The One Question a Buyer Will Never Ask

What’s the one question a buyer will never ask you?

Ready?

Here it is.

The one question a buyer will never ask:

"Could you please be more salesy?”

In my sales career, I’ve never had a customer once say to me “Andy, we really like you. But, you’re just not salesy enough. Could you please be more salesy?”

Sales is seemingly unique as a profession that continues to train its practitioners to adopt behaviors that its buyers and customers uniformly detest.

Your buyers are trying to quickly gather information to make well-informed decisions with the least investment of their time and effort possible.

And yet somewhere a sales leader is writing up a job posting looking for a “hunter" or a “closer." Two supposed "skills" that have no relevance whatsoever to helping the buyer make a decision.

Has a buyer ever asked you to act more unhelpful?

Of course not. That would be crazy.

You can be incredibly successful as a sales professional without acting like a failed stereotype.

Many times in this daily email I’ve given you the four core sales behaviors that you should use to become the sales professional your buyers need you to be.

My acronym for these 4 core behaviors is BALD™

B = Be Human: Be focused. Be interested. Put away distractions.

A = Ask Great Questions: Be curious. Always lead off with a question about them.

L = Listen Slowly: Don’t judge. Don’t think of what you’re going to say next. Just listen.

D = Deliver Value: How can you be of service and add value to help them make a decision?

The best compliment I’ve ever received from a customer? Telling me I didn’t come across as a salesperson after they'd just given me a $1,000,000+ order.

- Andy Paul