[E44] Q&A Week: How to pick what you should sell, why buyers and salespeople lie

In this episode I answer questions about what you should sell if you are new to sales, the ‘buyers are liars’ premise and why prospects think salespeople lie, and how to get a salesperson to stop nagging you to buy.

If you have any sales or mindset related questions, send me a message through the contact page or via LinkedIn.

---

Episode 44 – Transcript

On this episode I talked about what you should sell if you want a sales job, why prospects think salespeople are liars, even though the saying is “buyers are liars”, and what the best strategy is for getting a salesperson off your back, and why I would talk about that on a sales podcast.

Welcome to Episode 44 of the sales experience podcast. My name is Jason Cutter and I’m so excited for these questions that I have lined up today, and I want to cover them. If you haven’t been checking out the episodes this week, make sure you go back 41, 42 and 43.

I’ve been answering questions that I’ve seen, that I’ve received, I’ve gotten in training over the years, the hot ones that I know in my mind, it’s kind of the frequently asked questions and sales as I tear through this this week. And I’ll probably keep going next week as well.

And if you have questions, make sure to send me a message, LinkedIn, I’m very accessible. You can find the CutterConsultingGroup.com website, use the contact page, send me a message. If you have an organization and some of these questions seem great and you want some training, some help on them, please hit me up. That’s what I do. I help companies with their performance, with sales, with training, with scripting, with technology.

Whatever that might be, my goal is to help the salesperson the organization with effectiveness with selling and how to close more deals in the right way long term using the right strategies and generating more referrals as well. But for now, let’s get into some questions.

The first one, which I get a lot from people who aren’t in sales aren’t sure what to do. They like the idea of sales, they know somebody who’s in sales, maybe they’re entering the job market, and they’re not quite sure what they should do. They don’t have a degree they don’t have certain skills, they don’t have experience sales seems like the best place to start.

A question I get a lot is if I want to go into sales, what should I sell?

Now, this is a really easy one and what I always recommend is that the best salesperson is somebody who uses the product or service. Nothing is more effective than a salesperson who also a customer.

Now, there was a funny commercial, I forget what it was for maybe Hair Club for Men or Rogaine, something like that, where the guy says, “I’m not only the president, but I’m also a member.” And what’s great about that, as funny as it sounds is it’s very effective.

When you use a product or service as a customer, then you know what it’s like, you know what the benefits are, you know what the downsides might be because there always is downsides, like I mentioned in the last episode. And so you know what that is like, you can empathize with that person, you can’t explain it from a first person perspective.

So, what I always recommend is, if you’re looking at getting in sales, find something that you use, that you enjoy that you like, and then go into selling that. If you like cars, if you’re a car person, let’s say you love Subaru, then go sell Subarus. Because you’re familiar with it and that will take out a lot of the learning curve and a lot of the anxiety and stress of being new and sale because you understand the product, right?

There’s a lot you have to learn in sales. I talked about earlier this weekend in a question that I answered, you know, the product or service, it’s so much easier, It could be insurance, it could be anything that you have experience with will make it so much easier for you to have fun and be effective at selling.

So, always remember, start out with something you are familiar with and you know from a customer perspective. And I recommend this for anybody who’s in a sales role, if you change companies or sell a new product or service, you really want to make sure you understand it and if at all possible your customer. Now, it’s not always the most applicable thing to be a customer of what you’re selling, but just make sure that you actually believe in what you’re selling, that will really help.

Next question. Why do salespeople get labeled as liars by prospects when the standard feeling is that customers are the ones who are lying most of the time, right?

So, there’s a phrase here all the time in sales environments is that “buyers are liars”. And where does that come from? Well, we look at it in two different ways, one is the “buyers are liars” mentality is looking at the fact that the prospects don’t tell you the truth. They don’t give all the information, they don’t explain things that kind of hold their cards back, and that comes from them being afraid.

That is the unfortunate downside and side effect of the way the sales profession is viewed and has been viewed for a long time. It’s fundamentally why I do this podcast, that’s why I do what I do because I’m trying to change that landscape. I would love nothing more than for all of us in the sales profession to collectively shift how prospects feel about salespeople.

And the reason why “buyers are liars” in quotes is that they’re keeping their walls up, they don’t want to be taken advantage of. They don’t want to be manipulated, they don’t want to be ripped off, they don’t want to be screwed over, they don’t want to buy something they’re going to regret the next day, or as soon as they walk out of the store, hang up the phone.

And so they’re going to keep some things to their chest, they’re going to protect themselves and they’re going to tell you half truths, they’re going to lie. They may not tell you all the truth, they may say I need to think about it, or I need to talk to my uncle or I need to talk to my spouse. When the truth may be they could make the decision, they just don’t want to.

And so when you look at the buyers is liars mentality from a sales perspective, you got to keep in mind that the only reason they’re doing that is because they’re afraid or concern about what you’re going to do to them, thinking worst case scenario that you’re going to manipulate and rip them off for your benefit. And so if you find your prospects doing it, that should be more of a reflection on you and should hold up a mirror to you is like, what are you missing? What are you not doing right?

The answer to that, and I’m not going to go into it now, but go back to the fundamentals episodes that I did for the podcast in weeks three and week four, where I covered the fundamentals. You want to do rapport, empathy, trust, hope and urgency. And when you do those things that will bring down their walls, and it will help them trust you, which will help them be more honest.

It’s just like any other relationship. If you’re in a relationship with somebody like let’s say a romantic, significant other relationship, if you don’t trust them, you’re not going to be truthful. If you feel like you being truthful, is going to get you hurt or get you screwed over or you have hurts from the past and last time you were truthful, the other person used it against you or manipulated you or hurt you in some way, you’re not going to want to do that.

And it’s the same thing with the prospects. Just assume any prospect you talked to has been hurt by a salesperson in the past or seen their family member hurt by a salesperson in the past, and so that’s what they’re bringing to the table. That’s why salespeople think prospects are liars.

Why do prospect think salespeople are liars?

Because of what I said where the traditional view of the salesperson is the snake oil salesperson. Snake oil salespeople that name that label, that idea comes from a specific practice that used to happen a long time ago. Where somebody would go into a new town, set up a shop either in a cart or rent out a storefront, and they would sell their snake oil, this magical mythical post that would solve all of your issues and take care of your pain and make everything better in your life.

And it turned out to be just bogus, it wasn’t effective. But they’d get people excited, use some kind of placebo effect, maybe have somebody along there with them who could testify to how amazing this is. And they would sell as much as they could in the short amount of time possible until the jig was up and people found out and realized it was all just a bunch of crap. They would pack up, then move to the next town, this is obviously pre internet, and they would just go and do it again, and do it over and over again.

And then down the road, a new salesperson comes to town. Now all the people in that town are worried and concerned that the salesperson could just be selling them crap, just like the last guy. And that’s what has propagated itself in the realm of sales. And so that’s why prospects just assume you’re lying. They assume and they know that you as a salesperson will benefit financially by making the sale. And so they are just assuming in their mind, until you prove otherwise, that you are going to manipulate them in order to get your way.

And so you’ve got to take the onus on you and the responsibility on you on proving that that’s not what you’re going to do. Using the fundamental steps that I covered, being honest, being upfront, being transparent, and just being you being authentic, that will help shift that for those prospects.

So again, if your prospects are giving you the vibe that you’re lying, or they’re lying to you, I might suggest that you step back and take some time for self reflection, and look at what you might be doing that’s triggering this in those prospects.

Question number three, what is the best way to get a salesperson off your back?

Now, why would I ask this question or answer this question on a sales experience podcast to help salespeople? Because I think it’s always important to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. To put yourself in the prospects shoes, and use empathy to kind of imagine what it would be like.

And I talked about this all the time, where you want to make sure that you’re thinking about it from their perspective, what it’s like to be a prospect and how it is when you’re buying, and you have a good experience versus a bad experience? And so it’s always important, if you feel like your prospects are dodging you, avoiding you not wanting contact with you, then there’s something you’re doing or something you didn’t do.

Maybe you didn’t build enough rapport or trust, and you didn’t show them that you care enough about them. But fundamentally, it’s super important because you see this all the time, how do I get salespeople off my back? How do I get them to stop calling me? They feel like you’re a nuisance and annoying, there’s a good chance that they don’t see the value in what you’re trying to sell, and you’re coming across as a nagging, desperate salesperson.

And if that occurs, again, take a step back and look, are you doing the fundamentals? Did you do what you’re supposed to do? Did you relate to them? How your product or service solves their problem? Do you even know what their problem was that you’re trying to solve? Do you know their pain, their issues, their struggles, their goals, their hopes, their dreams, their wants? Do you know those things?

Because if you don’t, and then you’re still just calling somebody you’re sending emails, then you’re just nagging for no good reason. You’re using the shotgun approach. You’re just hoping if you do enough of those calls, somebody might bite on it and you might close a deal. But that causes the prospects to have this feeling where they want to know how do they get you to just stop, right? And so you want to make sure you don’t put yourself into that situation where you then become that salesperson that they’re trying to avoid.

And that’s it for another episode of The Sales Experience Podcast. Make sure to subscribe, rate, comment, all that stuff I mentioned all the time. Get in touch with me, I love hearing feedback. Until next time, always remember that everything in life is sales and people will remember the experience you gave them.