When starting a business, the greatest challenge is not getting the initial capital or hiring the best employees. It is making the first sale and hundreds or thousands to come. Selling is a critical skill that only a few people get to master. I have always desired to become a top seller in various business and personal endeavors.

This fascination has enabled me to open the Pandora’s box that gives deep insight into the art and the science of selling. Have you ever wondered why companies spend millions and billions of dollars purely on marketing? Some spend up to 60% of their revenue on marketing – those are insane figures.

Related: Change Your Mindset To Achieve Time and Financial Freedom

What Great Sales People Do

The Traditional Way of Selling

The traditional way of selling is focused on the use of logic to convince customers and to develop solutions. In this model, the best solution is the one that offers the most value for money.

Moreover, salespeople were supposed to be superhumans who knew everything and anything. They would rather slit their wrist open than ever admit to not having complete knowledge of what they are selling.

Interesting enough, a lot has changed over the past decade or so, and people no longer buy the superhuman salesperson approach. The dawn of the information age has changed how people make decisions. Consequently, the influence and persuasion tactics need to change, as well.

According to neuroscientists Ben Zoldan and Michael Bosworth, people no longer make decisions solely based on logic. Emotions play a huge part in their decision making. Thus, the new paradigm focuses on appealing to human emotions to make sales.

• Empathetic listeners
• Focus on making emotional connections with their clientele
• Avoid high-pressure manipulative sales pitches.

Outside the corporate world, vulnerability is an efficient tool used to win trust. The new paradigm has now mastered the power vulnerability to gain the trust of new prospects.

Stories – An Effective Way to Communicate and Break Barriers

Just as kids love a bedtime story, so do we like an engaging story. When was the last time you said ‘No’ to a good story? I bet never.

The benefits of using are:

• Engaging
• Good at building rapport
• Break down barriers and generally feel good.
• Highly inclusive regardless of age, education, or any other kind of background.

A good story starts with a balance; then something happens that throws life out of balance, which is restored towards the end of the story.

For instance, when trying to communicate that your organization goes the extra mile to provide excellent services, a good story would go like this.

The Balance:

Out of balance:

We were barely done with this project when another client reached out to us with a plumbing emergency. There was a small problem, though. The supervisor had allowed the technicians to go on leave to compensate for the extra hours they had put in for the past fortnight.

Balance restored:

However, when the technicians got wind that their supervisor problem, they volunteered to cut their leave short to come and deal with the crisis.

This is what I mean when I tell you that we are committed to going the extra mile to serve our clients.

Using Stories to Become a Top Seller

The fundamental rule of marketing is to create trust. When selling to a business or individual, there are specific steps that the customer takes before he/she decides to purchase your product or service.

The goal is to walk the customer through each step, to the point where he/she commits to purchase. Unfortunately, no single story can achieve this.

Thus in each step, you need to tell a story that moves the customer through the sales funnel. The primary goal of stories is to create trust by making an emotional connection.

You will need to tell three stories in this process:

1. The Who Am I Story

2. The Who I have Helped Story

3. The last story is who do you Represent

How to Become a Top Seller: The Wrap Up

The old paradigm focuses on the use of logic to make sales. These salespeople are excellent problem solvers and smooth presenters. The new model, on the other hand, tells authentic stories about the business, products, or services. Through showing vulnerabilities and use of stories, you are not only able to appeal to the buyer’s emotions but also to create trust and familiarity. This translates to lasting relationships and returning customers.

Eric Gichuru

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Eric Gichuru