Why you need to STOP telling and start SHARING for sales success!

0:16 Welcome to the Impact Sales Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Beck, founder of The Sales Activist, and we've got another great episode in store for you guys today. Today we're going to be talking about something I learned over thirty years ago, still deploy it today and everything that I do. And I think it's really really important that we talk about this topic in detail today because so many people are missing the mark with this It's going to change the way a lot of people look at selling when they listen to this episode. But before we jump into that, just want to highlight you know, we're right around the beginning of the end of the first month of the year. By the time this episode drops, it'll be right around the end of January. Where are you with your sales results for the year? Are you tracking and trending? Are you on track or are you already behind? Well, if you're struggling and you like to get some additional insights, not only do I encourage you to stay close to the Impact Sales Podcast, but reach out send me a message.

1:14 I'd love to hear how you're doing so far for the year. Connect with me DM me on social media. Let's connect, Let's talk let's see what we can do to jump start your sales success. But today, today we're going to be digging into something that I think is a game changer for every sales professional. And it's something I learned from one of my early mentors. And I still hear his voice in the back of my head saying this to me all those years ago, and it sticks with me today. And it was simply this, he said to me, Joe, stop telling people things and start sharing things with them. So today we're going to be talking all about how you need to stop telling people when you sell and start sharing things with them. And we'll get into that right after this break. We'll be right back. A coach, consultant, or entrepreneur sells a high ticket product or service and is struggling to generate the sales results that you need. How would you like to triple your sales results? That's right, triple your sales results in six months or less, guarantee all without spending a single extra dollar on advertising or feeling salesy in any way. Well, that's exactly what I'd like to help you to do.

2:25 For well over thirty four years and after tens of thousands of live sales interactions and hundreds of millions of dollars that's right, hundreds of millions of dollars of closed sales transactions for companies that I've worked with and for. I've developed a proprietary sales system, the ISM system, and this system can help you stand out from your competition and more importantly, help you generate significant sales momentum in your business. If you'd like to learn more, just text the word sales to the number four oh nine five O nine seven three five five. That's sales to four nine five O nine seven three five five and schedule a complementary consultation to learn all about the ISM system and more importantly, how you can be well on your way to triple your sales results in six months or less.

3:14 This is Joe Beck with the Sales Activist. You don't have to settle for average sales results. Look forward to speaking Tasam. We're going to be talking today about the importance of how you need to stop telling people things and start sharing things. And the genesis of this episode came just from me going back and reviewing a lot of the different best practices that I've done from early on in my career and how important they are in shaping sales success. And one of the things that I think is just afflicting sales professionals, coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, people that are out there right now, is that they spend so much time telling people things, telling them about their product, them about how great they are, telling them about the features the benefits of what they offer. You know, they spend all of their time telling and they're not listening.

4:08 They're not hearing what people are saying, they're not sharing things that are really appropriate to the situation. So before we unpack this in detail, and we're going to do that today in this episode, before we unpack it in detail, let's start with the most important point of this, and that's what I said just a minute ago about listening. Because for a lot of people, they want to show up and for lack of a better way of putting it, throw up with people. They just want to tell them everything about how great they are, what they do, what they offer, how it will change their life, without really knowing if that person even cares to listen, or even's interested, or is even a legitimate prospect. They just they just want to tell, tell, tell, and The fact is in today's marketplace, with today's consumer and average buyer being so much more educated. You know, they've search things online, they can look up anything they need to on their smartphone.

5:04 There's so much more educated that just telling people information is not going to get it done. Now. I'm not saying there's not a time and a place to tell people things, of course there is. There's always a time and a place to educate when done the right way, But you have to go through a certain process. You have to follow a legitimate, thoughtful process that's going to get you the outcome that you're really looking for. So today's episode is going to be all about that thoughtful process and how important it is to share things with people instead of just telling them. So let's start at the beginning. Like what I said a minute ago about listening. See, the first thing that you need to do is you really need to listen to what your prospect is saying.

5:54 What they are saying is important to them. Now, the only way that you uncover what's really important to them, what means something to them, which really is their priority set, and what really means the most to them, is by asking them thought provoking, impactful, questions. And we talked about impact questions before on the podcast. They're so so critical to your success. It's a foundational piece of how we develop sales results in people. You need to ask the right questions the right way to generate the right results and responses from your prospects. Now, when they have shared that information, when they have given you the answers to these questions, when they have given you what you really need to know and understand about them, and you're listening to what they're saying, well, there's a time and a place for you to start sharing, for you to start giving them what they need to hear about you, what they need to hear about your product, your service. Now.

6:55 Of course, it's very easy to take the direct approach and say I'm going to talk specifically about the features and here are the benefits of our product or service, and here's exactly what I've done and what I've accomplished. And you can always do that, but I'm going to put it out there that you're going to be more successful, and I believe that you'll be much more successful if you take a back seat and you put the experience of the communication in the front seat with your prospect. And here's what I mean by that. When your prospect has shared relevant information in an impactful way with you about what something means to them, how important it is, what impact it may have on them, their employees, their business, their life, their family, whatever it is. When they've shared that with you, when they've truly shared that with you, you now have the unique ability of having a great understanding of how they look at things. And once you've identified what that is. Once you've identified how they look at things, you can then share things that are relevant to how they want to look at things, how they perceive things, what is important to them. You can share impactful things that align with how they view things. And it's so important to create alignment when you're interacting with somebody, you know, to get on that same page, to create a true alignment where you can communicate. You're much more likely to get a successful sales outcome if you create

8:25 great alignment and great rapport with them. And then, let's say, instead of just telling them about your product, you start sharing stories about your product, or you share the experiences of what others have experienced by working with you your product or your service. Instead of just telling them you know, I think you get to check a couple of boxes when you do it the right way. You get to check the box of perhaps social proof by by highlighting what other people have experienced. Maybe you get to check the box of just making them feel more comfortable because they now are relating to the story that you're sharing. You know, if you've ever spent any quality time interacting with me, you're going to find that in almost every interaction in some capacity, whether it's short or long, there's going to be some type of a story that is shared right now. The reason I do that is because I believe that people learn through stories much more effectively than being told something. I think if you explain a story and then you connect that story to what their needs are in a way that is logical and it makes sense, and it really resonates with them emotionally, they're much more likely to remember that and have it stick with them than have you just rattle off a product set, a feature of benefit and tell them something. So what I want to encourage everybody to do. It's something that I've done almost my entire sales career because I was so so fortunate to learn this from an early mentor in my selling experience, start sharing people or share with

10:00 people different things that literally will resonate and connect with them at a deeper way. If you know the ideal situation to share with somebody. Obviously without sharing anything, you can share, but if it's a if it's a situation that you can openly talk about, share it with your prospect. Describe the situation, share the story. You know. There's this whole movement around story selling, and I do believe that story selling is a great approach to how you interact with people, provided that it's consistent, provided that it stays on point, and that it taps into what really is important to your prospect. But story selling or sharing is so much more comfortable for people to experience. It's more comfortable for your prospect by far. Look, no matter who you are, no matter what it is that you do, people know that you're selling something. Right, They know you have something to sell or offer, and like it or not, their guard is going to be up. That wall is going to be up high protecting them from you because they believe that you're trying to sell them something. Now, this obviously can be dealt with a lot of different ways.

11:18 One of the easiest ways of making people more comfortable is to start sharing stories, start sharing analogies, comparisons. I think when it comes to teaching and educating and obviously communicating in a sales environment, the more relevant of a story that you can share, the more relevant of a comparison that you can draw, the more relevant of an analogy that you can offer up to connect with your prospect, the more powerful the outcome will be. Because people connect to stories, people connect to personal experiences. They connect to analogies because many times, especially when you pay attention to what your prospects are saying about what's important to them, you trigger certain emotional responses by aligning the right story, by sharing the right relevant story. Now, I know there's somebody that's he that's listening to this and saying, well, I don't have a lot of stories. I don't I don't have experience that way, or I don't have this, or I don't have that. There's nothing wrong with sharing a story that you've heard. It doesn't have to be something that you've experienced. There's nothing wrong with sharing a story that you've heard, assuming that it's relevant, you know, assuming that it connects to that person. The same way. Now, the most powerful stories, by far will be the ones that you've experienced or that you personally were a part of.

12:48 And the reason is people buy from people that they know, like and trust, somebody that they connect to, that they can relate to. And if your stories are personal and they make a connection to your story, well it only stands the reason that they're going to be connected more closely to you. So when you develop your stories, when you develop what you share, do your very best to make it personal. Share an experience that you had that is relatable, that is aligned with what it is you're talking about. Share an analogy of something you experienced personally. I'm not saying it's the only way, but when you compare effectiveness, if you're sharing a personal experience, it is much more likely to connect with somebody at a higher level than sharing somebody else's experience. If you're sitting there interacting with that person, it's you and them, and you share something very personal and real for you with them, whether it's a story, an analogy, a comparison, whatever. When you share that with them and it's truly about you and an involved you, you develop a connection and that connection creates a way for you to communicate at a different level. See. Until that connection is made, until you emotionally have connected with that prospect, it's very unlikely that you will be extremely successful converting them. It's not that

14:21 it's not possible, but you somehow have to connect to them. I've seen really really good sales professionals in all kinds of different industries struggle with this because they either weren't relatable or they didn't come up with a way to connect and make that connection with their prospect. It wasn't about their communication skills per se. It was about they didn't get close enough in that connection. They could explain something, they could sell it, but they couldn't describe personally the impact and how it made them feel. There was this barrier that they have, And I'm going to tell you that it's so much easier to be successful in selling if you strip away that barrier and be your true self, be your real self. If you're a little quirky, be quirky.

15:09 If you make bad jokes, make bad jokes. If you're you know, a guy who has a great sense of humor, then utilize that sense of humor. If you tell great stories, then tell great stories. If that's truly you find what works and use it to connect with your prospects. But all of those things fall under the sharing side of the house. They aren't telling now. The reason why this is important is if you were to go out and just start product dumping on people, start talking about how amazing your product is or amazing your services, and here's what it does. It does this, it does that. It's all these bells and whistles, but not make that emotional connection to your prospects. All that you're going to do is you're probably going to overwhelm your prospect and you're probably going to make it difficult for you to successfully do business with them. Not because you don't have a great product and not because it isn't amazing and it couldn't change their life. It's because they didn't make a heart connection with you, you know. And there's you know, a lot of analogies that you can use or the difference between a head connection and a heart connection. I'd always love to and prefer to make a heart connection in situations because if you truly make a heart connection with something, you're passionate about it. You want to help your product, your service wants to impact people in a big way.

16:33 That's going to resonate with your prospects. That openness, that sharing of that heart connection with them is going to make a big difference. Now, I know for some people, their personality set is a little bit more reserved or conservative, and that's okay. I'm not saying you have to be an open book and you have to you know, you have to, you know, just open up about everything with your prospects. But what I'm saying is be more open to sharing things, sharing your own experiences, sharing things that you feel irrelevant to what means something to them. And I'm going to give you an example because this is a real life example that comes up. And you know, this was an example that I have with a prospect a few years ago. This prospect said to me that they were challenged by a couple of internal things going on.

17:25 They knew they needed to make decisions, but they knew they were going to face resistance to the decisions that they were going to make. There was going to be some pushback, and they were looking for some feedback as to how they should go about it. And ideally, I had a product offering at the time that I could share with that person that would address a lot of it. And one of the things that I had said to them was, you know, before we talk about anything, let me let me tell you about a story that I experienced in the corporate world when I was working with a really large company and how how I had to win over a rather large team that I had just inherited.

18:05 I had just taken responsibility for this new team. I was the new guy, and I was trying to literally get them to kind of move forward through some challenging times. And I shared this story with them, and it all of a sudden just clicked and resonated with that person with that prospect that I had been in their exact seat in a different company, in a different time, with a different challenge, but I had been in that seat, and just that connection that we made, that commonality, that connection that we made, you know, the relatability of it made all the difference, because as soon as I described and shared that story, the question came out from him, and it was simply, if you were me under these exact circumstances, what would you do? How would you approach this?

18:58 With the challenge I have in terns? And then I was finally at a place where I had earned the right to be trusted by listening and talking through it with them, and I said, you know, I can help you with this. We have a solution here, and I want to go over it with you. I didn't want to share it until I really felt that I understood what you were going through. But there is no doubt if I was in your situation, I would have wished I had this solution back then in that corporate job. And it became one of the easiest, smoothest transactions that had ever done for a high ticket sale. And the reason was I had developed that relationship through a common story.

19:42 The relatability was strong. He immediately recognized that I had been there, I had been down that path, I had shared that experience, I had been through it. So one of the actionable tips that I want you all to take away from this is when your prospects share with you certain challenges, certain needs, obstacles, whatever they may be. If you have a relatable story, comparison, analogy that involves you that you can share with them, open yourself up to sharing long before you tell them about your product or service. And I'm going to tell you if you do it backwards. If you do it backwards, and some of you I know this because I get the messages I hear from people. You're doing it backwards. Now you're doing it backwards. You're leaning with your product or your service.

20:34 You're finding out things about the prospect later after you've already told them about your product or service, and it's disjointed, it's jumbled, it's just out of order, and as a result, your sales results are inconsistent. So one of the things I would absolutely take as an action item, as a tool that you can use, is to start using those comparisons, use those stories, use those analogies of things that you've experienced, or if it's not you, if you don't have that own experience, then find one that's as close to home as possible that you can share. Because that relatability is the bond, the glue in the transaction. It's not the product, it's not the service, it's not a lot of those things.

21:18 Sometimes sometimes it's the relationship. If you don't have the relationship, those other things are going to really not matter much. What ultimately happens for the educated buyer is they're looking for trusted advisors. They're looking for people that they can rely on to give them sound advice, sound direction, and sound support in the solving of their problems. And the way you go about doing that is by sharing, by telling stories. One of the things that I think is so so important for you to recognize is that in the middle of these interactions, you put yourself in a place without doubt of being able to connect with that person, being able to develop that true, true connection, and you're either going to make that connection or miss your chance.

22:13 And there's never a guarantee that you'll get a second shot at developing that connection. So one of the things that you need to consider in every interaction, and I would encourage you when you're in the field, when you're out there marketing, when you're out there selling, is to go into these interactions, go into these appointments, these calls, these sales interactions with the objective of sharing a story, a comparison, an analogy, something that connects to your prospect. Now, just to give you an example of how powerful that is, that same client that I mentioned a few minutes ago, that we developed that connection because I sat in his seat in a different environment and we were able to connect that way. That very same client referred three clients to me over the span of about eighteen months, and those three clients were probably worth two or three times more than what the business was that I did with him.

23:18 But because of that relationship, he continues to do that. He's a trusted, trusted friend and client. I'm his trusted advisor. It continues to work in a way that we are both benefiting from it greatly. And you know what, every time we get together, we're sharing more stories. We're talking about things that are happening, comparisons, analogies, it's funny now a lot of those things happen. Just to give you a sense of the importance of how important sharing is, just in this podcast episode alone, just by sharing that story, it resonated with people. It connected with people simply because people can envision going through that, they can envision the relatability of that experience, and all of that is lost, all of that takes a back seat when all you do is just tell people things. You know, one of my earliest mentors shared with me the importance of this in a very very unique analogy in that, you know, the old adage nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. And yeah, it's a very catchy phrase, but it is still true to this day.

24:36 If you don't show them away how much you care. And maybe that's opening up, Maybe that's sharing a story. You know, the stories don't always have to be good stories. They don't always have to be successes. You know, some of my biggest clients have come from me admitting, look, here's what I did in a situation similar it didn't go well. I learned that lesson and as a result, I now do this and this has been wildly successful. So sometimes you have to open up and share what might have been a bad experience or a negative experience. But it's a learning tool, it's an ability and something that you can share to make that heart connection with people.

25:22 And I know everybody has their own level of comfort with how open they are and how much they share. And you know the same applies to how you need to look at the world. If you want to get more attention, share more with people, share more about things that matter. But the key to that is resonating with your audience, resonating with your prospect. It's not important if it misses the mark, but if somebody shares something with you that is meaningful to them, and it's because you ask them impact focus questions during the sales process, which is a whole art form in and of itself. It's one of the things we specialize in at the sales Activist.

26:11 When somebody opens up to you, the most responsible thing you can do, not only for their well being, but also for your success and the success of a potential business relationship is to respond with a story that resonates. In many ways, one of the most irresponsible things to do is to not respond that way. If somebody opens up and shares something that really means a lot to them, and you don't give them something that connects you with them, you don't glue cement that relationship with them at that moment, and you just start pitching a product or a service. You just start jumping in and pressing, Oh, we could do this, and we could do that, and we could do this. I'll tell you you will lose more people than you will win. But if you just slow your role just a little bit, just take a step back, slow down, and share a story with them, a comparison, an analogy, maybe it's something along the lines of you've been down that road before, and you can help them because you've seen the path by all means, share it and then tie it back to how your product your service are offering can either help them avoid that or help them make that better as a result of it.

27:32 But don't just jump in to telling them. You need to stop telling and start sharing across the board. You only tell. You only directively tell when you've explored everything else in the sales interaction, when you've gotten them to share what means the most of them, when you've made some type of a true connection with them by sharing an analogy, a comparison, a story, whatever it is. You only start telling when you've done that, because that is the ideal time to do it. If you start telling people right out of the gate, If you do that first, you're going to lose a certain percentage of people. I think. For those of you that do that now, you probably are learning that you probably have seen that happen. Right For those of you that know about building better rapport and expanding on those emotional things that they share and developing those things through true stories, you know that you've now put yourself in a much better place. You're in the inner circle, the circle of trust, and you now are in a place where you can start sharing more about your product or service. Then and only then do you tell them specific things, because they're much more likely to listen. Now, I know we covered that a lot, but there was a couple of tips in there I definitely want you to take back. Make sure before you ever get into sharing that you know what they want to talk about, what's most important to them, what impact those things may have on them, what their life looks like as a result of those things, and the reason

29:02 why you start there. The reason why you start with listening is so you know the most appropriate story to share. Next. You need to make sure that your story, your comparison, your analogy, resonates with your prospect. Make sure it makes that heart connection. And then it only then should you be considering and thinking about and putting out there telling people specifically about your product or service. Now, if these tips have been helpful, I encourage you to continue to follow The Sales Activist and the Impact Sales Podcast. Make sure you catch all of our episodes downloaded them. Each one of them has actionable tips that you can take and use for your success. Make sure above all else that you stop telling and start sharing. Now we like to wrap up each and every episode with saying, just this, sell better and impact the world. We'll see as soon. Hi, this is Joe Beck, founder of The Sales Activist. Are you a coach, consultant, or entrepreneur sales a high ticket product or service and is struggling to generate the sales results that you need? How would you like to triple your sales results? That's right, triple your sales results in six months or less, guarantee all without feeling sales y or spending a single extra dollar on advertising. Well, I'd like to help you do just that. For well, over

30:33 thirty four years and after tens of thousands of live sales interactions and hundreds of millions of dollars of closed sales transactions for companies that I've worked with and for, I've developed a proprietary sales system, the ISM system, and this system can help you generate significant sales momentum for yourself and your business and triple your sales results in six months or less. To learn more, just jump on my calendar and we'll have a complimentary consultation to talk all about ISM and exactly what it can do to help you and your business. Take the next step. Just text the words sales to the number four oh nine five oh nine seven three five five. That's sales to four oh nine five o nine seven three five five and you can schedule your call right from there. This is Joe Beck with the Sales Activist. You don't have to settle for average sales results. I'll talk to you a Sam