256. How to sell without selling: Strategies you need to know from Chris Do

Timestamp:

00:00 Introduction to Sales Mindset

00:52 Building Confidence in Sales

01:57 Finding the Right Audience

03:13 Understanding the Customer's Problem

04:00 The Right Approach to Sales Conversations

05:27 Conclusion and Next Steps

Ash Roy's and Chris Do's Video Transcript (This transcript has been auto-generated. Artificial Intelligence is still in the process of perfecting itself. There may be some errors in transcription):

Chris Do:

We don't necessarily need to reinvent ourselves. A coach who teaches someone to…. is worthless or a liability. If someone comes into a store and says, I want to buy a tire, the bad salesperson was like, well, a really great salesperson will say….

Ash Roy:

Are you a good salesperson or a bad one? Chris Do, the founder of The Futur will explain his approach to sales.

The exact mindset you require, what to do in a sales conversation, and more importantly, what not to do in a sales conversation.

Let's do this.

Let's talk about sales. I absolutely love your sales workshops that you do on YouTube. You have a combination of humor, you can put people on the spot, but I find that you're very connected to your audience.

You kind of feel when to push a person, when to induce them. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about your approach to sales. How does one, build their confidence when they're reaching out to make sales calls and not have that rubbish going on in their mind that oh this person's going to say no to me and they've pretty much you know set themselves up for failure before they even pick up the phone.

Chris Do:

Well, there's a lot to unpack here so I will try, I think fundamentally if you've put in the work to learn your craft, whatever it is writing design public speaking keynote design, whatever it is if you put in your 10, 000 hours, as Malcolm Gladwell has suggested, then you know it's built on foundation of skill.

So now here's the next question, okay? So, what people don't understand is, I don't usually talk about this part. So, they say, well, how come I can't do this? Well, did you put in the 10, 000 hours or not? Because if you didn't, you're selling garbage, essentially, at some point, that you know you can't do, and it erodes your confidence, your ability to hold the conversation and show up as yourself.

So, first thing is, okay, let's make sure we put in our 10, 000 hours of practice, and if you look at it mathematically divided over days in which you can work on it, it's actually really not that long. It sounds like a really long time, but you can do it in like, I think, two years. So, we put in the practice.

The next thing you have to ask yourself is do I fundamentally believe that when I give someone my skill, my craft, my time, that they're better for it. Okay. So, if you don't believe that, like I'm good, but actually this doesn't benefit anybody, then let's try and find an audience where they would find that valuable.

We don't necessarily need to reinvent ourselves, but what we need to do is to find an audience. Where this is really good. I'll share a story about a conversation I had with Daniel Priestley on a forthcoming episode with him. He goes, if Lewis Hamilton got a coach and that coach could shave one second off a lap time for him, that would be worth millions to him.

Because sometimes, if you add up the seconds lap after lap, it’s going to be the difference between first place and second place about being a champion or a runner up. But Daniel says, if you teach me how to drive a lap a second faster, that's worth nothing to me because I don't aspire to drive one second faster. And then we're joking.

I said, it actually might be a liability because you might crash the car, right? So, a coach who teaches someone to drive a little bit faster is worthless or a liability to one audience, one customer, but is invaluable to a different type of customer so if you have this skill you have to find the right customer who sees the benefit of what you're doing that primes you for success that's setting you up to succeed.

This is really important. Okay There's a couple more things now. So, when we enter into the sales conversation, our job isn't to sell, it's not to perform, it's not to present, it's not to manipulate anybody. It's to understand if they have a problem that you can solve and what is the real problem? And is it connected to the reason why they want to purchase something?

So, if someone comes into a store and says, I want to buy a tire, the bad salesperson was like, well, we have four here, they're all ranging price. And we'll then try to sell you the most expensive one. A really great sales person will say, what makes you think you need a tire? They're like, well, I hear the sound and it feels like it's going to go.

Why don't we check the tread and it turns out your tires are perfectly fine and it's because it's misaligned. So, there's a repair shop down the street. They'll align your wheels and you know what? You're going to get a lot more mileage. It's going to be a lot safer for you. And I say, thank you, friend. If you can use this mindset when you go into it, you'll start to realize you're free of all the internal pressures to prove yourself, to answer any kind of questions because I'm here to serve you.

And if I can't, the best thing I can do is to recommend that you, you go somewhere else. And that takes all the pressure off of me. So, the way that I can handle sales calls is because A. I believe I put in the practice B. I believe you will benefit from what it is that I do though. So, the only thing I'm trying to do is to ascertain as to whether or not you have a problem that I can solve, that I want to solve.

And if I want to work with you. And so, in that way, it's very neutral and objective for me. You can say horrific things to me, and it's not going to impact me at all, because that's just your point of view, and you're entitled to it. And I'm not saying I have some stranglehold on the truth. We could both be wrong.

We both could be right.

Ash Roy:

There's so much that's coming up in my mind around growth versus fixed mindset and scarcity thinking, because whenever I approach a sales call with the idea that I've got to close a sale, completely different energy. There's no generosity in that conversation. There's no empathy.

It's just about me, me, me. And I made that mistake so many times more than I would like to admit. But when I approach the sales call with, how can I be of service to this person? In a genuine way, in a way that is generous and empathetic and put my needs aside, whatever needs to happen will happen. And it may not mean that I will get the sale, but the best thing will happen.

And one thing is for sure, I won't hurt my brand.

If you found this video useful, you definitely want to check out this video. Thanks for listening. I hope you subscribe and I'll talk to you in the next video.