The Anti-Sales Sales Tactic

This is something I learned back when I had a service business and I did nearly 100% of my sales over the phone. It's a tactic that I really didn't use on purpose. It just kind of came naturally, and then later on I learned that it's actually a tactic taught to sales people in certain industries. Anyway, it was very useful for me in that business and I think it can help some Internet Marketers, especially if you're into the offline thing or if you are selling services.

There's probably a fancier name for it, but I call it the Anti-Sales Sales Tactic. The basic idea is to act as though you're not selling, but rather advising. In my case, a prospect would call me from my website contact page or word-of-mouth referral and after the normal introductions, I'd go right into wanting to know what the prospect's business was and what they hoped I could do for them. I did this first, before anything was said about what I offered or any of the details from my end.

Now, that throws some people off, but it's crucial to this tactic. By getting the prospect to talk first about what he/his business does and what they hope to accomplish in an ideal situation if they hired me, I was able to gain an advantage by seeing their cards first, if you follow my meaning. They show their hand, but not in a negative way... just that you now have the advantage of understanding their motivation right at the beginning.

Don't underestimate the power in that! It allows you to more often correctly estimate whether your services can truly help or will be a waste of your time and their money.

Now, this is where the interesting psychology begins. Like I said, I really stumbled upon this. I didn't intend to do it at first. But what I noticed was that after having the prospect explain their business and their reason(s) for wanting my services, many times I would immediately tell them I didn't think I could really help them. I know what you're thinking. GASP! That's a horrible sales technique! If that's all you did, yes, it would be. But the kicker is in explaining that the last thing you want is to make a sale just for the sake of making some more money. You want to be brutally honest and up front so the person on the other end of the line sees you as looking out for their best interests. That's the key to this.

Obviously, if what they tell you about their business and their goals is a good match with what you offer, you carry on with a normal sales chat. But here's the cool thing about doing this with the people who are not a really good match. A significant number of them will almost literally BEG YOU to take their money. It blew me away when I started seeing this clear pattern. Now, I have a couple of degrees in psychology, so I'm smarter than the average bear on this stuff, but it still was a big surprise until I really started thinking about why it happens. It's really not so surprising.

People are just so used to being sold really hard that when you go "off script" and show them that you'd rather lose out on their money than lead them astray, the impression you make on them is amazingly powerful!

It really isn't any more complicated than that. You win them over on a personal level, even though your service isn't exactly what they'd hoped it would be.

Now, in case you're wondering, I would still refuse to take their money if I knew for sure that it was a lost cause. Sometimes that happened. It was bizarre! I'd have someone literally begging me to take their money and I'd refuse because I just knew from experience that it would be money down the drain for them. It didn't happen that often, but enough times to be memorable.

What was more common in this scenario is that the fit was not ideal, but still had a chance to work. In those cases, a lot of times I closed a sale by letting them talk me into it. I'm not exaggerating! They sold themselves! I "reluctantly" agreed to try it for them. It's the dangedest thing, but it's real, I promise.

In conclusion, this isn't a "tactic" that's suitable for many of us. It really only applies if you do a lot of direct sales where the customer comes to you from your advertising. I think it could apply to a lot of you offliners, but maybe not a lot of purely online marketers unless you sell services.

Ultimately, it gets to something we should do anyway, right? We should be honest with prospects. Isn't it how we want to be treated when we're on that side of the table? The power in this lies in how rare it is. When you use this, you instantly gain huge credibility and trust in your prospect's mind. You'll close more sales and get fewer disgruntled customers. After all, they sold you!

John