Hard selling has had a bad reputation these days. Every sales trainer and newbie sales rep is standing tall, claiming hard selling is through. They will tell you that might have used to work in the 1970's, but today's prospect is smarter, your product is different, and so on.
But the truth is, hard selling is more important than ever. Most of the proponents of soft selling are those who never really sold. At best they were over paid order takers during the last boom cycle. When a prospect is chasing you down with a hand full of cash, it doesn't take any selling to get the order.
Now that the economy has gone from expansion to contraction, sales skills are once again needed. Especially how to close the deal.
To open with cold calling or leads, you need to use stealth. In all actuality, the fake enthusiastic sales pitch opening has never worked effectively... not in the 1950's, and especially not now. The only correct way to open a sales call is with a real conversation.
The famous Chinese axiom goes "dress like a pig to catch a lion."
This could literally be the definition of cold calling!
Just like pick up lines don't work when trying to ask a girl (or guy) on a date, cheesy openers don't work for getting sales. To open a conversation you need to start with an indirect question or observation. This gets the conversation started.
Once, you get the prospect to start talking, you need to become the detective. Gently probe for clues about their needs, wants, frustrations, embarrassments, failures, difficulties, etc. Some of these will be obvious, some you'll have to read between the lines, and others you will have to create (this ability is the sign of a master sales professional!)
When you have uncovered the real, emotional trigger, you then proceed to aggravate this pain to make sure it is the real one and then summarize it and see if they agree. If they do, you got the right hot button.
Next, you want to match only the benefits of your product or service that correspond directly with the emotional trigger you discovered in the previous step. Offer the solution you provide and frame it to them as:
"You have a problem. Lucky for you, I have the exact solution. It's a good thing we talked today."
Sounds cheesy? No way. When a doctor tells you she found a lump under your skin and she can remove it with a new procedure and reminds you how lucky you are that you went in that day... is that cheesy?
Didn't think so.
Now many sales professionals mistake hard selling for sleazy selling. This is because a real blockbuster sales close is transparent. Meaning, you never knew you were being sold anything. You came to the conclusion to buy by yourself.
Look at the master sales professionals out there. They are the billionaire investment bank brokers, the software entrepreneurs who get 8 figure contracts, the oil executives who get rights to entire gas fields in unstable countries.
Do you think they got to that position acting like a little mouse, asking politely if they could maybe do business one day? No way, they are the definition of hard sell closers.
That bad misconceptions you might have had came from those who were never good at selling. Usually they were selling you pyramid schemes, used cars, phone service, and other entry level sales positions.
The famous sales trainer J. Douglas Edwards used to say the only difference between a salesman and a con-artist was the product.
If you are selling a product you truly believe in to a prospect you know needs it, then it's your obligation to do everything in your power to close that sale... and yes, that means the hard close.
Hard selling simply means not stopping till you get the order. It's like the line from the old Sinatra song, "your persistence wore down my resistance."
The debate over hard selling versus soft selling will go on for a while. You might even go back and forth depending on the sales position you're at and how much you believe in your product, but always remember, your customer doesn't win unless they exchange their energy for their desires.
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