How Do You Sell?

Two weeks ago, I asked the question, “What do you sell?” If you have not yet read it, click here. In a kind of weird way, in that post, I encouraged you to not answer my question.

As turns out, most people can answer the question, “What do you sell?” Unfortunately, it is the wrong question. As I mentioned, in that previous post, the better question to ask is, “Why do your customers buy?”

This is a really important point. And so, last week, I talked about Drucker's marketing view. Drucker once wrote the following about marketing, “It encompasses the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from the customer's point of view.”

Again, the key is the customer's point of view. Are you still with me? To answer the question, “How do you sell?” you really need to consider how people buy.

The first thing to consider is the complexity of your customer's decision. How complex is the decision? How much help, and education, does the customer need to make the right decision?

Let us mention some simple decisions. How much help do you need in selecting a breakfast cereal? My guess is, not very much. For this reason, the manufacturer puts the cereal on the shelf, at the grocery store, and you pick it up when you need it.

How much help do you need buying a car? Probably not much. Most people have already selected the car they want (or have whittled the list down to just a few) by the time they walk onto the car lot.

With all due respect to people who sell cars, they do not provide much in the way of value. The finance department helps the customer acquire the necessary funds. But, the car salesperson basically grabs the keys and goes on a test drive.

How about a Realtor? How much helped do people need with the decision of whether or not to sell their house? The answer is, again, not much. The point is, it is important to know people's decision process in order to properly sell to them.

If I were a Realtor I would simply contact people and ask if they were considering selling their house. Of course, this would include FSBO's and Expired Listings. For the most part, the best sales process, for a real estate agent, is to be top of mind when it comes time to sell. For this reason, notepads or calendars with your picture make a lot of sense.

As a matter of fact, it is the same with car salespeople. If I sold cars I would contact as many people as possible and simply ask them if they are in the market for a new car.

Whether you are selling breakfast cereal, cars, or houses, the customer does not need much help making a decision. In the case of cars they may need help with financing and, in the case of a home, they may need help finding a buyer. But, let us not get things confused. What we are talking about is the decision to become a customer.

Hopefully, you are still with me. Why am I saying all this? The reason is because all of this changes when we are talking about entrepreneurship. If you are a true entrepreneur, what you are selling is innovation. And, when you sell innovation, the customer needs more help.

Drucker called innovation, “The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.” The key part of that phrase being, “New capacity.” When it comes to innovation, people often do not understand what you are offering them.

The fact that people have a problem understanding your innovation is what led Steve Jobs to famously say, “A lot of times people don't know what they want until you show it to them.” That single sentence is the starting point for selling innovation.

Next week I will discuss the innovation sales process.