Soft Sell Open, Hard Sell Close: Model of a Successful Sales Call
The hard sell has gotten a bad rap these days. All sales trainers and novice sales reps stand their ground and say the hard sell is over. They’ll tell you that might have worked in the 1970s, but today’s perspective is smarter, your product is different, etc.
But the truth is, hard selling is more important than ever. Most advocates of soft selling are those who have never really sold. At best, they were overpaid order takers during the last boom cycle. When a potential customer is chasing you with a hand full of cash, no sale is needed to get the order.
Now that the economy has gone from boom to bust, sales skills are needed again. Especially how to close the deal.
To open with cold calls or leads, you need to use stealth. In all actuality, the opening of the bogus enthusiastic sales pitch has never worked effectively…not in the 1950s, and especially not now. The only correct way to open a sales call is with an actual conversation.
The famous Chinese axiom says “dress like a pig to catch a lion”.
This could literally be the definition of cold calling!
Just like pick up lines don’t work when you’re trying to ask a girl (or guy) out on a date, cheesy openers don’t work for sales. To open a conversation, you need to start with a question or indirect remark. This starts the conversation.
Once you get the prospect to start talking, you need to become the detective. Probe gently for clues about their needs, wants, frustrations, embarrassments, failures, difficulties, etc. Some of these will be obvious, some you’ll have to read between the lines, and some you’ll have to create (this skill is the mark of a master sales professional!)
When you have discovered the real, emotional trigger, then you proceed to aggravate this pain to make sure it’s the real pain and then summarize it and see if they agree. If they do, you have the correct button.
Next, you want to match only the benefits of your product or service that directly correspond to the emotional trigger you discovered in the previous step. Offer the solution you provide and frame it as:
“You have a problem. Lucky for you, I have the exact solution. It’s good that we talked today.”
Sound corny? No way. When a doctor tells you that he found a lump under your skin and that he can remove it with a new procedure and reminds you how lucky you are to have come that day…is that corny?
I do not think so.
Now, many sales professionals confuse the hard sell with the sleazy sell. This is because a successful sales closing is transparent. I mean, you never knew they were selling you something. You came to the conclusion to buy for yourself.
Look at the master sales professionals out there. They are the billionaire investment banking brokers, the software entrepreneurs getting 8-figure contracts, the oil executives getting rights to entire gas fields in unstable countries.
Do you think they got into that position by acting like a little mouse, politely asking if maybe they could do business one day? By no means are they the definition of difficult sales closers.
The bad misconceptions you might have had come from those who were never good at selling. They typically sold him pyramid schemes, used cars, phone service, and other entry-level sales positions.
The famous sales trainer J. Douglas Edwards used to say that the only difference between a salesperson and a scammer was the product.
If you’re selling a product you really believe in to a potential customer who you know needs it, then it’s your obligation do everything in your power to close that sale…and yes, that means the hard close.
Hard selling simply means not stopping until you get the order. It’s like the line from the old Sinatra song, “Your persistence wore down my endurance.”
The hard sell versus soft sell debate will continue for a while. It may even come and go depending on what sales position you’re in and how much you believe in your product, but always remember that your customer doesn’t win unless you trade your energy for his or her desires.
