Shannyn Lee is the director of coaching at ‘Win Without Pitching’ with the mission of empowering creative professionals to have more confidence in the sale. In today’s interview hosted by John Golden, she will discuss ways of establishing yourself as the sales expert outside of the traditional pitching method.
This Expert Insight interview explores:
- The art of embracing the silence
- Mastering sales conversations
- Taking the initiative for the future
Embrace The Silence
Many salespeople struggle with engagement at the beginning, and that’s why they feel the need to use their pitch. In early conversations, the job of salespeople isn’t to sell. The goal is to see if they can help their prospects and then decide if they are going to take the next step together.
The problem is that some people struggle with the concept of facilitating the conversation. They are caught up by the idea that they need to fill up the silence when the ability to embrace it can be a superpower. It requires you only to be silent a little bit longer than your interlocutor. It takes some bravery, but there is so much learning that can happen in the process. Otherwise, you can miss out on a lot of information that would later be very valuable. Ask your question and stop talking!
Mastering Sales Conversations
The starting point is accepting the fact that sales conversations can be filled with a lot of messiness and tension. We sometimes force on ourselves the idea that everything has to go smoothly, but embracing and expecting the unexpected is a much better and healthier approach. We are all just humans, and people who can admit that they don’t know something are more trustworthy.
Getting in the right mindset before the conversation starts is critical, so taking a few minutes to restart and transition from the previous call is very beneficial. At the same time, having a moment to debrief and self-reflect after the conversation ends, helps with professional confidence, growth, and improvement.
Preparing For The Future
In times of uncertainty and difficulty, salespeople are the ones that need to continue to lead and check for new ways to help their prospects and clients. Once the crises ends, the competition will be huge, and there is going to be a lot of fighting for new projects. Now is not the time to sit back, but to get proactive, creative, and dig in for clients. Make sure to be on the top of their minds when we come out of this situation. It’s time to look at your positioning and strategy. The ones who manage to retool their businesses will be the winners at the end. Bad things will always be happening, so it is critical to find a way to react positively when everything around us is negative.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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