Show #322: Stop selling and start helping

Show #322: Stop selling and start helping

Welcome to Episode 322 of The Ziglar Show. I’m your proud host, Kevin Miller and my Zig quote for you today is also the title of today’s show, “Stop selling, and start helping.”

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If you think sales is not a topic that interests you or pertains to you…you haven’t listened to much of Zig. He says, and I wholeheartedly agree, that everyone is in sales. We all have things we care about and want to impart to others and help others with. If we can’t communicate in a way people will accept, we can’t offer the help we desire to give.

Our show is brought to you today by…Quickbooks. If you are self-employed…listen to this. Quickbooks is offering Ziglar listeners up to 50% off for an entire year on the new QuickBooks Self Employed. I’ll tell you more in a bit, but you can get it now at www.TrySelfEmployed.com/ziglar

Last week I asked for those who really appreciate the Ziglar show, to take the time to login to iTunes and give us a 5-star rating and write a review. For your trouble, we’d send you a free gift. So, so many of you did. Thank you! The offer is still open. Do it, then email me at [email protected] to let me know so we can send you something!

I have another favor to ask today before we dive into the show. I appreciate when friends recommend great products, services and experiences. Whenever I have a need for a product or service, I go to friends, family and social media and ask for testimony to something someone’s experienced, had great experience with, and I can trust.

We want to do the same thing here with The Ziglar Show. The show is free of course, but as it grows, more and more time and resources must be devoted to it. So we’re beginning to bring you ads from products and services we believe have relevance for the Ziglar audience, and we personally recommend and endorse! To make sure we are nailing it, I’m asking for your help today with a quick survey so we really DO know…what you care about. I don’t want to waste your listening time. Will you go quickly to podsurvey.com/ziglar. The survey will only take 5 minutes, I did it myself. We're just asking you a handful of questions about yourself and what you like to buy, and it's completely anonymous. It was a little eye opening to think about my purchasing. After you finish the survey shows you stats on other listeners, which is really interesting. Your answers help ensure we only bring on advertisers that are well matched to you, your interests, and the show. When you're finished you can enter a monthly drawing to win a $100 Amazon gift card. Even if you've taken a podcast listener survey before I'd like to ask you to take this one to help us make the show perfectly relevant to you. Again, you’ll get a chance to win that $100 gift card. Once again that'spodsurvey.com/ziglar. Thank you so much for your support!

Our clip today comes from an in-depth seminar on selling where Zig briefly references some previous stories. One is about a salesman who made a call on a prospect who never bought, and mistook him for someone who always bought. His resulting attitude, accordingly, helped him make the FIRST sale ever to this individual!

Tom, I’ve done a lot of sales in my time, and I’ve definitely had experiences selling with and without confidence. Do you have a personal story to share?

> > Hear Tom's answer in the show below, as he references an early job seling athletic shoes at a retail store, and what advice from Zig helped him immediately double his sales!

Alright then…lets hear what Zig has to tell us:

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Zig starts out by saying, “You’ve got to give people a reason and an excuse for buying.”

If you have a product or service you are literally selling, you can generally come up with what you believe is a great reason and excuse for people to buy. But in most sales interactions, salespeople often fail to clarify these aspects sufficiently to their prospects. They spend most of their time talking about the product’s or service’s merits and value, and not talking about how it will truly help the buyer, according to their stated needs. If you’re listening and have a product or service, think about your pitch. Do you seek to understand people, what their needs are, then show how your product or service can meet that need, and then give them a completely relatable reason and excuse?

A reason. Tom, I’ll put you on the spot, and shamelessly promote a Ziglar product, Ziglar Legacy Certification. Folks, listen in. We’re going to sales school here. If you aren’t interested in the Ziglar Legacy Certification Course, just listen for the gist of it.

Tom, I want you to think of someone specific, name them or not, who has NOT been to a Ziglar Legacy Certification Course, and you think needs to, and explain the reason the need to come.

> > Hear Tom's answer in the show, and how important it is to not just have desire and skill, but have a plan and process to deliver effectively.

Next Tom, what is the excuse for them?

> > Hear Tom's answer in the show...for most, saving time in their personal, career and business progress is at the forefront of the excuse.

Now the next thing Zig said that’s interesting to me is, “When you’ve made the sale, you need to keep selling to ensure to people they’ve made a wise, wise decision.”

That is just not a normal perspective. You’ve made the sale, you’ve gotten the person’s money. This seems like the end. Yet Zig is saying to keep selling them. To keep…ensuring them.

But he doesn’t really go into the why. So Tom…I’ll ask you…why?

> > Hear Tom address "buyer's remorse" and the need to validate their purchase

Zig keys in on the necessity to be a sincere, caring individual. This is the heart of true, successful selling, influencing and leading.

Whether you’re trying to sell vacuum cleaners, cars or selling your teenager on not making unwise choices, are you really coming at it with sincerity and caring from the other person’s perspective and not just not yours?! Is that what they are truly perceiving?

Tom, I think our natural humanity when trying to sell anything, is to think about our perspective, not theirs. That’s not to diss ourselves, but just to be honest. Our natural humanity is self interested. Thus, we can’t go about sales “naturally”. We’ve got to step outside of our nature and truly put ourselves in the other person’s shoes.

We’ve got to…care. Back to my opening quote from Zig. “Stop selling, and start caring.”

Tom, that’s just not natural. We can’t help but sell from self interest. Self-interest IS why we are selling. We need to make a buck and get paid, for one, but then often, from our perspective, the person may well really need what we have to offer and we want to convince them of it for their sake! So how do you set that aside to sell with true care, which IS more effective?

> > Hear Tom discuss more on sales being a transfer of feelings, and reference Rabbi Daniel Lapin's appropriate quote, “opportunity seeks out the generous”.

Our show today, again, is sponsored by Quickbooks. Hey, for those of you who are self-employed…we have something for you. I’ve personally been self-employed all my life. I grew up in a self-employed home - it’s all I know! An achilles heel for me, and it was for my Dad too, is dealing with the finances. Quickbooks has now come out with Quickbooks Self-Employed and is offering Ziglar Show listeners up to fifty percent off for an entire year.Quickbooks Self-Employed helps separate your business and personal expenses, so you can quickly track what you spent for work, and what you spent on yourself. It takes the guesswork out of estimating federal quarterly taxes. So come tax time, you know how much money to set aside for Uncle Sam, and how much stays in your pocket. I get this done now by a CPA who I pay neartly 100 times more than what this product costs! Goodness. So, we can all try QuickBooks Self-Employed and save up to fifty percent if you go to www.TrySelfEmployed.com/Ziglar. The offer is only good until June 15th.

OK, now I’m going to hit a pet peeve of mine. Zig said we need to utilize story. But you must keep the story short, and you must respect the other person’s time.

This was very relevant to me, as I just recently sat through a sales presentation where the guy talked non-stop for a solid hour. He never asked questions, he never took the time to include me in the process. When myself and others attempted to insert a question he just sped up his delivery to make his point. Very few people seek to listen, understand and care. His service was good, but his manner eroded my trust in him, and he won’t see my money. Someone else that offers the product he was pitching, possibly with a lesser product even, will get my money.

He believed in his product. He had obviously studied some sales techniques. But he missed a primary piece. Listening. Caring. Letting me be part of the process to…sell myself.

Tom, this wasn’t part of Zig’s message. But that point hit me. At the end, does anyone sell us? Or do they just help remove the real and perceived obstacles so we can sell ourselves?

> > Hear Tom relate how people hate to sell, but they love to buy. So the key strategy is to help their ability to buy!

Last point here. Zig told us the reason most people don’t succeed in selling is, they sell with their head and leave the emotions out, or vice versa . You’ve got to use them both.

Zig went on to say, “If you have all logic, you’ll educate the prospect and they’ll buy from your competition. If you go with all emotion, they’ll buy from you, then 24 hours later, cancel. But if you use logic combined with emotion, they’ll buy today and keep the product tomorrow.” And I’d add, buy again and again and tell others to buy.

Bottom line folks, you can’t sell with it being about you. You must be about the other person. Listening. Caring. And having their best interest in mind. Which, and here is the big point folks, might not include needing, right now, your product or service.

Tom, this is big. Feels like a relevant book. “Selling without being certain that the prospect needs what you have to offer.” Doesn’t that right there change the game? It’s the crux of why I didn’t buy what the guy was selling me, that I might actually need! His primary platform was our only salvation was his service, and I just couldn’t accept that.

If a man is dying of thirst and you have a bottle of water, you simply have to approach him with the belief that for some reason, he just may truly NOT need what you have. You must seek to fully understand and care from his perspective.

Tom, doesn’t that feel better and take the pressure off?

> > Tom shares how the "process takes pressure off the person"

Thanks for listening folks, and remember, as soon as you turn this off and go about your day, you’ll find yourself trying to sell something to someone. Your idea, your perspective, your hope for them or simply where you want to eat for dinner tonight. Get out of yourself and let it be about them. If it doesn’t go your way and it goes their way…you just sold them on trusting you. And that’s a winning sale.

We’ll be back with you for the next show.