When prospects buy, what exactly is it that they’re buying?
You might answer, “My product!” or “My service!” To a large degree, that’s true; otherwise, they wouldn’t be interested at all. Something about your product or service is solving a problem for them, providing something they’ve always wanted, or in some other way improving their life or job function.
Or you might reply, “I gave them a great deal!” That’s true, too, although to a far lesser extent. When it comes to the close, a good price can certainly be the icing on the cake, the final thing that pushes the prospect over the edge into agreeing to buy.
But the top factor that causes prospects and customers to purchase when it comes right down to it, is the salesperson’s confidence. Confidence is the 5th “C” of the SELLability 8 C’s of Selling, and our topic for this month. And it is confidence that your prospect or customer is purchasing.
While some might refer confidence as an intangible characteristic, it is one of the most tangible of all. Prospects sense it; they are encouraged to buy from you because of it. People don’t buy from a product or service, do they? No. People buy from people.
The good news for anyone learning sales today is that confidence is something that can be trained.
Source of Confidence
Where does confidence come from? It comes from being able to master all 8 core abilities—the 8 C's. It comes from learning and becoming an expert in the sales process. If you do those things, you’ll certainly possess a lot of confidence.
Some might think that confidence is arrogance, but confidence and arrogance are two completely different things. Arrogance can repel a prospect (just like it would probably repel you).
Confidence, on the other hand, is sensed by the prospect. When they sense it, they’re encouraged to buy. They are there interacting with you with the idea of possibly purchasing something anyway, but what moves them to purchase is a confident, professional salesperson to help guide them to the right decision.
Confidence means that the salesperson totally understands each step of the sales process. Confidence means the salesperson understands the prospect's emotions and understands that the prospect has probably had previous bad buying experiences, which causes resistance to the sales process.
What causes confidence in the salesperson is knowing that they can save the prospect money, knowing that they can save the prospect time, knowing that their product or service is going to exceed their prospect’s expectations.
Confidence would also be having the patience to gain that understanding without having to try and overwhelm the prospect with education.
In other words, stick to the sales process and be confident enough to know that you’re going to get to the point where you can present exactly what the customer needs, and then transition to the close.
The salesperson needs to be a professional at inspiring the prospect to buy their product or service. That is confidence—and that is what the prospect will buy.
