You Can't Sell Anybody Anything - They Must Discover They Want It - Sandler Rule 27

Have you ever issued a "call to action" that didn't produce any action?

• People don't buy on your say-so.
• Use a better approach.
• Ask, "What would that mean to you?"

Do you remember, years ago, when your mother told you to eat your vegetables? The more she pressed you to eat them, the more you resisted - even when she explained the benefits of eating vegetables (such as helping you to grow big and strong) and even when she pointed out good moral reasons for doing so (such as your obligation to remember the many people in the world who didn't have fresh vegetables to eat). She pressed, you resisted. It became a predictable routine.

At some psychological level, due in part to those kinds of early childhood experiences, people generally don't like to be told what to do or how to act.

Resistance is pre-programmed

As a rule, prospects are programmed to resist sales people who try, directly or indirectly, to tell them what to do. Regardless of how "right" you may be about what could benefit the prospect, regardless of how convincingly and enthusiastically you explain the benefits and advantages of your product or service, regardless of all this, prospects will have a tendency to resist when you tell them to "eat their vegetables." They simply aren't going to buy on your say-so.

Rather than "selling by telling," a better strategy is to ask questions or relate third-party stories that allow a prospect to discover the benefits and advantages of your product or service. When you ask a question that leads to a discovery, the prospect "owns" the discovery. (See Sandler Rule #15: The Best Presentation You Will Ever Make, the Prospect Will Never See.) People may push back, directly or indirectly, if you tell them to "eat their vegetables," but if you let them reach their own conclusions, they typically won't argue with their own data. Instead, they'll ask you to pass the spinach!

"Many of our customers found..."

Here's an example of a question that could help the prospect discover that he wants something:

You: Many of our customers found that by installing our real-time tolerance adjustment procedures, they were able to increase widget production by an average of 12 percent. What benefit, if any, would there be for your company from a 12 percent increase in your widget production?

If the prospect identifies benefits, follow up with questions that expand the discovery:

You: What would that mean for the company?

You: What would that allow the company to do?

You: What would that mean for you?

Each answer - each additional discovery - helps build a case for buying your product or service. Now the case for "eating the vegetables" is being build by the prospect...not you!

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