what? Where do you go for passion and inspiration? And how can all of this be easy?
Only a handful of people believe me when I promise in the seminar that they can guarantee great results at the same time that they guarantee integrity, passion and ease. They contend that you can be a respectful, honorable person one week, and then switch back to guaranteeing results the next week—but you can’t do both at the same time. They say things like:
~ I can get the result, but don’t try to tell me I’m being good to these people. I’m kicking ass, and doing everything I was trained to do to close and win.
~ I love people and they open up around me, but I’d die if I had to make a quota. It’s unethical to pressure people. I may not be cut out for this, because I won’t compromise my integrity.
They’re not sure that passion and ease go together, either. When they hear “passion,” they think “driven.” I invite them to keep an open mind, and listen to the Parable of the Hors d’Oeuvres Tray. It’s a good way to see how the six steps of the Soul of Selling work together to produce extraordinary results with remarkable ease.
THE SIX STEPS
As you read the Parable of the Hors d’Oeuvres Tray later in this chapter, keep in mind the six steps of the Soul of Selling:
1. Put down your baggage (and fix what you can). We all have negative attitudes, beliefs and fears that keep us from enjoying and succeeding at selling. This negative mental chatter tends to gather in four areas: selling in general, yourself as a seller, your product or service and your customers or contacts. Step #1 identifies the chatter and frees you from those chains.
2. Pinpoint your passions in selling, in yourself as a seller, in your product or service and in your contacts. When you know what has authentic personal value for you in each of these four areas, you feel more confident and speak more effectively about what you are offering. This step keeps your inspiration fresh and alive.
3. Create your Speaking Bank. These talking points include all the information and inspiration your contacts need in order to buy, arranged in clear, persuasive sound bites of various lengths. You know exactly what to say, and how to say it in a clear, inviting way.
4. Promise your result. This is a new kind of promise, one that supports you rather than threatens you. It’s the truing mechanism that guides you through any difficulty and anchors your success.
5. Conduct the Ten-Touchstone Honoring Sales Conversation. The first three touchstones of this conversation ensure that you respect, honor and appreciate your contacts—whether or not they buy. You are then guided through opening, conducting and closing a powerful sales conversation. If this conversation isn’t fun, and if both you and your contacts aren’t in better shape after it than you were before it, then you’re not doing it correctly.
6. Keep going until you get the result. You simply repeat this relaxed, respectful conversation until you get the number you promised in Step #4. You move toward the result you chose, inspired by your own values, until you win.
In this chapter, we’ll describe each step briefly. Part 2 of this book takes you through each step in detail with examples, strategies and exercises to customize it for your particular situation. For now, we will take a broader view so that you can see how all the steps work together. Hence, the Parable of the Hors d’Oeuvres Tray.
PASSING THE HORS D’OEUVRES TRAY
The Soul of Selling method is like offering a tray of delicious hors d’oeuvres to people you like and admire, and then continuing to make honoring, respectful, appreciative offerings until the tray is empty.
Imagine that you are at a party for friends, and the hostess entrusts you with the honor of passing the hors d’oeuvres. She hands you a tray filled with sumptuous delicacies and asks, “How many hors d’oeuvres will you ‘sell?’” She doesn’t say “offer.” She says “sell.” By that she means, “How many hors d’oeuvres will you guarantee that guests take from the tray?” (You might imagine our hostess as a reincarnation of Yoda from Star Wars, saying, “Do, or not do. There is no try.”)
Your first thought might be, I can’t guarantee the guests’ behavior! or I don’t want to force them on people! or What will they think of me? Then you pull yourself together and remember the six steps of the Soul of Hors d’Oeuvres Passing.
First, you identify any negative thoughts or feelings you might have about what it’s like to pass hors d’oeuvres, about the quality of these particular hors d’oeuvres, about your possible limitations as an hors d’oeuvres-passer, and about the guests and how they might react to you. After you see what these thoughts are, you use the techniques you have learned in this book to let them go and switch channels. You focus instead on the results you want and on the fun you will have producing them. (Step #1: Put down your baggage [and fix what you can].)
Second, you intentionally call forth and appreciate the value you see in passing hors d’oeuvres trays, in yourself as a passer, in the hors d’oeuvres themselves, and in the people to whom you will pass them. It might sound like this: You’re helping out the hostess, connecting with everybody at the party, and offering them a delightful gift. You are a great person for doing this. You look terrific, you’re performing a service, and you’re going to do a good job. You glance down at the tray and spend a few minutes appreciating those plump little olives in cheesy puff pastry, the sumptuous mushroom caps stuffed with crabmeat, the sassy broiled shrimps, the sensuous runny brie with crispy crackers, and the naughty little pigs-in-blankets sizzling away in the middle of it all. The folks at this party are wonderful, and you are going to make their evening even better. (Step #2: Pinpoint your passions.)
Third, you create in your mind a bank of things you’ll say about the hors d’oeuvres as you pass them. You want people to have all the information they need in order to make a good choice. “No, those are not turkey pigs-in-blankets, Marlene. They’re the real thing.” “Yes, Ed, the shrimp are broiled, and marinated in a Thai lemon sauce!” You consider some engaging ways to invite people into the experience. “Flaky cheese puff pastry, Angela, stuffed with imported olives?” “Runny double brie with rye and caraway crackers, John?” (Step #3: Create your Speaking Bank.)
Fourth, you decide what promise you want to make. How many hors d’oeuvres do you want to “sell”? Your promise should stretch you, but be doable. You’re promising “no matter what,” so you’ll choose a number that you’re willing to get even if you have to pass the tray around the room more times than you thought you might. You tell the hostess, “Two trays full,” or “One tray full,” or whatever you are willing to guarantee. (Step #4: Promise your result.)
Fifth, you conduct the Honoring Hors d’Oeuvres Passing Conversation. You step out into the party, head and tray held high. This conversation has ten touchstones, and the first three are about respecting, appreciating and honoring everyone you encounter—whether or not they take an hors d’oeuvre. Before you offer the tray to anyone, you remind yourself of what you are willing to appreciate in anybody you encounter. You might be willing to remember that, deep down, these people want to contribute to the world. Or that they are courageous to get dressed up and come to the party, or that they are being kind to one another. They don’t have to earn your respect and appreciation. You call forth this regard, and hold it no matter what they do or say. You include yourself in this respect and appreciation. This is what you’re thinking as you lower the tray and offer the first person an hors d’oeuvres.
You look Sally in the eye and give yourself the gift of a rich, authentic connection with her. When people realize they are being seen with respect and appreciation, they usually behave very well. You’re likely to get a good response. You can’t count on that, though. The pleasure for you is simply in the appreciation, and you are willing to continue it regardless of Sally’s reaction.
Sally takes a shrimp with a grateful smile, and you’re on to Don. He says, “No, thanks,” but you don’t take it personally. He may be allergic to some of these hors d’oeuvres, or on a diet, or just not hungry, or lactose-intolerant to brie. But your interaction with him is every bit as warm as it was with Sally. (Step #5: Conduct the Ten-Touchstone Honoring Sales Conversation.)
Sixth, you continue your journey around the room until you “sell” as many hors d’oeuvres as you promised. You may keep your promise in the first five minutes, or you may go all the way around the room without “selling” a single hors d’oeuvres. What then? You simply go around the room again, creating joy and enthusiasm, and making sure you honor everybody at least as much as you did the first time around. You may look for some new people coming into the room, or for people you missed the first time around, but you keep going until you “sell” your promised number of hors d’oeuvres. You continue to have warm, authentic interactions with as many wonderful people as it takes to do that. You’re having fun whether you go around the room one time, or six. Or more. (Step #6: Keep going until you get the result.)
The Parable of the Hors d’Oeuvres Tray is one way to see how the steps work together. Let’s take a closer look at the steps in the context of selling, and see how each one leads to the next.
STEP #1: PUT DOWN YOUR BAGGAGE (AND FIX WHAT YOU CAN).
We all have psychological baggage about selling, whether we’ve been selling for forty years or four hours. If we don’t have it from our own personal experience, we get it from society. The myth of the sleazy used car salesman, with his plaid jacket and pencil mustache, is only the beginning. These negative thoughts, beliefs and fears can keep us from enjoying selling, and prevent us from doing it with skill, ease and grace.
Bill, a very successful business consultant, said, “I spent the first three years thinking I was a pushy jerk when I made sales calls, and gritting my teeth whenever I picked up the phone. I couldn’t even keep my wife and kids’ picture on my desk. I still have to take a deep breath sometimes before I make calls, and tell myself I’m okay.”
That is no way to do business, so the first step of the Soul of Selling is to bring this old baggage out into the light and look at it clearly. You have to know what it is before you can let it go.
What Color is Your Suitcase?
Everybody’s baggage is different, and there is no accounting for why certain people have certain kinds of baggage. The important thing is to know what your baggage looks like so you can identify it, and claim it.
In Step #1, you begin by writing down all your negative thoughts, feelings, attitudes and fears in four areas:
~ Selling in general
~ Yourself as a seller
~ Your product or service
~ Your contacts
Here are some perennial favorites. Be on the lookout for your version of these thoughts and fears as they bounce down on to the baggage carousel:
Thoughts about selling in general…
~ It’s all a fraud. Selling is for “slick” people.
~ You have to pressure people, and I don’t want to do that. Even if I did push them, they’d just push back.
~ Selling is hard. And there’s some mysterious key to it that I don’t understand.
~ It’s immoral. Even if you win, you lose because you’ve sold your soul.
Thoughts about yourself as a seller…
~ I’m terrified, and I can’t do it. I’ll say the wrong thing, and do a bad job.
~ They’ll avoid me because I’m sliming them. I don’t want to be a “user.”
~ I don’t want to be humiliated, embarrassed, or rejected.
~ I don’t need the stress of being a slave to numbers.
~ If I don’t sell big, I’ll be a bad person. If I do sell big, I’ll be a bad person.
Thoughts about your product or service…
~ It’s not that great. Why should I suffer for it?
~ It’s so great that I’ll never be able to do justice to it.
~ I have to hide parts of it, so I feel like a phony. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
~ I’ve fooled people so far, but if I put it out there I’ll be open to more scrutiny.
Thoughts about your contacts…
~ They don’t want what I’m offering. They’ll hate me because I made them do it.
~ It’s like pulling teeth. They should come to me.
~ Even if they buy, they’re just patronizing me.
~ I spend hours with them, and then they say “No.” They’re inconsiderate, rude, shiftless and lazy. Even when they say “Yes,” they weasel out of it.
~ I’m sick of hearing, “I don’t have the time,” or “I don’t have the money.”
I don’t need to tell you that it’s foolhardy to try selling with these kinds of thoughts and fears grinding away just below the surface—or on the surface. It’s like driving with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake. At best, you’ll get the results, but be miserable.
Mental chatter will cause you no end of trouble unless you learn to manage it. It is the primary reason that people are not already selling with great results, natural integrity, authentic passion and remarkable ease. We will meet mental chatter at every turn, so let’s look now at what it is and how to deal with it.
The Mental Chatter Users Manual
User manuals help you take control. They tell you how things work, and how to troubleshoot problems. Let this Mental Chatter User Manual show you how to keep negative thoughts, feelings and beliefs from getting in your way.
Mental chatter works like this:
1. It is the mind’s job to generate thoughts, so mental chatter is here to stay. No matter what you do, or how much you want to get rid of it, mental chatter will never go away. The mind simply will not stop generating thoughts. Some thoughts are positive, some are neutral, and some are negative. The good news is…
2. You have choices. You don’t have to run blindly after every fear or objection that your mind tosses up. You can stand back, observe these negative thoughts, and instead give your attention and energy to thoughts that serve you.
3. Mental chatter is mostly about avoiding pain. If you write down all the negative mental chatter that passes through your mind over a fifteen-minute period (and you will be amazed at how much this is), you will see that most of it is fear-based. It is about defending and protecting you from imagined physical, mental, or psychological pain.
4. Mental chatter hates change. It doesn’t want you to do anything differently from how you have done it before. After all, you’ve survived whatever has happened up to now. Any change is a risk. Mental chatter sees new ways of thinking and behaving simply as opportunities for pain, and as threats to survival. It doesn’t want you to rock the boat, and will always argue for the status quo. Mental chatter is always loudest in the face of change.
5. Mental chatter hates getting specific. Getting specific is also a risk. If you never put anything on the line by saying, for instance, “I will have two new clients by the end of the week” you never fail. Failure is pain, and mental chatter will do anything to avoid pain.
6. The old strategies don’t work. If you try to pretend mental chatter isn’t there, it goes underground and festers—only to reappear at the most inopportune moments. If you try to beat it into submission, you just feed it energy. It gets bigger and stronger. If you try to banish it forever, you fail and get frustrated. Even the greatest spiritual and selling masters have mental chatter. They just know how to keep it in perspective, so that it doesn’t get in their way.
7. The key to mastering mental chatter is to develop a new relationship with it. Since it isn’t going anywhere, and neither are you, you need to find some neutral ground. You need a place where you can both exist without getting in one another’s way.
Troubleshooting Strategies
These strategies are the foundation for a new relationship with mental chatter. You will find these general guidelines peppered throughout the book, as they apply to specific situations. Here is how to contain mental chatter, so that it doesn’t cause trouble:
1. Identify the chatter. Write it down. Name it. Get it outside of yourself so that you can observe it. Don’t let it run around loose inside your mind, where it can get its hands on the controls. When mental chatter is an object of observation, it is not you. It is no longer running the show. You can look at it, poke at it, and examine it. It can’t push you around.
2. Check to see if it’s true. Sometimes mental chatter has important warnings. “Stop! Don’t walk into that street without checking both ways!” “Stop! That deal sounds too good to be true. Better have somebody check it.” These warnings have an entirely different tone and energy from, “Listen, you’re just asking for trouble if you make a sales promise or pick up the phone.” When you have mental chatter down on paper, it’s easier to tell when you need to listen and when you don’t.
3. Recognize it for what it is—mental chatter, not reality. Most of the time, mental chatter has little or nothing to do with what is actually happening. Even when it looks like it knows what it’s talking about, mental chatter specializes in interpretations and opinions, rather than in objective analysis.
4. Let it be, without giving it much attention. Don’t try to get rid of it or beat it into submission. Let it run around and around on its hamster wheel as long as it wants, but don’t let it dictate what you do, or don’t do. Recognize it, nod to it, and then look away.
5. Switch channels to something more interesting. Shift your attention to something positive—your results, the fun you will have getting them, even positive thoughts that have nothing to do with sales. This book will give you techniques and strategies for switching channels.
As you work your way through the six steps of the Soul of Selling, you will see these principles and strategies in action. You will have a chance to use variations on these themes at every turn, and become adept at managing mental chatter.
Step #1 brings you freedom. You identify exactly what your mental chatter looks like, and learn powerful techniques for putting down that baggage. You look to see if there is anything you really do need to fix, and are guided through fixing it. Then you learn to switch channels and give your attention to more productive and empowering thoughts. Chapter 5 takes you step-by-step through this process.
Mastering mental chatter can transform not only the way you sell, but also the way you live your life.
STEP #2: PINPOINT YOUR PASSIONS.
This step brings forward your authentic passions, and helps you focus them for results. Where is the real juice for you? You’re not looking for what someone told you, or what you think you should say. You’re looking to your heart and soul for what you genuinely appreciate about selling, yourself as a seller, your product or service and your contacts.
Having cleared away the mental chatter in these four areas in Step #1, you mine each of them for gold. What do you want most in each area? Are you willing to have those things? What is the best thing that selling could be for you? What strengths and qualities do you bring to selling? What are your favorite things about the product or service you sell? (These may or may not be the benefits everyone tells you to stress.) What are you willing to honor in everyone you contact? Where else can you find passion in the process of selling?
Your answers may surprise you. Sherry was a shy, quiet woman who had gone back to work at forty-six selling food supplements. “I was shocked at what I saw in Step #2,” she said. “I realized that the reason I was attracted to selling was that it had no ceiling. If I get it together, there’s no limit to how good I can be or how much money I can make. That’s not how I usually think of myself. It sounds so crass, but I get a smile on my face whenever I think about it.” Sherry came out of the gate a winner, at the top of her multi-level marketing group.
Sam, who had been selling cars for twenty-one years, surprised himself as well. “I’ve done this forever, and thought I was just going through the motions. But in Step #2, I realized how much I love seeing people’s faces when they get behind the wheel of that shiny new car. Most of them are about to pop. They smell the ‘new car’ smell, and you can see it on their faces. I get a kick out of that, almost like I was doing it myself.”
Everybody’s passions look different. Hal sells high-end travel packages. He has always been a little surprised by his success because he has a quiet, reasoned presence rather than the flashy demeanor often associated with people in sales. He realized when he did Step #2 that, “I like the way I sell. I’m quiet. It works for me and the people to whom I sell. It’s great to appreciate something I’d always thought might be a liability.”
Of course, the most important passion to identify and develop is the one you have for your contacts. What good are you willing to see in every person you encounter? What are some bottom line appreciations you can make? Remember, they don’t have to earn this honor, respect and appreciation. You give it freely and unconditionally. Tom is a tractor salesman, and was surprised at his answer in this area. “I see everybody who comes in as a person who works hard for their family, and who creates things with their hands that they leave behind when they go. I can give them a tool that makes their job easier, and I like that.”
The more clear you are about the personal values you see in selling, in yourself as a seller, in your product or service and in your contacts, the more effectively you present what you’re offering—and the more fun you have doing it.