Episode #91: Credibility Sells

The first sale is to yourself regarding what it is you are selling. If you are not sold, then get out of that sales job and go find something you can believe in to sell. In Japan, you won’t find any other car brands in the Toyota carpark for a reason.

The hardest sales job in the world is selling something you don’t believe in yourself. The acid test is would you sell this “whatever” to your grandmother? If the answer is no, then get out of there right now! It is rarely that clear cut though. The more important test is whether what you are selling solves the client’s problem or not. Selling clients on things that are not in their best interests is a formula for long-term failure and personal brand suicide.

There are elements of the sales process which are so fundamental, you wonder why I would even bring them up. For example, believing in what you sell. There are lots of salespeople though, trapped in jobs where they don’t believe but keep selling.

The more common problem is that they actually do believe in what they sell but they are not professional enough to be convincing in the sales conversation. They often have a sales personality deficiency, where they are not good with people or not good with different types of people.

When I joined Shinsei’s retail bank, I recognised immediately that 70% of the salespeople should never have been given a sales role. My brief was “we have 300 salespeople and we are not getting anywhere – come in and fix it”. The vast majority of people in the role of convincing wealthy Japanese customers to buy our financial products were really suffering. They lacked the communication skills, the people skills, the persuasion power, the warmth, the concern for the customer, etc., which they needed to be successful.

As Shinsei, we worked out who was best suited for a sales role and gave those people the proper training to equip them for success. The remainder were given a role elsewhere in the bank. What training did we give them? The ability to ask good questions, to fully understand wealthy customer’s needs.

At Dale Carnegie we do a lot of sales training and we see the same client issues come up continuously. Certainty around the thing being sold must be in evidence. Selling is the transfer of your enthusiasm for the product or service to the buyer. Your body language must naturally exude belief. Your face needs to be friendly.

Fluency in communication is critical. Be it Japanese or English, a lot of “filler words” like Eeto, Anou , Um, Ah, etc., might help you to think of what you want to say next, but you come across as if you are not sure or convinced about what you are saying or proposing. We definitely don’t buy sales person uncertainty.

Success in sales is based on following a sales process. That process is based on three powerful foundations – your belief in what you are selling, your ability to fluently articulate back to the buyer what you heard they need and how your solution satisfies their need.

If you want your sales team to be successful, make sure they get a proper sales process, get certainty, get fluency and get going!