Allison Stern, co-founder of Tubular Labs, explains how to sell solutions and emotions instead of products. She covers listening to customers, asking diagnostic questions, proving ROI, and iterating based on what you learn from each sale.
Chapters
So a few quick lessons, which I've already really said. But sales is completely about listening. It's totally about listening. If you're talking too much in a sales conversation, you're doing it wrong. It's not about talking and selling. It's literally about listening. You should sit there, listen, ask questions. Oh, tell me about yourself. What are your biggest challenges in your job? How do you spend your day-to-day? If you had one thing that could help you do anything better or solve a problem or bring you more joy or whatever it might be that relates to your business, what would that thing be? And then what you do is say, oh, what a coincidence, that's exactly what I'm selling. And so the key is really listening to what it is that people want and need and then putting what you are selling into that. And don't— there shouldn't be a mismatch. There should be an authenticity to it. Because if you've sold something wrongly, that's not good for anybody. It's about really understanding what they want and what you can build to help them. And, you know, adding value to the world, adding— helping people do their job better or faster or smarter. And that's sort of— that's the key to sales. The other thing is, is you're not selling a product, right? You're selling a solution or an emotion. So you're not selling— for example, if you're selling a t-shirt, I think you guys have a challenge coming up to sell something or other. But if you're selling a t-shirt, depending on who you're selling it to, you're either selling warmth, you're selling style, you're selling fitting in with your friends, standing out from your friends. You have to know exactly who that person is and what they want and how you can position what you're selling to meet them. The other piece is this sell, iterate, sell. So you gotta learn from your sales process and then change your product according, change your pricing, change whatever you're gonna change, and then sell again. And it's really just a constant process of learning and selling and iterating. And that's what keeps it fun. I think sales, marketing, building businesses is really fun. And I love getting up there and doing it. So I think, Yeah. Hopefully you guys find it fun too. So the last— this is the last slide and then happy to take questions. I figured I should actually like say something I learned in business school or like say something that's actually educational besides just my thoughts. So this is solution selling, which is a thing. And I really believe in solution selling, which is you're selling a solution and there's a process to it. It's about prospecting, diagnosing customer needs, establishing value, proving the value of it and proving that there's a return on the investment, negotiating a win-win, and then following up to ensure success. So it's this concept of not just selling a product, but really like selling your vision and selling— and getting customers to be your number one partner. Like if you can find customers who will help you build your product and will give you input and will give you advice, it's worth it not even to charge them. It's like, did you like this? Did you not? What worked for you? What didn't? And then sort of co— it's called co-development— and build it together.
