No One Likes To Be Sold? You Got That Wrong!

This mistaken perception has been around for a long time, but I blame Jeffrey Gitomer for popularizing it in his book “Little Red Book of Selling.” Great book, but Gitomer is completely wrong. People don’t mind being sold at all. What they hate is being sold badly.

Bad selling has three elements.

1. Your timing sucks. The customer has bigger problems than you can solve, but Mr./Ms. Bad Salesperson ignores subtle –or even blatant—signals. They charge forward and waste everyone’s time.

2. Bad selling labels customers who don’t buy what Mr./ Ms. Bad Salesperson wants to sell as stupid—which is the ultimate stupidity because that kind of thinking is immature and self-centered.

3. How many times have you heard it? “Telling is not selling?” Yet, time and time again, sales un-professionals don’t ask enough questions and prescribe before knowing enough to adequately diagnose the problem.

No one minds being sold by a professional who respects your time, asks enough questions to understand the situation and genuinely wants you to be better off—even if that means you don’t buy their product. The challenge for every sales manager and business owner to have the vision, hire the talent and train them so your team sells the way you would want to be sold.

And no one wants to be sold badly—even customers who are ready and willing to buy.