For some people, selling a product comes natural but for most, you have to train for hours and hours before you can consistently sell. Clay has built a repeatable business coaching system for selling that works if you implement it properly. Selling can be scaled out to you and your team when you implement the four steps.
Rapport, Needs, Benefits, and Close…
Every sales call, pitch, or presentation comes down to the four steps:
- Rapport
- Needs
- Benefits
- Close
When you look around, you will notice that these four business coaching steps aren’t just used when selling products and services. If you watch a movie with your family, you will recognize these four steps buried under the cinematography. The director builds rapport with you by introducing the characters. Then he brings a problem and creates a need for the characters in the film. The next step is where most movies spend the majority of their time. Benefits is where the problem is solved. The character spends their time resolving the problem and ultimately comes to a resolution or a close. These steps are also buried in every song. Hans Zimmer is a great example of this.
Rapport
When you are selling, you must first build rapport with your customer. This does not have to be weird or incredibly formal. Jerry Vass, who wrote, Soft Selling in a Hard World, would say that the potential customer should never know you are selling them something. As soon as they feel like they are being “Sold To” they will put up the armor. The goal of selling is to solve a problem for your ideal and likely buyer. Rapport building can be very simple and the goal is simply to get to know your customer so they feel more comfortable with you.
Needs
As you transition into the needs, you will realize that some people are in desperate need of your product and some people don’t think they need your product. Yet… The most effective move is to simply call and talk to a mass amount of people until you land on the ones that are looking for a product or service like yours. If you reach out to 100 of your ideal and likely buyers, you are likely to land 1 that is interested in your product. If they know they need your product or not, you still must bring up their needs for them. You can do this indirectly by asking them 3 “needs” questions. This brings the problem that they have to the surface and allows you to solve it for them.
Benefits
Bringing the benefits is vitally important when selling. Most people believe that they are bringing benefits when, in fact, they are actually just providing features of their product to their customers. Benefits are things that positively impact the consumer and solve their problem. If it doesn’t help them to solve their problem, it should not be included in the pitch.
Close
The close is where most people get hung up. It can be stressful at first to go for the ask and some business coaching people just leave it hanging there because they would rather not get rejected than close a deal. You must accept that you will be rejected 99 times for every one deal you close. Every rejection that you get, you are just one step closer to your goal of selling your product.
