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Stop Trying to Convince People
Whenever you are selling products, services, ideas, or value of any kind, it is a HUGE waste of time to try to convince people. Your time is much better spent filtering and sorting. A friend of mine used to work in sales for PeopleSoft (now Oracle) – selling million-dollar plus software implementations. He was relentless on the phone – a tough, smart, no-nonsense kind of sales guy. His job was not to convince people to buy PeopleSoft if the thought never crossed their mind. You can’t get someone to buy a million dollar item if they don’t want or need it. His job was to ask them if they’ve considered a system like PeopleSoft, if they’re seriously looking to implement something within the next few months, who else they’re looking at, what their IT situation is, and if it would be helpful to set up a demo or send out some research that would help them make a decision.
Notice, you STILL have to knock. You still have to reach out and make the first move. But stop trying to convince people, persuade people, and sell people on both their problem and your solution. That’s just too much work. And you know what’s missing – ROE. Return on Effort. It just takes too much time, effort, and energy to do all that convincing. There are a lot of people already actively looking for exactly what you do. Ultimately, if you take this to heart, you’ll create the possibility of making all your selling efforts easy, effortless, and enjoyable – and EFFECTIVE.
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© 2007 David Newman
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