I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: we’re all selling all the time.
You may not believe it, and you may not want to believe it, but if you stand back and take a good, honest, and fair look at yourself, your life, the world around you, and your results, it’s true. You’re selling all the time. You’re selling your ideas, you’re selling your smile, your emotions, your thoughts, your cookies, that guy’s house, your outcomes, all of it. You’re selling all the time. Check.
Once you accept this basic piece of your existence, then it’s a question of quantity. You want to sell as much as you can. You want to sell a butt-load of whatever you’re offering the world. You really do. There are a lot of reasons you want to sell, sell, sell from ego to money to love, but at the end of the day, you want to sell as much as you can. Check.
That brings to the age-old question of the mystics, sages, and gurus: how? How do you sell a butt-ton of what you’re sure is the most magical lightning in a bottle every known? Good question. There have been a gazillion books, tapes, and courses authored on this topic with more on the way. Has no one yet solved this puzzle yet? Really?
Let’s do that now.
Two Magical Words
Selling the bejesus out of anything really comes down to your interpretation and your execution of two words: future benefits. That’s right – “future benefits”. Write those two little gems on a sticky and slap it on the fridge. You need to burn this mantra into the deepest closets of your selling mind.
Think about this this way: say you’re buying a new car. You’re probably wondering how long it’s going to last (future) and how much it will cost to maintain (benefit). Or how about that pair of new heels you can wear out on the town with your pretty black dress? You’re thinking how smokin’ you’re going to look (benefit) when you walk in the room (future). And what about that new pen you just got. You just dropped your card on the counter so you could be the new owner of a tool that it will never run out of ink (benefit) when you’re signing your kid’s permission slips (future).
As a fellow salesman, I just have to say, this really works. It really does. In fact, it’s crazy how well it works. You just have to spend some time in pre-game prepping yourself a bit. Let’s do that next.
Pre-Game
Have you ever thought about what a “feature” is? The feature of what you’re selling is the “what” it is. Your feature might be the fact that the car can run on old vegetable oil, it might be the special leather on the shoe’s sole, or it might be the endless ink in the pen. Those are features. Benefits are how those features are going to help your person.
The car that runs on old veggie oil will save money on gas.
The shoe leather will make your feet more comfortable.
The endless ink on the pen gives less frustration.
Finally, remember that all of these benefits happen in the future.
Alrighty then, now that you have everything you need to sell as much as you want to whoever you can, get yourself out there and find your perfect person, become richer than your wildest dreams of greed and avarice, and while you’re at it, how about brokering some world peace?
Good luck and have a good week.
Joe Still
2024.09.01
Cite
“Selling is essentially a transfer of feelings.”
– Zig Ziglar