Episode 42 – Start Conversations Effortlessly & Make Sales Easy

Introduction    00:00:03    Marketing, explosive growth, and revolutionary secrets that can catapult your business to new heights. You’re now listening to The Underground Marketer Podcast with your host Tudor Dumitrescu, the one podcast devoted to showing new businesses how to market themselves for high growth. 

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:00:25    Welcome to the underground marketer. This is the place where we deliver the real truth about marketing and explore big ideas that can help new businesses thrive and grow into big ones. I’m your host Tudor. And this week we’re going to talk about another sales related topic, and that’s basically how you can effectively start sales conversations, because not many people know how to do this. And for that reason, most conversations and before they even start, and if you can start sales conversations, there is no rest of the conversation. So it doesn’t matter how good you are at asking questions, how good you are at demonstrating your capability, or how good you are at closing people. All of that doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t mean anything if you simply can’t start conversations with people and you can get them interested to hop on a call with you and give you their time.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:01:18    So how do you do that? And the answer here really is that you have to start by understanding why people buy anything in the first place. And the only reason why anyone buys anything is because they’re dissatisfied with something in their lives. I mean, you think about it. If you were completely a hundred percent satisfied with everything in your life, do you have any reason to change anything? Obviously, no. Right. If you’re completely satisfied, that means that any change is going to be negative and any change is going to make you more dissatisfied. It’s like being on the top most point of a mountain, no matter which way you go, any change from that position is going to take you to a lower altitude, a lower height, right? It’s obvious. And it’s the same thing here. So people only buy because they’re dissatisfied now, what makes them dissatisfied?  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:02:20    Why does somebody become dissatisfied with the situation? Well, obviously the factor that leads to them becoming dissatisfied is that they notice a problem. Everything was going fine. And then this problem comes up and it starts to be annoying for them. Maybe the problem is just that their shoes are too tight, for example. And when they take their shoes off at the end of the day, their feet hurt a lot. They ignore it the first time, but sooner or later, it actually becomes a problem and they have to address it. Right? So, um, the moment it becomes a problem, their dissatisfaction starts to grow. And at first it’s a small problem, right? At first it’s just a minor, annoying pain. It’s nothing to think too much about, right? They can’t be bothered to do anything basically about it, but over time they think about it more and more to the point where it becomes more and more painful till they get to that stage, where all they can think about is how tight their shoes are and how painful it is and how miserable they are.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:03:28    Right. And when they get to that point, then they absolutely need a solution. And that’s what they perceive. They perceive that they absolutely need a solution. They have to find a solution to resolve the problem. And they already start to get some sort of an idea at that point about what that solution would be. Maybe they start researching. Maybe they read about different types of shoes and how you can have more comfortable shoes, maybe different types of souls for their feet, whatever it is. They start looking for solutions to that problem. Now, the easiest people to sell are people who are at the very end there, they’re already looking for solutions. If somebody comes to you and he’s looking for the solution, he’s an easy sell. If he’s in the desperate position and looking for solutions actively, he’s an easy sell, but effective salespeople and masters at selling, they can take somebody from the stage where he’s not even aware that he has a problem to where they actually cultivate that problem, irritated to the point that he becomes more and more desperate to solve it.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:04:40    And then finally, he is open to being educated about possible solutions and about the seller’s product and actually buying it. That’s what a masterful salesman does and salesmen who are not masterful. They can just take people who are towards the end of the process. Here’s the product, give me the money and that’s it, right? That’s what a salesman who’s non masterful does. And I mean, that’s pretty much what everybody who sells on Upwork or everybody who sells a service or anything of that sort, any commodity that you’re selling is usually sold like that. It’s sold to people who already know what they’re looking for already know what they want, and they just have to reach out and grab it. So to speak in your case, if you’re not that type of guy, and if you actually want to improve your sales, then you need to be able to know how to start conversations with people who may be a hundred percent satisfied.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:05:38    So how do you get somebody who is a hundred percent satisfied to only, let’s say 98% satisfied and 2% dissatisfied? How do you do that? And the secret here is that you have to ask a question and a very special kind of question, a question, illuminates problems that they may not even be aware of. Maybe for example, they are runners and they love to run long marathons. And you’ve got this new type of shoe and this new type of shoe, because it’s a lot more comfortable. And it’s designed for extensive exercise and has a special shape that actually moves with the curvature of the food. As the person is running, it’s able to make people run a lot longer with a lot less effort because it feels less painful. Maybe that’s your product. So in that case, you would have to ask the person that you’re approaching an illuminating question.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:06:41    Maybe you ask them, do you find that running the last 10 miles of the marathon is harder than the first thing? Maybe that’s what you start by asking them. And they will say, yeah, actually, now that I think about it, that’s true. It is harder. And then you maybe investigate further, you know, why is it harder? Tell me more about that. And they start saying, well, my feet sort of start swelling and it gets more painful. You know, I have to concentrate a lot more to keep running. Part of my mind wants to quit. And it’s just very difficult to keep going. And maybe then you ask them, well, how do you solve that now? How do you deal with it? And they’re like, well, I don’t really have a way to deal within. I just forced myself, I guess, to move through the pain and complete the marathon.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:07:33    You know, I think about how I’m going to feel when I finish it. And then maybe you continue. You ask them, wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could actually run the last 10 miles of the marathon as easily as you ran the first time. And they’re like, oh yeah, of course I would love that. And then you say, well, John, or whatever their name is, these shoes that I have, we’ve designed them specifically to address this problem. It helps long distance athletes run the last 10 miles as easily as the first. And the way he does that is through this special technology where the shoe really malls around your food and makes sure that it’s, as if you are running without wearing any shoes, you know, they’re not tight around your feet. They don’t make your feet swell. They have perfect ventilation. They’re super comfortable.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:08:25    You don’t even feel like you’re wearing anything. Would you like to try them on? And when you do things like that, he would be almost crazy to say, no, he would be almost crazy to say no, I wouldn’t like to try them on. And the moment he tries them on and sees the difference, it’s pretty much game over. He’s going to buy it. So that’s what a masterful salesperson does. And that’s how he initiates conversations. And the beauty about these illuminating questions as I call them, is that when you ask them, it makes the person think, and it makes the person realize that they may have a problem that they never thought about. And they never realized that they were having. And it also helps you in another way, namely, you don’t waste your time trying to speak with people who don’t have the problem that you can solve.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:09:13    So suppose that guy that you asked the question to the first illuminating question says, oh, I never run marathons. I just maybe done it once 20 years ago. I’m not really into that then that he’s not a prospect. Then you stop speaking with him and you say, okay, John, that’s all I wanted to ask. And that’s it. You move on. You don’t waste your time. Speaking with somebody. Who’s not actually a prospect for your situation. And that’s what you need to learn to do as a masterful salesman, right? You need to learn how you can ask these questions to first of all, filter through, because that’s what you’re doing. The first job I seen selling is to figure out who the buyers are, who are the people who can actually benefit from this because not everybody can, right? So if you’re wasting your time trying to sell every single person you meet, first of all, you’re going to feel bad about yourself because you’re putting tremendous pressure on yourself.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:10:11    You’re saying that it’s all on you. You know, if they don’t buy, that’s your responsibility because in your head, you think that everybody should buy everybody you speak to should buy. And if you fail to do that, then of course it’s your fault, but it doesn’t have to be like this. You can change your mindset. And you can realize that. Look, the first job in selling is for me to actually identify those people who can actually benefit from this and who actually would like to buy if they only knew about it. And they understood it. I’m not trying to sell to anybody. If somebody is not a fit, that’s their problem. That’s not my problem to be a good salesman. All I have to do is close. The people who actually would benefit from this and would need it right in the actually wanted. And that’s how you change your mindset about that.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:10:57    And once you make that change, then it becomes much easier to navigate all sorts of sales situations because you don’t put so much pressure on yourself as you did before, right? And it’s going to make a tremendous difference for you. Once you start applying this and understanding the power really of illuminating problems before you sell also showcases and showcases you, how you can start conversations in ways that are actually meaningful to people and people don’t feel like you’re a sleazy car salesman, following them around to push something down their throat, right? Because nobody wants to feel that. And once you learn to use illuminating questions and you learn to make buyers aware of problems they didn’t even know they had, you literally have a superpower because you’re going to be able to turn any conversation with anyone into a potential sales conversation. If they’re a prospect, again, we’re not talking about people who are not right for your product, you’re not going to be able to turn conversations with those people into a sales conversation.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:12:02    I mean, you could, if you lie to them, but what’s the point of doing that, right? So that’s pretty much what I wanted to share with you. In this episode, I wanted to share with you the power of making people conscious of their problems and getting them dissatisfied with the current situation and getting you to realize that in all situations, you have to do this before you can successfully sell someone. Maybe you don’t have to do it in the sense that somebody already did it before you, they read some marketing, they read some advertising, they had certain life experiences. And so you no longer have to do that because those life experiences and that advertising really did it for them. They’re already aware of the problem. Now they’re just looking for a solution. You do get a few of those, but most people by far the mass number of people, they’re not in this situation.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:12:53    So you have to bring problems to their awareness before you can actually sell them. And if you try to sell them before you actually bring a problem to their awareness, they will tell you that they’re not interested. And it wouldn’t be a lie. It’s the truth. They simply don’t know that they have a problem. They don’t know that they would actually be interested in what you have, because they’re not conscious of any dissatisfaction. They’re completely satisfied with what they have, right? So then they don’t want anything. And there’s no way for you to make them want it. At least not directly, at least not without going through that process that we just talked about. But if you can actually go through this process, you’re going to see that sales is a breeze in sales is not hard. A lot of you may be thinking that, oh my God, sales is so hard.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:13:42    Sales gives me so much anxiety and so on. And the reason it’s so hard and gives you so much anxiety is because you have the wrong expectations. You expect that every person you speak to is a buyer. You expect that it’s your job. As a salesman to close everyone, you speak to them and that’s wrong. It’s not true. Your job as a salesperson is to figure out if the people have a problem that your product can solve that’s number one. And if they do then your job becomes to get them interested to present them the solution, and to close only then is your job closing them, but it’s not your job. Isn’t to close them. The first time you speak with somebody and I spoke with a ton of salespeople and all of them who are anxious about cold calling or cold outreach of any kind they’re anxious because in their mind, they think that if I hop on a call with this person, I have to close them.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:14:37    And if I don’t close them, I’m a bad salesperson. And the reason they think that is because they just don’t understand the process. And again, knowledge is power. The more you understand and the deeper your understanding, the easier it will be for you to sell and the easier it will be for you to get people to openly buy what you have without being the sleazy car salesman guy, chasing them around and trying to push them to buy something. Because if you take this approach and you start with the questions that illuminate a problem that brings a problem into awareness, you’re not pushing anyone. If anything, you are pulling them towards your product. You’re not pushing the product on them. If that makes sense. So that’s pretty much what I wanted to share in this episode. The key takeaway is that you have to start by understanding the nature of the sales process and what you’re trying to do at every stage, because you’re not always trying to close someone.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:15:34    All right? The first thing that you do is that you’re trying to identify people who can actually benefit from what you have and who have problems that you could solve. And the way you do that, even if they’re completely unaware of a problem, is that you can bring it into their awareness with the right question. And then you with the questions again, you can develop that problem to the point that it actually becomes a pain for them and they have to solve it. And that’s when you start selling them. And by that, I mean closing them and presenting them with your product, not before don’t even bother to present what you have, if they’re not aware of a problem. And once you understand this aspect of the sales process, everything literally begins easy peasy, and anyone can do it. It’s not actually hard. What’s missing for most.  

Tudor Dumitrescu     00:16:22    Beginners is actually an understanding of what makes people buy. Why do people buy? What sort of process do they go through to go from being completely satisfied? Two being somewhat dissatisfied, two being very dissatisfied researching and looking around for solutions to actually buying. And once you understand that process, it’s easy peasy. And the first step and the most important one is again, asking questions that are going to bring problems into the awareness of prospects. And it’s also a filtering mechanism. It basically shows you who is actually a prospect for your product and has the problems that you can solve and who isn’t. So that’s pretty much it for today. Remember, you need to start sales conversations like this, especially if you’re talking with random people, because most of them, they’re not going to be aware that they have a problem, and they’re not going to be ready for your solution if you just present it straight away. So don’t make that mistake, know how to start conversations in a way that it’s meaningful for the buyer and provide value to them by bringing a problem into awareness and not just by pushing them like sleazy car sales. So that’s pretty much it for today. Once again, thank you for joining us and stay tuned for the next episode. And until next time, keep growing your business and providing massive value to the world. Remember you are the reason why we’re all growing richer. Our freedoms are expanding and we’re all living in greater prosperity. Thanks.