How to Balance Heart and Authenticity with the Need to Roll up Your Sleeves and Sell!

Roll up Your Sleeves and Sell

Meet Suzy, the approval seeker.

Suzy gets energized when she greets a new prospect. So much so that people wonder “How can she be that excited about meeting her 30th prospect this month?”

Suzy agrees with everyone, spends hours with prospects whether they qualify or not. Prospects invite her to their homes for Thanksgiving dinner and even offer to play matchmaker.

Suzy makes friends, but she rarely closes a sale. She is accommodating to a fault.

Do you get the picture? Here are some signs that you, like Suzy, are a bit of a doormat with prospects:

  • You create strong relationships, but when the time comes to close the sale, you cower. (You’re afraid of offending them or worried it will ruin the relationship… but the whole point of the relationship is that you sell and they buy!)
  • You keep hammering the same tired leads instead of focusing on the next prospect.
  • You offer extras at the expense of your own commission.
  • When you quote a price, you’re quick to drop it or throw in the trip to Africa, the five-year service deal, or the upgraded sound system. This costs you credibility and respect.

Now, meet Tony, the glad-hander.

Tony’s been around for a while. He speaks quickly, trusts no one, and uses expressions like “Always be closing,” “Keep it simple, stupid,” “Coffee is for closers,” and, of course, “Buyers are liars.”

He’s memorized a dozen closes and has an answer for everything. He knows the first “no” is just a signal that the game has begun. Tony comes on too strong, just like his aftershave.  He doesn’t listen…and worst of all, he doesn’t sell.

Perhaps you, too, have fallen back on some classic Tony strategies, especially during moments when you feel the prospect pulling away.

How do you know when you’re acting like Tony?

  • If you sense prospects are losing interest, you start going on and on about the features and benefits of a product without even asking why they would be interested.
  • In your misguided attempts to create urgency, you fire off sharp-angle closing techniques.
  • When you lose a sale you invent a lot of excuses for why prospects won’t buy—but you never take a critical look at what you may have done wrong.
  • You no longer like your job—or your life. You’re exhausted, agitated and overworked. And, of course, none of it is your fault.

You may know a Suzy and a Tony or two because the sales world is rife with them.

You might also bounce back and forth between the two extremes. When the pressure is on to meet a quota, we may turn up the Tony and when we’re feeling insecure, we find ourselves struck with a serious case of Suzy syndrome. The good news is that you can structure into your presentation strategies for maintaining a healthy balance between the two poles of accommodation and manipulation.

In the upcoming webinar with Shari Levitin, you’ll see how the pros do just that! You’ll learn how to balance Heart and Sell.

Sign up for the webinar on Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 10 AM PDT now to see if you’ve got a bad case of Tony or a bit too much Suzy! Sign up even if you can’t make it, we will send you the recording!

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Watch the short interview below to find out what else you will learn in the webinar: