- What's up Believe Nation, it's Evan.
My one word is believe and I believe in people
more than they believe in themselves.
And my sincere hope is that if you see in you
what I see in you you'll be able to change the planet.
So to help you on your journey today I'm going to talk about
the seven ways to convince people to buy your product.
- [Narrator] Nine,
eight,
seven.
(hip hop music)
Seven.
- So one of the most common challenges for entrepreneurs
is we've got a great product or service to sell
and we've got to get out there and sell it.
How do you convince people that they
need to buy your thing?
I'm going to give you my seven tips.
Tip number one is to change your mindset.
I'm not from the old school sales philosophy
where you see that next person coming in as your
next suit, or as your next car,
or hitting your next bonus.
From my perspective what's really important is
you're trying to serve them.
You're trying to actually help this person
make a good decision.
That may mean pushing them a little bit,
that may mean once you understand them
to give them the best solution.
And we'll go through the points.
But it starts with the mindset of you are there to serve,
you are there to help and not just try to close.
I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything.
I want to help the person coming through the door.
And if you start with that approach
I think every other step becomes a lot easier.
The reason why it's so important is because
you can spend so much of your time dealing with people
who are not good fits for your business.
A lot of people, a lot of you guys, if you have
a list of potential leads or prospects,
a lot of these people will never buy from you.
And you either spend your time trying to convince
the people who are not fits for your company
to buy from you.
And it's a long, slow, painful,
awkward process for both of you.
Or you abandon that person and you use that time
to focus on finding people who are good
fits for your business.
And so spend less time trying to convince everybody
and more time finding and helping the people
who you can help.
Step number two is to listen to them.
The best tool that you have as a salesperson is your ears.
There's a common saying of there's a reason
why you have two ears and one mouth.
You need to be able to listen to your customers,
to understand what they're looking for.
The worst salesperson and you can even experience
it whatever you're going to go out and buy at
if your deal with the salesperson is
they're just talking at you, talking, talking,
talking, talking, talking.
You're probably going to get one, really annoyed.
And two, a lot of what they're saying
is not going to help you.
And so if you want to switch that if you want to be
a great salesperson your first step is to listen
to what the people are saying.
Listen to what their problems are.
Listen to try to find points that you understand
their challenge and then it's easy
to come up with a solution that will help them.
Also as people are talking it helps them
to feel a little bit more understood
which improves your sales process cycle, as well.
Tip number three is understand their why.
This is always a really important process
and one where a lot of sales people fall down.
Because people come in with one reason for why
they think they're buying from you.
Or why they think they're interested.
But there's always a deeper reason
which they may acknowledge or they may need a
couple probing questions to figure out.
So as an example, people come to dance here, right.
Stronger Than Salsa, one of the largest
dance school for salsa in Canada for sure,
maybe North America.
Why do people come here?
When you ask them at the beginning it's, well I want
to learn some steps, I want to you know
I thought salsa was interesting.
I want to come and learn.
And it's a very surface level answer,
it doesn't give me anything.
If I'm trying to sell this person,
if I'm trying to help this person
make a decision as to which class might
be a right fit or even if our school is
a good fit for them or not,
I need to understand why they're coming here, right?
So as an example, if what they all they care about
is the steps and and their goal is to perform
and they want to be one of the world's greatest salsa
dancers, I'm not going to sell them on a group class
because you learn more slowly.
Maybe they want to do private lessons with an instructor
to learn as quickly as possible.
Most people though what they do is they come
and they want to meet people.
Maybe they just broke up with somebody
and they want to get into a new relationship.
Maybe they just moved to the city
and they want to make new friends.
Maybe they're not happy with their work
and they just need an escape to go.
Maybe they haven't made any friends since University
and the people at their work they don't really like.
Or they're an entrepreneur and they work by themselves
and they want to come and meet people, right.
If that's the incentive to want to join, that's good
(mumbling) because when I'm done talking to them
I can frame everything in a situation
that really helps them best.
And so you have to understand the why behind the why.
Usually it's not the first answer but it's the second
or the third answer.
So when you ask them why did you find us,
what inspired you to call,
what inspired you to come into my store,
what inspired you to send me that email
ask one-level why at least deeper
after you get that first response.
Because almost by default and this is when you're dealing
with a team member this is when you're dealing with
investors, when you deal with media
there's always a why behind the why.
So ask the why and then when they give you a response
ask a second why or third why underneath
to get to the real core.
Because if you understand what really moves them
you understand the true intention behind it.
And probing them a little bit to figure that out
you have a much better chance
of giving them the best option and closing that sale.
Tip number four is make a connection.
At the beginning of this process there's always this kind
of standoff right.
Nobody likes to be sold.
Nobody likes being sold to.
People like the buy but they don't like being sold to.
And so whenever a salesperson comes up to somebody
immediately like you tighten up, you hold in your breath,
you don't want to reveal too much,
you don't want to be hard pressure sold.
That's a typical reaction that happens a lot.
But they do want information,
they do want somebody to help them.
And so by figuring out their why right
the why behind the why,
the next step that you want to do is
make a personal connection with them somehow.
Show them that you understand their why.
So if you if they're talking about wanting to
come take a dance class because they
want to make new friends,
because they haven't made any friends since college right.
Or if they are trying to get into relationship,
they're hoping to meet somebody because
they just broke up with somebody
try to hear a personal story that relates to them.
So sharing a good personal story, one,
shows that you listen to them.
One, shows that you are understanding them.
And then also shows that you have a solution for them
because you've gone through it yourself.
Because you know what situation they're in,
you've come through it and now I'm going to show you
the path to do it yourself.
And so if someone was talking like that as an example
I would share about all the great friendships
that I've made through dancing.
How my social circle exploded
because I took dance classes became part
of the salsa community.
That's one of the most friendly communities, I think,
in the world.
I did ballroom dancing, didn't meet anybody.
I took salsa, my friend circle exploded.
I then met my wife.
If you're talking relationships I met my wife
through a salsa dancing.
It's a great way to be able to meet people because
you're in a dance class and you're rotating partners
every couple minutes so you get to know
all the members of the opposite sex in your class.
And when you go out to socials and parties
part of the process is you're dancing
with lots of different people.
You don't just stick with one partner all night
you're dancing with 20, 30, 40
different people from the opposite sex in one night.
And so friendships just naturally happen,
relationships just naturally happen.
And I can share my story.
And so if I understand that
that's your real why behind the why
and then I share with you my personal story
not as a sales pitch to try to convince you
but a deep understanding of I am I acknowledge
this fear that you have,
and this pain that you have,
and this desire you have.
And then here's how I solved it
then it's much easier to get them to follow
that path with you.
You disarm them, they feel like they're
not being sold anymore but you're actually
trying to help them.
Tip number five is recommend a solution that fits.
And so once you've asked the why behind the why
and once you've made that connection with them
then you have to think, okay, I now really know
what this person wants and I know why they want it.
Now I need to figure out what's the best
option for me to be able to give that person.
Well try to dance salsa, we have lots of different classes.
We have lots of different options we have salsa,
we have bachata, we have performance groups,
we have private lessons.
We have lots of different things
that you could potentially do.
And as I'm talking to somebody you know we'll be listening
okay, here's what they need, here's what they're asking for.
That's an X, that's a yes.
And in some cases and this is this is bold
but this earns a lot of trust it may mean
that you recommend them outside of your company.
Maybe the best thing for them to do
is not be a part of your company.
So example, when people call in to us to say,
hey, do you have a kids program?
Well we don't right now, there is no kids program.
It's something that we've thought about,
we're looking into, but it's not a highest priority
right now for us.
And so instead of just saying no it could also be okay,
here are some options.
If you get the question enough you can look at
different options.
Here are some other schools that provide kids programs.
So maybe I'm sending my potential customer
to one of my competitors but it's the best thing for them.
And they'll remember it.
It's not often that that happens that
a companies willing to recommend you to their competition.
And whether you want to take that bold step or not
I can guarantee you that it net net wins for you
because they remember that relationship.
And if they have another potential option or question
they're going to come back to you.
But even if you don't recommend off to a competing product
just be able to recommend the right thing for them,
not just the thing that you're trying to sell more of.
So a great example a buddy of mine named Louis
runs a company called Last Minute Training.
They sell all sorts of different training.
So example, if you want to learn Excel
he'll put you into different Excel classes.
He knows which Excel classes best fit for the customer
but he also knows the ones that are going to make him
the most money.
He will always do the best thing for the customer
even if he's going to make more money off of this course
and send them on this day
but he knows it doesn't quite fit their criteria.
He doesn't doesn't quite give them what they want
he focuses on the customer experience first
and that in turn wins loyalty.
I mean it's a it's a great way of doing business
it earns team respect and team loyalty.
So it's not just about the money.
But it also keeps the client.
If they know that you gave them the best option for them
even if you're losing a little bit of money because of it
it earns their trust, it earns their loyalty,
it earns their referrals.
And it's a great way to do business
Tip number six is go above and beyond.
You need to get referrals for your business.
Unless you have money to go and buy Super Bowl commercials
and spend a ton of money on ads,
entrepreneurs often build their business through referrals.
You do a fantastic job for somebody
and then they hopefully come back for repeat business.
But it also may be the business where
they may not want to buy from you for another
two or three years or five years, depending on the industry.
But you want them to refer people on to you.
You want people to pass your name on to them
because of the great experience that you gave them.
And unfortunately providing a good product
or service isn't enough.
Like you could give them everything that they wanted,
everything that they asked for, but is that's just
the bare minimum.
Because remember your customers are busy people.
Think about how busy you are,
think about all the things that you have bought
in the past year.
How many of those things have you referred
on to your friends?
Like how many of those do go out of your way?
Sure if somebody asks you, hey do you have
a real estate agent you can refer me to
maybe you pass on the name.
But that you go out of your way to say,
man I had this crazy experience
with this real estate agent.
This guy is so amazing I need to tell you about that.
How many times have you done that?
Probably not that much.
Most companies operate at a pretty high level
of mediocrity.
And most companies don't even get to the point
where you're you know really satisfied
but that's the bare minimum to entry.
Just solving somebody's problem is not enough.
You have to think about how you can go above
and beyond to make it a special,
not just product or service, but experience for them.
So every time they are involved with your company in any way
a phone call, in person, email, social media
however they're interacting with you
they feel great as a result.
On top of getting the product, service, benefits
that you promised.
On top of solving their problem.
And so be looking at through the entire process
of dealing with a customer how can you make the
experience better, more enjoyable,
more memorable, more pleasant
so they can't help but go and tell their friends
about this amazing time that they just had
with this insane customer service story
that you were able to provide for them.
One of the things that we always do at TDS
as part of our process is the last step.
So we have the checklist of things that we want to
do for customers when they call in.
The last step is always look for a way to go
above and beyond.
Part of that is understanding the why like to give them
something that is really above and beyond
you have to understand what their why was.
You have to understand why they're getting into it.
So an example, somebody new to the city
wants to make new friends, wants to get to know the city
feels like dance class is a great way to do it.
Perfect, let's look at solving the problems.
Let's look and get into them too into a class
that would be the best fit for them.
Salsa, bachata whatever it is.
Great, we found the class, perfect signed up.
Happy pleasant experience on the phone.
It's not enough, we have to go above and beyond.
Thinking about, here's a person who's new to the city,
what can we do that will really help them?
Well is it thinking about other events that happen
in the city?
Is it, is it understanding what neighborhood they're part of
and different festivals that you really like going to?
Is it recommending restaurants
that you've had a great experience at
that they absolutely should go and try
because you know they told you on the phone
something about their personal preference.
Like you got to find something
that really tags you to them.
Not just because it's a strategy it's just
it's a good thing to do like you'll feel more fulfilled
that you're really deeply meaningfully
helping these customers.
And they'll feel a lot more honesty and
trust and loyalty towards you that
they'll not only want to come back and
look forward to that first experience,
come back for future experiences,
but also tell their friends.
You need the word of mouth and that comes from
providing an extraordinary experience
on top of the product or service that you're selling.
Tip number seven is model success.
Remember any problem that you have right now
somebody's already solved it.
There's a lot of great people who've done a lot of great
different sales training that you can pick from.
It doesn't mean you have to follow
anybody's methodology exactly to the to the T.
I've given you seven tips here today.
You may like two of them, great.
Apply that your business, see if it works
and see if it doesn't.
It's never been easier to reach out to experts.
If you're at a company you know maybe there's somebody
above you who can reach out to.
But also just in general experts.
People putting on live YouTube hangouts,
people who are on Twitter, people who are on Snapchat
you can make a video and reach out to
somebody who knows what they're talking about
and get direct feedback for your business.
It's never been easier to do it.
And whether you're doing that,
whether you're watching videos,
whether you're reading books
constantly educate yourself.
Remember that that big problem that you're facing
you don't have to come up with every single
ingenious idea yourself.
Somebody has already figured it out.
Learn from them, take what works for you
apply it to your business
and take off.
So those are my seven tips on ways to convince
somebody to buy your product.
I'd love to know what do you guys think.
What was your favorite tip?
What are you going to apply immediately
into your process, share it down below.
Did I miss an eight, nine, ten
that you want to add to the list?
Leave it down in the comments.
If you leave a comment within a couple hours
of this video going live you are entered
into our contest for two daily prizes.
I made this video because Syed Abbas asked me to.
So if there's a topic you'd like me to cover
in a future seven ways video check out the link
in the description, click on that, go leave your topic,
go vote on the other ones that are there
and you might get lucky and I'll cover it next time.
I also want to give a quick shout out to Regina Ross Thomas.
Regina thank you so much for picking up a copy
of my book Your One Word and taking that picture
and sending it to me.
I love the smile, I love the background.
I hope you're enjoying the read and I really
really appreciate the support.
Thank you guys again for watching.
I believe in you, I hope you continue to believe in
yourself and whatever your one word is.
Much love, I'll see you soon.