You Can't SELL Anyone Anything
“You gotta buy this!”
“It’s perfect!”
“Why are you hesitating?!”
“This is a great deal! You’d be dumb not to take it!”
“You're making my life so hard!”
All quotes from my 14-year-old son, as I explain to him that we are not going to buy the house he loves on Zillow.
He was relentless.
I cringe a little bit as I remember those same things coming out of my mouth. Ironically, I too was talking to my Dad about a real estate deal. 25 years ago, I brought him an offer to purchase a piece of land he owned. The offer was significantly lower than asking price, but I had a 10% fee coming to me at closing and I was only thinking with my short-term brain.
I remember being startled when my very mild mannered and kind father hung up on me after telling me to stop acting like a jackass.
But I was the expert!
I knew about land and what was a reasonable offer!
He was just a 60-year-old lawyer. What the hell did he know?
He knew that I didn’t care about his reasons for accepting or rejecting the offer.
How did he know that?
Because I never asked him… and I made it all about my reasons.
Same with my son.
All he saw was big house, big yard, and a big bedroom upstairs for him. And a cool room he could use to play X-Box.
If he had asked why I didn’t think buying that house made sense for us, I would have told him it was too big, had too many bedrooms for what we need, was down in a hole, needed lots of updating and, quite frankly, I thought it was ugly.
Chances are, he would have tried to overcome my objections and by doing so would have just made me madder.
You must be SELFLESS in your discovery process with your prospects.
You can’t care if they say "Yes" or if they say "No."
Yes’s are good, of course, but No’s are too!
The sooner you find out it’s a “No,” the better!
Getting a "No" early will save you a ton of time and keep you from doing a bunch of Free Consulting.
Stop pushing and trying to convince people you’re right.
Instead, ask them about their criteria for changing, and then ask questions to learn why those things are so important to them.
If you don’t have a shot, get out of there!
Move on to the next one.
Some will, some won’t, so what, whose next?
Bringing Honesty, Transparency, and Selflessness to Business & Sales.
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