MBA2172 How to Sell Anything Even if You Are a Beginner + Free Ride Friday

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Foreign. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show, helping you grow your business every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Free Ride Friday. On Free Ride Fridays, we give away a lifetime membership to one of our programs. We're giving away our Automated webinar challenge, our 30 day course retailed for $500, showing you how to grow your leads and sales with automated webinars. You can win it for free. Just leave us an Apple podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw we call Free Ride Friday. Listen in on Friday, just like today, to see if you won. It's that easy. In today's episode, you will learn how to sell anything, even if you're a beginner. Many business owners, when they're getting started, are really intimidated by sales. And it's natural. We're not taught sales in school. It's not something that we're comfortable with, something that we're used to. But in today's episode, I'm giving you some fundamental strategies. They're going to help you look at sales differently and convert more customers. These techniques are going to give you the confidence that you've been looking for, not because there's some sort of magic or crazy new hack. It's because they're rooted in reality and human nature. You can actually feel more confident because you are more confident. Listen, the bottom line is that if you're not making sales, you are not making money. You don't have a growing, thriving business. If revenue cures all problems, then sales makes it happen. So let's make it happen. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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For those who know me very very well and know a little bit about my history, know My dad was a salesman and he wasn't any old salesman. He was actually a car salesman, a new car salesman, which is the typical salesperson you think of in your and he wasn't a run of the mill salesman, he was actually the top salesman for the brand which he was selling Acura's for 10 straight years. He was one of the top salesmen in the whole country. Now my father is an immigrant. He moved from Egypt to the States in the late 60s. English is not his first language so he doesn't have the gift of gab so to speak. He didn't go to school for business or take any sales seminars or training. In fact it was a second career for him. He was an engineer and lost his job during the economy crash in the 70s and picked up a sales job just to make ends meet and fell in love with it. Growing up I was always trying to figure out why my dad was so good at his job. In fact I used to go to work with him on Saturdays because I had a part time job at the dealership washing cars. But the wash bay would close around 3 o' clock and from 3 to 9 when the dealership closed I would sit in the showroom and watch my dad in action. I would see what other salesmen were doing and what I learned is pretty surprising. As a non salesperson. Many of us think that salespeople, good salespeople or great salespeople have Some sort of strategy, have some sort of plan, a winning line, a script, and that's what closes deals. But nothing could be further from the truth. My dad was great because he had a long term view. He understood that in order for him to be a great salesperson, he's got to build relationships with people. And in order to build relationships with people, they have to trust him. And in order for them to trust him, they have to feel and know he has their best interest in mind. Meaning he would not push something on somebody that actually was not a good fit for them, was actually not a good decision for them. And this is where we're going to start in today's lesson decision. What a lot of people don't understand is that great salespeople, they don't try to convince people of anything. They understand that they can't make anybody buy anything, but instead they have a different mindset. And I want you to adopt this mindset. What, what is this mindset? Well, your job when you're trying to talk to a customer is to help them make a decision. That's it. Your job is to help them come to the conclusion that yes, I want to buy or no, that's even a possibility. But the worst place to be in is where the customer is confused or the customer's unsure or needs to think about it. That's the kiss of death because that's when the conversation ends and that's when you lose that rapport. That's when you can't build any more trust because there's no more talk. So my dad really tried hard to help them make a decision. He did a lot of listening, asked a lot of questions, and tried to figure out what's the best car, what's the best thing for this customer. So when it comes to sales, how do you do that? How do you actually help them make a decision? Well, the first step is that you gotta ask inverted questions. What does that mean? Most of us have a hard time explaining or expressing what we like or want or, or what we want to see in our life. Let me give you an example from life. If I asked you, hey, let's go out to dinner, and you say, yeah, that sounds good. And I ask you, what do you want to eat? What kind of food do you want to eat? That's a hard question for most people to answer. They're like, I don't know, I'm up for anything. A better question is, what food do you not want to eat? What is off the table? And it's so Much easier for people to answer this question. They're like, well, I'm not really feeling anything spicy today, so I'm going to pass on Mexican. And that goes for Indian, too. Why is this easier for people? Because as human beings, it's easier for us to identify problems or things we don't want versus things we want. So when my dad was asking questions to build trust and help him make a decision, he would ask them, what are some of the things you don't like about your current car? And what this does is that he learns about what are the things that bother the problems that the customer is experiencing right now so that he can find the right solution that solves these problems. So they might say, oh, I don't like the car because the seats are uncomfortable, or. Or I don't like the style or does horrible gas mileage. People are gonna list those out. They're gonna rattle them off so quickly, it's gonna be hard for you to list them. The point here is that this is easy for the customer to say, I have these problems. And once he knows what the problems are, he's able to then say, okay, this is what I recommend. We have this car that is the opposite of the things you just listed. This car solves this problem. He said gas mileage because it's a hybrid and it does great gas mileage. This car has amazingly comfortable seats, and it's roomy because it's got the most legroom in its class. Now, this does a couple things. One, it immediately increases the value of whatever you're selling because the customer is seeing it in the context of the problems they have. And solutions to problems are highly valuable to people. They can say, oh, wow, this thing is actually valuable because it's giving me things I don't have. The second thing this process does is that it allows your customer to know the benefits that actually concern them. Otherwise, you would have to list all the features and the benefits of your product or service, and it can get overwhelming. And most of those, probably 80% of those things they don't really care about. What they really care about are the things that solve their problems. And if you just identify how your product or solution solves their problems, and it unblocks them and makes them realize that this is a smart decision. It allows them to get closer to the yes line. My dad used to say, my job is to get them closer to the yes line by helping them make a decision. What does that mean? Well, it means that when they walk into the showroom, they are really far away from the yes line. They're like miles away. And they indicate this by saying, oh, I'm just browsing, I'm just looking around right now. I'm just shopping around. And my dad shared with me one time that over 60% of his customers that said, hey, I'm just shopping around, I'm just kind of doing research. Over 60% bought the car that day. And I asked them how, what? And it's because once all the problems were solved, all the objections have been addressed. It was a no brainer for them. It made no sense for them not to buy. In fact, not buying and delaying the purchase would be a bad decision because the price of things usually go up. It would cost them more time and effort to come back to the dealership. So all of these strategies I'm sharing with you and the mindset, of course, of helping them make a decision you can apply to whatever product or service you have, whether you're a consultant or coach or you have a software product or you sell physical widgets or clothing. This is why really good product descriptions will talk about problems like this shirt won't shrink, it's stain proof. They're talking about problems here, shirts that shrink and shirts that stain easily. So this is why it's so important to understand your customer and to ask questions. If you're on a webinar, if you're on a sales call, when you're on chat, like customer support is to find out what problems are they suffering right now. One of the questions I like to ask at the start of any webinar is I ask them what has stopped them from achieving their goals up to this point. Let's say, for example, I'm running a workshop on how to sell your online course. The question would be what has stopped you from achieving your sales goals up to this point when it comes to your online course and people say, oh, I don't know how to market, I don't know how to create ads, I'm not sure how to price my product or what to put on my sales page. These are all the problems they're experiencing. This is important because you got to show them how you can help them solve those problems with your product or service. And by the way, you don't have to come up with the solution, you just have to show them the solution. So for example, we can't do everything under the sun in our software company, webinar Ninja, but we have a community called Ninja Town with hundreds and thousands of great creators that share best practices and share resources. So somebody might say, hey, I'm not sure how to make my first hire, where to find, where to put the job. Post up. A great way to address is like, hey, if you're a member of webinar ninja, you can join ninja town and we post things like this. You can ask this question and you can get answers from people that are posting jobs on great sites. I'll share with you what worked for me. I don't have to do the hiring process for them. I just got to point them in the right direction to unblock them. So again, your job is to build trust by helping them make a decision. And number two, to help them make a decision, you got to ask questions, and you got to ask them what they don't like about their situation, why they're suffering, what stopped them from reaching their goals. You address these things by showing them how your product or solution, your service, your business can solve these problems for them. This is sales. This is it. This is how you show the value of your product. Now, this is the sales process. But the end of the sales process is called closing the sale. And in fact, in the car sales world, the top salesmen in the dealership are going to be assigned a responsibility. It's called closers. These are closers. They help not so experienced salesmen close the sale. They help the customer out. They give them all the information. But now it's time to close the sale.

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All right, so we learned about how to show the value of our product through this sales process of asking questions, showing them a solution through our product. Now we got to close the sale. Closing the sale is just basically telling them what they have to do to buy, and then tell them what's going to happen if they buy and if they don't buy. That's it. That's what a close is. A close is basically saying, hey, the solution to the problems that you talked about is in my product. This is the value of my product. This is how much it's going to cost you to solve these problems. This is the price or this is the investment, like some people like to say. Now, the bigger the problem, the more you can actually charge. This is the beauty of sales. Now you stated the price. Now your job is to show them their options. This is important because many people get confused. Many people can't think clearly in their head. They need things laid out for them. Most people are like this when it's time to make a big decision. They just kind of get fuzzy. So make it easy on them. Tell them, here are your options. Option number one is you can do nothing. That means not buy, by the way. And you will get the same result you're experiencing now. You're going to continue to suffer from whatever you're suffering from or not enjoy the things you want to enjoy or not experience the things you want to experience. This is the reality. You have to just state it so they know this is what's going to happen. You have to paint that picture. Hey, if you don't buy, this is what's going to happen. The other option is that you do buy and you paint that picture. This is what your life is like after you buy. You no longer have to deal with this, this, or this. You enjoy these benefits and this is what your life looks like now. After you show them the options, the last thing you do is just tell them what the next step is. You just walk them through how simple it is for them to buy. Many people think there's a long, complicated process. So in my dad's case, he used to just tell them, hey, listen, the next step is that we're going to print out the paperwork. There are a few pieces of paper you're going to review and sign. And then I'm going to hand you over to my finance manager, who will take care of the car finances for you. Here's the paperwork. I'm going to go ahead and get you a cup of coffee. What would you like, a cappuccino? Would you like a Sprite? And the reason why he offers a soft drink is that again, he's trying to make the experience pleasant. It doesn't have to be this boring thing. Enjoy a drink while you're reviewing this paperwork and signing. And then he gives him space. He actually says, hey, I'm going to be around. Just give me a holler. I'll be standing over there talking to my finance manager to make the process easier and faster for you, because if they have questions, they can holler. Over. If not, they can just have their peace of mind. And what my dad's doing in the meantime with the finance manager is he's actually giving them all their details so that they can pre fill all the information they need in the system. So all they have to do is sign after they approve their financing. So in your case, it might just be okay. Your next step is just to click this link. You're going to go to a pricing page, choose your plan, and you're going to check out. Once you check out, you're going to get an email from me, welcome you and your first steps. Just tell them what's going to happen so they don't get overwhelmed and they feel like, okay, this is easy, I can do this. So state the price, tell them what their options are, option 1, option 2, and then tell them what the next steps are. That simple. If you just stick to these fundamentals, there's more you can do and there's more you can learn about sales. But if you just stick to these fundamentals, you're going to be a whole lot better off than most people. And the best part about it is that it's honest, it's straightforward, and you're going to help your customer. Last and final point, you have to help the customer. Many times my father would tell the customer, this is not the right car for you. I can't sell you something that you need. He wanted to prevent buyer's remorse, where they buy the car and they're disappointed. And then that ruins his reputation as a salesperson. He doesn't get referrals. He only wants really high quality customers that are going to be happy. So sometimes you're going to have to say, I'm sorry, I don't think we're a good fit. It's in your customer's best interest and it's in your interests. And remember, your job is to do what's best for them. And when you genuinely try to do that, you're going to close more sales. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show, but today's episode's not over. It's Free Ride Friday. Let's see who won this week's Free Ride. And the winner is. Skier Scott. Skier Scott says Best podcast for entrepreneurs 5 stars. Omer shares inspiring stories and insights to help entrepreneurs grow a profitable business. I've enjoyed following along with the show for some time now. I particularly like episode 2146, where he talks about creating energetic and financial boundaries between you and your business. Well, thanks, Scott, for that amazing review. Your mission is to email me over@omar00mba.net so it can hook you up with the lifetime membership to the Automated Webinar Challenge that retails for $500 over@webinar ninja.com AWC. If you don't want to shell out 500 bucks, just leave us an Apple Podcast rating and review and you enter our weekly random draw where you can win a free ride. Just leave us a rating and review and listen in on Friday just like today to see if you want. It's that easy. Before I go, I want to leave you with this if you want a simple and easy book to help you with the sales process and what to say during the sales transaction, a great book is exactly what to Say by Phil M. Jones. We reviewed it here on a must read episode. It's a solid, small, short book. I see it as like a reference guide. I always look through this book all the time because it got some really good phrasing to help you in the sales process. It's called exactly what to Say and the author is Phil M. Jones. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in Monday's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

Want to buy a car your way? Of course you do. That's why CarMax offers an experience designed just for you. Want to start online, then visit the lot, then go back online? Sure. Want to talk to a real person or chat online? Either works. Want to take your time and compare all the makes and models? No problem. Then make up some time by filling out the paperwork at home and schedule express pickup or home delivery done. When it comes to how you buy, CarMax puts you in the driver's seat. Want to drive? CarMax delivery restrictions apply. See CarMax.com for details.