How to Sell Without Feeling Like You're Selling

0:00Hello, this is Mark Satterfield and welcome to the Velvet Rope Playbook, tonight's chapter. How to sell without feeling like you're selling. If you hate the idea of trying to sell people, I can completely relate. I don't particularly like sales, not particularly good at it, and frankly, that's one of the reasons I became a marketer. Because somewhere along the way, I discovered something that made my life considerably easier. If your marketing does its job properly, you shouldn't have to do very much selling at all. So let me tell you about Daniel Mercer. Daniel is 46 and runs a boutique firm that helps wealthy families acquire and manage large tracts of recreational and investment land.

0:44He knows timber. He understands conservation easements. He knows water rights, access issues, and the peculiar collection of problems that can accompany several thousand acres of otherwise beautiful property. Daniel was very good at what he does. He's considerably less comfortable selling it. This bothers him because a business coach recently informed him that he needs to become a better closer. So Daniel does what conscientious people frequently do when they're told they're deficient at something. He goes to a seminar. He learns how to overcome objections. He learns how to ask questions designed to get prospects to say yes.

1:20He learns several closing techniques with names that make them sound like wrestling holds. And then he meets Victoria Pembroke. Victoria, 61, has spent most of her career building a specialty food company that she and her brother eventually sell to a European conglomerate for considerably more money than either anticipated when they started the business in a rented warehouse outside of Baltimore. She now divides her time between Charleston and Manhattan, sits on two corporate boards, and has recently become interested in acquiring timberland. Victoria also possesses something that tends to accompany substantial wealth, an extraordinarily sensitive sales radar.

2:02Daniel discovers this when Victoria asks what he charges. Instead of simply answering the question, Daniel decides to use one of the techniques he's learned. He leans forward slightly. Before we get into that, Victoria, let me ask you something. If I could show you how our process could potentially save you several hundred thousand dollars on an acquisition, would you agree that our fee would be a relatively small consideration? Victoria smiles. Not a warm smile, the other kind. I asked what you charged. Daniel tells her. They speak for another 10 minutes. Victoria thanks him. Daniel thinks the conversation has gone reasonably well.

2:44Victoria never calls him again. Now, here's the interesting part. Daniel doesn't need a closing technique. He needs better marketing. Because underneath all the complicated funnels, scripts, platforms, and systems people create, virtually every sale comes down to a small handful of things. First, you have to get someone's attention. Then you have to convince them that you understand what they want and can actually help them get it. You have to give them a compelling reason to choose you rather than all the other people claiming they can do essentially the same thing. And then you have to stay in touch because most people aren't going to do what you want them to do the first time you ask.

3:25That's pretty much it. Attention, relevance, credibility, differentiation, follow-up. The details change, of course, from business to business, but the underlying mechanics don't change very much. And here's the part that's particularly important when you're dealing with affluent prospects. You have to do all of this elegantly enough so that it never feels like you're selling them. That's where Daniel goes wrong. Victoria isn't opposed to being persuaded. All of us are persuaded every day. She's opposed to feeling that someone is trying to persuade her. There's a rather large difference. I mean, think about Victoria's life.

4:04Financial advisors want to manage her money. Private bankers want her assets. Investment managers want her capital. Real estate professionals want her business. Nonprofits want her contributions. so people invite her to lunches, dinners, and events where, purely by coincidence, someone eventually wants to discuss an opportunity with her. After a while, you become pretty good at recognizing the machinery. And once an affluent prospect sees the machinery, something changes. What you think is persuasion can begin to feel like manipulation, which is why I think the question most people ask about selling is the wrong one.

4:43They ask, how can I convince this person to buy? I'd ask, what would this person need to see, know, and believe before they felt completely comfortable taking the next step? That changes everything. Suppose Daniel approaches Victoria differently. Before they ever meet, she encounters an article Daniel has written called Five Things I'd Investigate Before Buying 1 ,000 Acres of Timberland. She reads it and discovers something she hasn't even considered. attention. Then she watches a short video in which Daniel explains why a beautiful piece of property can be a terrible investment if the timber is difficult to harvest economically.

5:24Now she realizes Daniel understands a problem she didn't know that she had, relevance. She sees that Daniel has spent more than 20 years advising families on these acquisitions and reads about several situations in which he prevented clients from making extremely expensive mistakes. credibility. Then Daniel explains he doesn't represent sellers and doesn't earn a commission based on which property the client buys. His job is to tell the buyer when not to buy. Differentiation. Victoria isn't ready yet, so over the next several weeks, she receives a handful of useful observations and case studies from Daniel.

6:03Follow-up. Eventually, she calls him. Now imagine happens when she asks, what do you charge? Daniel tells her, that's it. No technique, no clever question, no closing maneuver, because the important selling has already happened. Victoria already understands what Daniel does. She understands why it matters. She has evidence that he knows what he's talking about. She understands why his approach is different, and she's had enough exposure to him to feel comfortable. Daniel doesn't need to convince her that he's worth talking to. His marketing already did that. That's what good marketing is supposed to do.

6:44It doesn't eliminate persuasion. It moves persuasion to a place where it feels natural. Your prospects encounter an idea, then another. They learn something. They begin to recognize your expertise. They see evidence. They understand your point of distinction. They hear from you again, and gradually, almost imperceptibly, their thinking changes from who is this person to this person seems to understand my situation. Then this person clearly knows what they're doing, and eventually I should probably talk to them. Notice who appears to be making the decision at every stage, the prospect. That's particularly important with affluent people because they tend to place a high level on autonomy.

7:30They're accustomed to making decisions. They're accustomed to having options. And many have spent years dealing with people who have a financial interest in getting them to say yes. So the less your marketing feels like it's trying to maneuver them towards a predetermined conclusion, the more comfortable they're likely to become. Now, this doesn't mean your marketing should be passive. Quite the opposite. It should be extraordinarily deliberate. You need to know what will get your ideal prospect's attention. You need to know what problem or desire matters enough to make them keep listening. You need to demonstrate that you can solve it.

8:07You need to establish why you're a better choice than the alternatives. And you need a system for staying in touch until they're ready. But you do it without chasing, without pressure, without pretending something expires at midnight when everybody knows perfectly well it doesn't, without the clever closing techniques Daniel learned at his seminar. You simply create a sequence of experiences that give someone increasingly compelling reasons to trust you and take the next step until doing so or doing business with you feels like their idea. There's a useful exercise you can do with your own marketing.

8:47Look at everything a prospective client encounters before you speak with them. Your social media, your website, your emails, your videos, your podcast, your sales page, your follow-up, and then ask whether those pieces are actually doing the selling for you. Are you getting their attention? Are you demonstrating that you understand what they want? Are you showing rather than merely claiming your expertise? Are you giving them a compelling reason to choose you? And if they're interested but not ready, do you have an elegant way to stay in touch? Because if those things aren't happening, you'll eventually have to compensate for them somewhere else, usually during the sales conversation.

9:26And that's when people who don't like selling start trying to become salespeople. Personally, I'd rather fix the marketing. Daniel eventually came to the same conclusion. He stops trying to become a better closer and starts doing a better job of educating prospects before they ever speak with him. He creates useful content around the mistakes sophisticated land buyers frequently make. He shows examples of decisions he's helped clients avoid. He becomes clearer about why his approach is different, and he develops a simple follow-up process for people who are interested but aren't ready to buy immediately.

10:01Something rather pleasant happens. His sales conversations become easier, not because Daniel has finally mastered the art of selling, because there's a lot less to sell. And if you're someone who dislikes selling, I think that's the goal. You don't need to become the person who can talk someone into doing something. You need a marketing system that gets the right people's attention, demonstrates your expertise, establishes trust, differentiates you from the alternatives, and stays in touch long enough for them to make a decision. And you need to do it elegantly enough so that the prospect never feels like they're being pushed through a sales process.

10:39That's the kind of marketing I believe works particularly well with affluent clients, And it's exactly the reason I've built my Affluent Marketing Funnel. If you'd like to see how to create that kind of system for your own business, go ahead and go to getwealthyclients.com. You'll find information about the Affluent Marketing Funnel, along with all my books and programs, and even information about how you can work with me personally. And one last thing. If you're enjoying the Velvet Rope Playbook, make sure you subscribe so we can stay in touch and you don't miss the next episode. And if you know someone who's very good at what they do but hates the idea of having to sell themselves, pass this episode along.

11:19Don't need to make a big production out of it. Just say, thought you might find this useful. That's how most good ideas and most good introductions tend to travel. This is Mark Satterfield. Thanks for listening to this chapter of the Velvet Rope Playbook. I'll talk to you soon. Bye for now.