The Four Things You Must Do To Succeed In Sales. #4 Is Not So Obvious.

Feb 25, 2017

Wes Schaeffer

Business Coaching Jesus Storytelling Sales Training

You've heard that to win in sales people must

Know, like and trust you.

One. Two. Three.

Bing. Bang. Boom.

Each of those three requirements presents their own unique challenges. To help people get to know, like and trust you, you can—and should—experiment with leveraging

blog posts,
podcasts,
email newsletters,
YouTube videos,
social media,
PPC,
retargeting,
printed newsletters,
direct mail,
billboards,
TV ads,
radio ads,
sky-writing,
blimps,
smoke signals and
sponsor a NASCAR team. (My personal favorite. I'm thinking Tony Stewart with his "in-your-face" kind of driving would be great for my car...but I digress.)

Each of these forms of marketing and advertising help you get known, help you build a connection and familiarity in the minds of your prospects, which creates trust with them because we all assume if we keep seeing, you then you must be okay because phonies and fakes don't have the guts and audacity and staying power to remain present and visible in the marketplace.

The missing component that is rarely—if ever—mentioned is the 4th leg of the sales table, which is

To take people where you want them to go, you first must meet them where they are."

Good sales people do this intuitively.

Great sales people—and if you own a business, you're in sales...and if you're in customer support, engineering, HR, finance, operations, have a spouse, have children, ever buy anything or get paid by a company that sells anything, you're in sales, too—do this on purpose.

In the photo above, we see Jesus getting in the boat with Simon and his fellow fisherman.

In Luke we read that Jesus had Simon go "out a short distance" so He could teach the crowds from the boat.

When He was finished, He had Simon lower his nets.

Simon didn't want to. (He had been banging out prospecting calls and Twittering and running Facebook Ads all day and had nothing to show for it.)

But Simon listened and made one more "prospecting" effort and was rewarded with a catch so large it nearly tore his nets.

Simon and the other four fisherman Jesus "sold" on becoming disciples of His, were persuaded because Jesus went to them.

He met them at their place of work.

He got into their boats.

He got his hands dirty.

He let them realize He knew them, their places in life, their work, their struggles and because He met them where they were, they came to immediately know, like and trust Him and they took the action Jesus the Persuader, the Salesman, the Marketer wanted them to take.

So slow down on trying to solve every problem in the universe for your prospects.

Take the time to listen to them and let them know they have been heard.

They need to feel it in their bones that they've been listened to. (It's part of the diagnosis process.)

The client (patient) trusts the sales person (doctor) that makes house calls...That walks the shop floor to see the workflow and operations and shipping and receiving and sales team...That gets in the boat and goes on a ride-along and gets his hands dirty before making a recommendation.

There's a big world of prospects out there suffering from a lack of YOU!

In their suffering and desperation and grinding it out they don't / won't / can't take the time to even look up to get to know, like and trust you.

So you need to go meet them where they are and you'll win a client (dare I say a disciple?) for life.

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