How to Sell Anything to Anyone
I used to be ashamed of being a salesperson.
I think it’s the “sleazy salesman” persona, the one portrayed by Danny Devito as Matilda's dad in the movie Matilda. This is what I thought of when I thought of sales.
Regardless of my feelings of shame around being a salesperson, I had natural inclinations towards sales-like roles – I’m extremely competitive, I’m money motivated, and generally speaking, I am outgoing – and any time I broke out of these roles (I spent a few years in Product Management, Consulting, and Partnership Management roles), I found myself feeling less fulfilled.
Alas, after a few years of ping-ponging back and forth about whether I was destined for sales, I decided it was time to surrender the battle against myself and go for it.
Timing is everything, and as fate would have it, as I stepped into this sales role, my employer was offering a sales training called the Lappin Method.
The basis of the Lappin Method is this: the mindset of the salesperson matters as much as any external actions they take, because our mindset informs the words we use, the energy we give off, the questions we ask, and therefore the experience our clients have working with us.
As a salesperson you have the power to a) trigger someone’s fight or flight nervous system response, or b) create a supportive environment in which they feel safe to share some of the challenges they are experiencing, and open up to change.
Unfortunately, we’ve all been the target of someone selling in style A, and in many ways I think that’s what has led to the “sleazy salesperson” persona we see in the movies.
But I am here to tell you, sales doesn’t have to look like that, be like that, or even be something to be ashamed of.
If you let it, sales can be a really wonderful relationship-building experience for both you and your client, an experience centered around helping your client, as the main character in their own story, get out of a challenging situation, and achieve their biggest ambitions.
Do I have your attention yet? Great, let’s start here…
Sales isn’t actually about selling. Sales is about determining IF and HOW you can help someone.
IF you can help, and HOW you can, actually meets the criteria for what help looks like for this person, so they can get out of their challenging situation and achieve their big ambitions, THEN a sale will be a natural outcome.
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How is that so?
Well here’s the dealio, we give ourselves far too much credit in the sales process. I hate to break it to you, but as much as you’d like to think you are,
YOU ARE NOT the main character in your Client’s story.
Even if you are the best salesperson on the planet, you can’t sell something to a person who doesn’t want to buy it.
So go ahead and take the pressure off yourself to be the main character here, give your client the credit they are due as the main character and instead of focusing on what YOU want in this story, focus on what THEY want, and how you MIGHT be able to help them, kind of like… a fairy godmother :)
In order to do this, first, you’ll have to create an environment in which they feel safe to share their story.
Next, you’ll have to spend time getting to know their story, their challenges, what they’ve already tried, why those things didn’t work, what their aspirations are, what their plans are for pursuing those aspirations, how they feel about the resources they have to go and pursue those aspirations.
Finally (and here’s the catch!), you’ll have to do this: you’ll have to ACTUALLY GIVE A SH*T ABOUT THEM – you’ll have to actually want to help them, you’ll have to actually believe that the thing you are selling can help them, and then, you will realize it’s not you selling them anything, it’s your obligation, as someone who cares, and someone who has a tool that can help, to at a minimum share about how you MIGHT be able to help them if they let you.
When you stop playing the main character in your prospects story, two things happen:
You release the death-grip you have on feeling like you have to make every conversation turn into a sale, and instead give yourself the gift of opportunity to genuinely be interested in this person, and their challenges, and IF and HOW you MIGHT be able to help them, and
Should you be able to help them, you can assume your proper role as fairy godmother, making their wishes come true with ease and a little bit of magic
(***Now, there’s more nuance here, like knowing how to shepherd someone through a process so they can evaluate whether or not you can help them, but we’ll leave that for another article).
Okay, so we’ve cleared the air a bit:
Sales is not about selling, it’s about determining IF and HOW you can help your client.
You are NOT the main character in this story, your client is. You are the fairy godmother.
Here’s the final piece for today: In order to get a chance at playing fairy godmother, you have to create an environment where your customer feels safe to open up to you, to let you into their story, so that you might be able to help them. And this requires you to have good energy.
Less Danny Devito, more Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.
In the Lappin Method, we learn about two mindsets, the “Sales Mindset” and the “Elite Mindset.”
As the kids would say, “the Sales Mindset gives Danny Devito, and the Elite Mindset gives Fairy Godmother.”
The sales mindset is desperate and all about the needs of the seller. When we are in this mindset, we ask questions to uncover pain. We energetically let our prospects know that anything they open up to us, their vulnerability, will be used against them, to exploit them, as leverage. We demonstrate that the outcome here is about us.
Imagine for a second that you are interested in evaluating a potential solution to your problems, and this is the energy that a salesperson is giving off. How does that make you feel? Here’s some words that come to mind for me: skeptical, turned off, annoyed, disengaged.
^ Does this sound like an environment where your prospect feels safe and open to a future where you get to play Fairy Godmother? No, probably not.
The elite mindset is abundant, and all about the desires of the client. When we are in this mindset, we ask questions to understand our client’s current state, their ideal future, and ask them to reflect on the gap between these two states, so we can understand if there’s a way for us to help them close that gap with less effort, less stress, and more ease. We energetically let our prospects know that they can be vulnerable with us, and that we won’t exploit their vulnerability, but instead see what we can do to support them, to creative problem-solve, to see if we might be able to help them. We demonstrate that the outcome here is about them.
Imagine for a second that you are interested in evaluating a potential solution to your problems, and this is the energy that a salesperson is giving off. How does that make you feel? Here’s some words that come to mind for me: receptive, open, creative, interested, engaged.
^ Does this sound like an environment where your prospect feels safe and open to a future where you get to play Fairy Godmother? Certainly more in this case than the case above, right?
Success, like salespeople, comes in a variety of flavors, this just happens to be my favorite flavor.
At the end of the day, success, like salespeople, comes in a variety of flavors. I know MANY salespeople that are successful managing their business like Danny Devito. This “flavor” of sales just didn’t work for me. When I thought I had to be Danny Devito to get ahead in my sales career, I felt ashamed, “sleazy,” and like it was my responsibility to exploit my clients.
The Lappin Method changed the game for me. This “flavor” let me see myself as a Fairy Godmother, only there to help the Main Characters of the story on their road to achieving their biggest ambitions, and THAT felt good. THAT was the kind of sales career I could get on board with. When I adopted this method, my sales career took off, my deals were bigger, easier, and my clients happier. That’s the power of finding your favorite “flavor.”
I hope that if you’re struggling with your identity or style as a salesperson this article changes the game for you. Remember: Sales gets to be fun. Sales gets to be a great experience for your client and you. It gets to be a career path that allows you to step into your greatest potential, by helping your clients step into theirs 💕
