A Selling Experience Formula
Selling has never been more difficult in today’s crowded market, where it is hard to tell one company, service, & product from another. A great company must train its sales teams to differentiate within the first few moments of contact with a potential buyer through the entire sales process. You are in sales. Whether you are a salesperson, account executive, chief revenue officer, consultant, accountant, lawyer, entrepreneur, or any other professional, you are in sales. The formula for how to stand out from any other company and salesperson is simple:
Expertise + Rapport = High Sales
What we mean by “Expertise” is that the professional knows more about the products/services they are selling than anyone else and their impact on the buyer. The objective in demonstrating one’s expertise is that the buyer should think, “Wow, I have never met anyone who knows more about this particular service/product and its benefits and drawbacks.”
What we mean by “Rapport” is making a genuine connection with the buyer and demonstrating your interest in helping them get what they need, not just making a sale. The adage is true today: “Customers buy from people they like.” The objective in building rapport is for the buyer to realize that the professional they are dealing with cares about them as a human and their company’s success rather than just making a sale.
The key is demonstrating your expertise while building a rapport simultaneously at every interaction of the sales process, on the initial call, in the discovery process, during the proposal, in each follow-up step, closing the sale, and post-sale. When this is consistently done, you have created a selling experience that will be hard for anyone else to beat, and even better, you will not have to be the lowest bidder. The professional who provides a true selling experience often wins the sale with the highest-priced proposal.
A salesperson’s superpower
The single best superpower any successful professional needs when dealing with existing and potential customers is empathy. As the salesperson’s empathy increases, their level of listening increases. When professionals understand the buyer’s plight, they attempt to intuitively assess the meanings of buyer messages by placing themselves in the customers’ place throughout the interaction.
A day in the life of the buyer
One of the best ways to train for empathy is to consider what a day in life is for a buyer. This buyer has a boss who has tasked them with finding a solution to their problem/needs within the budget they were given. The buyer may likely lack the expertise of the product or service they are sourcing. Being uneducated in a certain area can be frustrating. The buyer may need to have answers for their boss in a quick turnaround. Slow response times from salespeople can be frustrating. The buyer may have a bad taste when dealing with salespeople, and every company they are researching and talking to sounds the same. All these are potential professional stresses in the buyer’s day, on top of any possible personal issues they may be having with their kids, finances, aging parents, etc.
*Related – How to Make Listening your Superpower
How to establish trust and credibility immediately
The best way to stand out from every competitor that appears to provide what you provide is not to be so ambitious with closing the sale. Be cautious; let’s ensure we are the right company for what you are looking for. Let’s not assume the buyer even knows what they are looking for. Demonstrate that your company has certain criteria for doing business with.
During the discovery phase of the sales process, The DiJulius Group likes to shock our clients by stating, “We will only take you on as a client if we both agree that the value you will receive from our consulting agreement is far greater than the fees you pay us. Is that acceptable?” This question shocks the buyer. This buyer has not heard this before. This says, “Before we proceed, waste any more of each other’s time; we need to figure out if we are the right fit.”
*Related – How one company saved tens of millions of dollars by improving one metric
A great salesperson understands both parties must win. This agreement drives us to examine every potential source of value, identifying pain points and opportunities that all clients possess. Additionally, it clarifies the client’s ultimate goals and the desired future state.
Establishing your Expertise
The discovery phase is typically the initial call where the buyer tells the salesperson what their company is looking for. The biggest mistake at this stage and on the proposal stage is when the salesperson immediately shares how great their company is, how they are a perfect match for the buyer’s needs, and all the well-known clients they have worked with. There is a place and time for this, but it shouldn’t be what the salesperson leads with. Assume the buyer is speaking to 3-6 other companies, and I guarantee you they have heard exactly that from all of them. A selling experience needs to be effectively different.
Part 1 Learning
In the first part of the discovery call, the sales professional should not be doing any of the talking; they should be focused on asking many great questions. Great questions demonstrate your knowledge and expertise; they haven’t been asked before.
Questions such as:
- Where and how are you losing money by not taking initiative and action?
- Have you tried fixing this in the past? If so, why didn’t that work?
- Do you have senior leadership’s unwavering support?
- Who are the key decision-makers for this project?
- Who is the project lead?
- What are the KPIs that will measure this project’s success?
- In 12-18 months from now, what would happen for this to be the absolute best investment your company has ever made? This question is powerful because it encourages clients to envision their ideal future state.
“A sale happens while you are immersed in helping to serve your customers.
Don’t focus on the sale; focus on providing expertise, being a resource,
and building a genuine rapport. The sales will come.”
Part 2 Educating
The second part of the discovery call is where the salesperson can demonstrate their expertise. One of my favorite books on this topic is The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson. The authors’ premise is that the best salespeople don’t just find out what a customer’s needs are; they challenge them. They challenge their assumptions; they are willing to educate them on what the buyer may be missing in their quest to solve their problems. The other salespeople the buyer speaks to will say, “Yes, we do that, we can do that.” Providing no new information and no pushback on the potential gap the customer thinks they need and what they truly need.
“You earn business by being generous with your knowledge and resources
without asking for anything in return.”
I never thought of it that way before
The best sales professionals stand out and win their clients’ business when they know their customers’ world better than they know it themselves, teaching them what they don’t know but should. The best reps win that battle not by “discovering” what customers already know they need but by teaching them a new way of thinking. Prompting the buyer to think, “Huh, I never thought of it that way before.” The potential customer learned so much on the discovery call that they would have been willing to pay for the conversation.
“The goal is to take customers on a roller-coaster ride, leading first to a rather dark place before showing them the light at the end of the tunnel. And that light, of course, is your solution,” shares Dixon & Adamson. “You want to make the customer feel sick about all the money they’re wasting, or revenue they’re missing or risk they’re unknowingly exposed to.”
A great sales professional catches the customer off guard with an unexpected viewpoint—to surprise them, make them curious, and get them wanting to hear more. “If your customer’s first reaction to your insight is enthusiastic agreement, then you haven’t taught them anything. And that’s a dangerous place to be,” the authors share. “Sure, it always feels great when your customer says, ‘I agree!’ Remember, the real value of the interaction isn’t what you sell; it’s the insight you provide as part of the sales interaction itself.”
A great example of educating the buyer on something they may not know should sound like, “We’ve worked with several companies like yours, and we’ve found that these three challenges come up again and again as by far the most troubling. Is that what you’re seeing, too, or would you add something else?”
Educate vs sell
The best brands teach their employees to educate customers rather than sell to them. Sometimes, when it is truly in their best interest, that may mean talking a potential buyer out of making as big of a purchase as they originally thought. Sounds crazy? Trust me, every time we have done that with a client, they spend more with us in the long run because we just proved our number one priority is what is in their best interest, not just capitalizing on that one sale.
Building Rapport
Like demonstrating your expertise, building rapport must happen at every point of contact throughout the sales cycle. The key skills needed are paying attention, having insatiable curiosity, and incredible listening. The best way to focus on building a relationship with another person is to learn their FORD (Family, Occupation, Recreation, & Dreams). If you try to find out about two of these subjects, you not only have a relationship, but you also own that relationship. FORD represents people’s hot buttons, what each individual cares about the most. FORD is what they are passionate about. It is the topics that make them light up that they talk about in detail. Constantly referring to FORD keeps the focus of the conversation on the other person.
Every time you communicate with a customer, whether over the phone, electronically, or face-to-face, you should collect and utilize customer intelligence. That doesn’t mean you interrogate them; you are not rattling off question after question to tick off the answers to each item of their FORD. However, it’s extremely simple to work on a few questions about these subjects in the natural flow of a conversation. Once you get someone talking, typically, they will offer most of the information on their own. All you have to do is sit back and listen.
The best way to make this part of your daily habits is to create a system for collecting and retrieving people’s FORD. Most of our clients build a FORD tab in the customer relationship management (CRM) software that they can access on their computers and mobile devices.
These tools help us focus on all the customer intelligence we encounter daily. For instance, customer intelligence notepads are ideal for professionals on the run, in meetings, and at networking events. As soon as you walk away from the customer, prospect, neighbor, or person you just met, write down the key things they just told you (for example, leaving for a vacation, an alumnus of Northwestern University has a daughter on a traveling volleyball team).
It is all about the follow-up
Immediately after every stage of the sales process, the initial call, the discovery process, the proposal, the sale closing, and the post-sale, great salespeople send a follow-up email, recapping the next steps. Your recap should include valuable resources (articles, case studies, etc.) of the information you shared, as well as a quick mention of FORD you picked up on from the call, i.e., “I hope you enjoy your weekend getaway to Nappa,” or “Can’t wait to hear how your son’s team does in his tournament.”
Make sure your sales team knows they are in customer experience. Review every stage of your sales cycle and see how you can help create a selling experience with the formula:
Expertise + Rapport = High Sales
Learn to turn your sales interactions into a brand experience with our upcoming Livestream Workshop: Building Exceptional Journeys for Customers and Employees. (see information below 👇)
Create Signature Experience Journey Maps That Retain Your Customers and Employees
Even if you offer better products than your competitors, you’re losing revenue if their service is better.
- Consumers will pay more to purchase from a company with a reputation for great customer service.
- And companies with highly engaged employees have more sales because their teams are more likely to go above and beyond to improve customer service.
During these livestream workshops, The DiJulius Group will guide you in creating a distinct brand experience that will keep your customers and employees engaged.
Two Day Event
Oct. 28: Customer Experience Journey Mapping 12:00-3:00 PM ET
Nov. 4: Employee Experience Journey Mapping 12:00-3:00 PM ET
Register up to 5 team members for an introductory price of $779 $249
Upcoming Webinars with The DiJulius Group:
Free Registration click here.
12 September: Training Your Employees on the Critical Soft Skills Needed Today 
26 September: Selling as an Experience
10 October: Turning your Contact Center into a Relationship Center
24 October: Creating Your Signature Experience
14 November: Forget Customer Surveys; Learn Real CX KPI’s
6 December: Service Recover Never and Always
Join John on The Growth Institute’s Free Live Webinar!
Empower Your Employees, Elevate Your Customer Experience
The key to delivering exceptional customer experiences lies in the success and well-being of your employees. When your team feels valued, supported, and aligned with your company’s purpose, they will go above and beyond for your customers.
Join us on September 19th at 2 PM ET/11 AM PT/8 PM CEST for the Customer Experience Revolution Free Live Webinar with John DiJulius. During this 90-minute session, you’ll discover how a thriving workforce translates directly into customer satisfaction, business success, and more.
Register for free here: https://hubs.li/Q02NHVTz0
