Almost everything that we do in our life to reach our goal requires us to sell. Whether it is by selling our product or ourself. Many people consider sales to be when you go around door to door asking someone to buy a electronic or an insurance. That’s the common misconception about sales. What people don’t realize is that they have to use their sales skills almost everyday in your life. Whether it be getting your dream job, convincing your boss to give you a promotion, or any other situation that you need to appeal why you need that. But vast majority of the people don’t know this and tend to leave their sales skills behind. This is what sets apart the 99% of average and the 1% of extraordinary that are able to pursue their dreams and live out their dream life. I know that everyone reading this will want to be in the 1% of the world and live out your dream life and in order to live this life, you need to master the art of salesmanship. In Sell or Be Sold by Grant Cardone, he discusses real-life and down to earth techniques and ideas that you can implement in your life to slowly but surely climb your way up to the top. So let’s discuss my main takeaways from this book.
An average coffee at Starbucks costs around $5. The same amount of coffee costs less than $2 at a local coffee store. Although the local coffee store is more than 50% cheaper than Starbucks, Starbucks gets more than 13 billion dollars in revenue. Why am I talking about this? It’s because sales man always think that their price is what is holding their clients back. What they fail to realize is that people are willing to pay if they believe they are going to receive value from it. The difference between Starbucks and McDonalds coffee is the quality and the feeling people get from purchasing. When your clients are saying that they can’t buy because it is too expensive, more than likely do they have another objection. It could be that they want you to address another part of their issue or shorten the length of contract. When your clients have this on the back of their mind, they look for flaws in your product and reasons on why they can’t work with you. The most common objection that they can think of is your price. So their first instinct is to blame your fee. Many people always end up getting paranoid about this and try to argue dollar for dollar trying to take the most out of their clients. What sets the 1% apart is that they don’t try to haggle the price, they explain why their product is the “Starbucks” of their industry and explain why it makes sense to invest in them and address the objections that they might have. This way you can charge top-dollar for your top-notch service without having to fight over the last dollar out of your customer’s pockets.
The second thing that I took away was the “90 day phenomenon” . What is the “90 day phenomenon”? It is the time where sales man starts to see a decrease in their sales and many tend to blame the market saying that they don’t want it anymore or the product is too old now. Because it’s the same person trying to sell the product. In actuality, it’s not the product, market, or the person. It’s all because of the mindset of the sales man. Many people think that your opinion about the product has no effect on your performance. But when you walk down the street and someone greets you warmly with a smile, that warmth is transferred to you. You don’t know him and you never had a conversation with him, but you feel his warmth. The same applies for your products. Because sales people start to lose confidence in their product after the 90 days, they start to see their commission plummet. When we talk about our product, our attitude about the product is transferred to our customers. If we sound like we’re unsure, they feel the exact sale and you won’t make a single sale. Then how do we address this issue? It’s simple: sell a product that you know they will need. Don’t try to sell them a product that you know that they won’t ever need. Sell a product that you know will revolutionize their life. It might seem like you will make less money in a month. But you will look at your yearly salary and realize how accurate this statement is. And besides, wouldn’t you rather be the hero that revolutionize your client’s life?
An average coffee at Starbucks costs around $5. The same amount of coffee costs less than $2 at a local coffee store. Although the local coffee store is more than 50% cheaper than Starbucks, Starbucks gets more than 13 billion dollars in revenue. Why am I talking about this? It’s because sales man always think that their price is what is holding their clients back. What they fail to realize is that people are willing to pay if they believe they are going to receive value from it. The difference between Starbucks and McDonalds coffee is the quality and the feeling people get from purchasing. When your clients are saying that they can’t buy because it is too expensive, more than likely do they have another objection. It could be that they want you to address another part of their issue or shorten the length of contract. When your clients have this on the back of their mind, they look for flaws in your product and reasons on why they can’t work with you. The most common objection that they can think of is your price. So their first instinct is to blame your fee. Many people always end up getting paranoid about this and try to argue dollar for dollar trying to take the most out of their clients. What sets the 1% apart is that they don’t try to haggle the price, they explain why their product is the “Starbucks” of their industry and explain why it makes sense to invest in them and address the objections that they might have. This way you can charge top-dollar for your top-notch service without having to fight over the last dollar out of your customer’s pockets.
The second thing that I took away was the “90 day phenomenon” . What is the “90 day phenomenon”? It is the time where sales man starts to see a decrease in their sales and many tend to blame the market saying that they don’t want it anymore or the product is too old now. Because it’s the same person trying to sell the product. In actuality, it’s not the product, market, or the person. It’s all because of the mindset of the sales man. Many people think that your opinion about the product has no effect on your performance. But when you walk down the street and someone greets you warmly with a smile, that warmth is transferred to you. You don’t know him and you never had a conversation with him, but you feel his warmth. The same applies for your products. Because sales people start to lose confidence in their product after the 90 days, they start to see their commission plummet. When we talk about our product, our attitude about the product is transferred to our customers. If we sound like we’re unsure, they feel the exact sale and you won’t make a single sale. Then how do we address this issue? It’s simple: sell a product that you know they will need. Don’t try to sell them a product that you know that they won’t ever need. Sell a product that you know will revolutionize their life. It might seem like you will make less money in a month. But you will look at your yearly salary and realize how accurate this statement is. And besides, wouldn’t you rather be the hero that revolutionize your client’s life?