In this week’s livestream, we discussed conversation-based selling, a sales methodology that focuses more on selling the conversation than the product. This sales methodology will not only help you sell more, but also make selling easier.

 

The Product-Based Sales Approach

Conversation-based selling differs from what most salespeople do, as the most common approach is more product-focused, with salespeople talking primarily about the product they sell and the company they work for when communicating with prospects. When applying this to cold calls or cold emails, this can often look like the salesperson communicating like this:

  • This is who I am.
  • This is the company I am with.
  • This is the product I sell.
  • Do you need what I sell?
  • Can we meet to discuss what I sell?

I get dozens of cold emails and cold calls a day, and almost all of them follow this outline, with some extra thoughts and fluff around those points.

 

Logical but Not Optimal Approach

In many ways, the product-selling approach seems reasonable and logical: you have a product to sell, so go out and talk about it as much as you can. But this is a less-than-optimal approach for several reasons.

  • Prospects are getting sold to a lot
  • That triggers guardedness
  • Leading to more objections and rejection
  • Prospects are not in buying mode
  • This approach creates a mismatch
  • Leading to missed opportunities

With all that, product selling is likely to mean fewer leads and closed deals, and it also feels like a harder way to sell.

 

Completely Normal to Use a Product-Selling Approach

If you are currently using a more product-selling approach, that is completely understandable and normal. This is what we are trained to do in most cases because most new-hire processes teach you about the product, then give you a quota and a territory and set you free. It only makes sense to use all of that product knowledge when reaching out to prospects and end up talking primarily about our product and company.

It also aligns closely with our natural instincts. If you have a sales target and get paid when you sell your product, it makes sense to talk as much about your product as you can.

But just because product-based selling is normal and natural doesn’t mean it’s right or optimal.

 

Conversation-Based Selling

We solve all of that by making one small change. Instead of selling the product, you can focus on selling the conversation. This small change will completely change everything and how you sell:

  • Mindset
  • Sales Process
  • Calls
  • Objection Responses
  • Emails
  • Networking
  • Appointments

 

Improve Your Sales Mindset

This small change can drastically improve your mindset because you can keep in the front of your mind that you are not selling a product; you are selling a conversation.

Not only is that an easier thing to ultimately sell and close, but it should help to eliminate any nervousness or anxiety you might experience. There is nothing to be nervous about; you are just selling a conversation.

 

The Sales Process When Selling the Conversation

The main change this sales methodology creates is more clarity that the close when first reaching out to prospects is to have a conversation, which will be different from the sales process steps that most salespeople use.

A lot of salespeople will ask the prospect questions like these when first reaching out and interacting:

  • Is that something you are interested in?
  • Is that something you all need?
  • Are you all looking to make a change?

If a salesperson asks questions like these, they are focusing more on the last step of the sales process, which is the purchase, and align more with product selling than conversation selling. But to be fair, a lot of salespeople do try to close for a meeting by asking:

  • Can we have a call to discuss?
  • Is this worth a call?
  • Can I show you how this works?

Even though those questions close for a meeting, they still sell the product more than they sell the conversation, because the meeting is to talk about the product.

Both directions skip a step: having a longer, more established conversation with the prospect. This is not a meeting to present what you do and sell; it is a conversation to learn more about the prospect.

This change in sales process can completely change what you say and ask when selling. It can change what you say in your calls, emails, meetings, when networking, and more. In the next sections, we’ll show you how that works and what it looks like.

 

Sell the Conversation When Cold Calling

Most salespeople try to sell the product when cold calling. Either the close is to see whether the prospect is interested in or needs what you sell, or the close is for a meeting to talk more about your product. As we discussed, that is not selling the next step and the conversation.

By focusing more on selling the conversation, this small change will completely change and simplify what we do and say when cold calling. For example, we don’t need to talk about our product as much because we are not trying to sell the product; we are trying to sell a conversation.

If our goal is to close the prospect on talking more, we can improve our ability to do so by getting better at finding reasons to keep the conversation going during cold calls. The best way to do that is to ask good questions. When you ask good questions, you can uncover reasons to keep talking, then transition to closing the prospect on a longer conversation on another day.

 

Conversation-Based Selling Simplifies Objection Handling

This approach will completely change and simplify your approach to getting around sales objections. That is because when you are in product-selling mode, your natural reflex is to try to overcome objections. For example, if the prospect says they are not interested, you will want to say something to get them interested.

But when you are selling the conversation, you don’t need to overcome sales objections and change the prospect into being interested, because you are not trying to sell the product; you’re simply trying to have a conversation.

You can actually use that as your objection response to not only get around the sales objection, but also to educate the prospect on the sales process you are working through by saying something like:

I understand. I am not reaching out to sign you up or sell you anything today. I am just trying to have a first conversation to learn more about you and share a little information about us. That way, when you are ready to make some changes, you will know more about us and the options available to you.

 

Improve Cold Emails By Selling the Conversation

I get a lot of cold emails every day, and most salespeople use a product-selling approach. They do this not only by talking primarily about their product and company, but also by using a call to action aligned with selling the product.

About half of the emails directly ask if there is interest or a need for the product. And the other half close for a meeting, but the meeting is for the salesperson to talk more about the product being sold. Both of these call-to-action directions align with the product-based sales approach.

We can immediately improve all of that by focusing more on selling the conversation instead of selling the product. This change in direction will primarily take place with the call-to-action by saying something like:

Let’s schedule a call to discuss your current website, and I can share some ideas and feedback based on what I see other businesses doing.

 

Sell the Conversation When Networking

The conversation-based selling approach can also completely change and improve how you approach and handle networking situations. A lot of our focus here will be centered around business networking and how to get the most out of professional networking events. But if your sales role does not allow you to generate leads from networking, because maybe you are an SDR or assigned target accounts, stay with us for this because what we discuss will also help with social and personal networking.

 

Product-Based Networking

In my experience, most salespeople use more of a product-based approach when networking and attending events by primarily attending events looking for prospects they can sell their product to. There are many reasons this is not the best way to go:

  • Salesperson will talk a lot about their product and company
  • This will lead to more “all about me” types of conversations
  • The salesperson will usually look primarily for prospects, customers, and leads
  • Creates more of a fruit-picking mindset
  • This will likely decrease the number of people the salesperson talks to, and the events attended
  • Closing primarily for the purchase or explanation sales process steps

 

Conversation-Based Networking

We can completely change our approach and mindset when networking by focusing on selling the next step in the sales process: the conversation. First, this reduces our outcome dependence by shifting us from looking for people who fit and who we can sell to, to focusing on people it makes sense to have a conversation with.

This not only changes who you’re open to, but also the types of events worth your time. For example, if you are only looking for prospects, customers, and leads, it only makes sense to talk with people close to your ideal customer profile (ICP). But if you are selling the conversation, that creates a much bigger window for who it makes sense for you to talk with when networking.

This small change will completely change your mindset and shift you from fruit-picking and move you more toward a seed-planting mindset. You are not looking for leads in each event; you are looking for seeds to be planted that might grow into something down the road.

 

How to Optimize Conversations and Appointments

One of the biggest areas where conversation-based selling will impact your sales efforts is how you organize and approach appointments with prospects, since the appointment is the actual conversation step in the sales process.

 

Product-Based Appointments

Before we show you how to optimize your appointments with conversation-based selling, let’s first look at what most salespeople do, and that is that they use a more product-based sales approach when showing up to an appointment. They do this by showing up and spending most of the appointment talking about their product and company, then trying to sell it.

There are many problems with this approach:

  • This makes the salesperson very “all about me”
  • The salesperson is skipping talking about the prospect and learning about their needs
  • It is too early in the sales process to try to sell the product

 

Conversation-Based Appointments

We can drastically improve all of that by using our conversation-based sales approach with how we organize our appointments. With this, instead of showing up and talking about our product and company, we will make the first half of the appointment about the prospect. All we have to do is ask good questions to get the prospect talking and sharing information.

After we learn about the prospect, we can then shift to spending the second half of the appointment talking about us and how we can help. We’re not trying to sell the product, since we will do that in the next step of the sales process: the explanation. With that, we can spend the second half of the appointment giving a high-level introduction to our product, our company, and how we can help.