There is one thing that we can always stand to be reminded of when sales prospecting, and that is that it is not always all about us, the seller. To immediately improve your conversations, shift from talking about you and focus more on talking about the prospect.

 

We are self-serving at some level

There is one consistent trait across most of us, and that is that we all have a piece of us that is self-serving. By that, I mean that we are all motivated to fill and take care of our own personal interests and needs. This is just part of human nature.

The reason this is important is that when sales prospecting, it can be common for the salesperson to have conversations that are extremely self-serving. They only really care about how they can improve their operations, business, and life. By being able to focus on their needs and how you help them, you will not only be more successful at grabbing their attention, but you will also be more successful at building relationships and rapport.

 

Our instinct leads us in the opposite direction

The interesting thing here is that it can be common for us to do the exact opposite of this by jumping at any chance to talk about our products, their features, and the company we work for. We always want to head in this direction for two reasons.

We love talking about what we are extremely knowledgeable about
First, these are areas where we have a tremendous amount of knowledge since we have been through a tremendous amount of product training and live and breathe the stuff all day, every day.

It is much more comfortable leading conversations where we will have a high level of competence around the topic discussed. We are also extremely discussing areas where we have a lot of knowledge versus an area where we are somewhat clueless.

We care most about this area because it is where we get paid
When sales prospecting, your prospect’s self-serving interests will revolve around them getting paid by building their business. Your self-serving interest will revolve around you selling your products and services, leading to you getting paid.

Because we naturally lean toward filling our own interests, if we are not careful, we will focus more on selling and talking about our products than talking about the prospect and focusing on their self-serving interests.

 

Flip the script and focus on the prospect

Want to improve your results? Simply shift your talk track from being all about your products and services when sales prospecting and focus more on the prospect’s needs, challenges, and interests. This will lead to better conversations, identifying indicators of interest, leading to better relationships, increased leads, and improved overall sales.

 

SalesScripter is a web-based sales tool that will help you improve your sales prospecting.