📄 It's a sale! (how to pitch with permission and get the deal)

There's only one way that this can happen:

Your buyer needs to be convinced that they're making the right decision.

The bad news is:

You can't do the convincing - not if your a good egg and you're loathe to manipulate people.

The good news though?

You don't need to do any convincing: that's the buyer's job

They need to convince themselves.

And for that to happen your buyer needs three things:

Clarity, Trust, and Vision

These three requirements to the ethical sale are what enables a buyer to enroll themselves, voluntarily.

Requirement # 1: Clarity:

Your buyer needs to know:

What's in the tin?

What isn't?

Is this right for me?

Is this the right offer?

Is this the right time?

Unless your buyer has a clear view on exactly what they will and won't be getting, they'll have a hard time to get to the right amount of:

Requirement # 2: Trust

You can try, but it's a fool's errand to try and convince another person into trusting you.

Trust builds automatically when they feel taken care of, and you generate that feeling in them when you make it clear that you're here to steward over their outcome.

Requirement # 3: Vision

For your buyer to self-select and enroll themselves, they need to have a clear vision on the 'after'.

What will their life will be like after they decide to buy?

How will their business improve?

What change in their self-identity will it generate?

For that vision to take shape, you can do two things:

You either pitch, or you ask questions. (Or you waffle, but then you're just wasting everybody's time).

Your pitch is a compelling offer, an appeal to their intelligence and their sense of reason.

"This is a great deal, perfect for you, don't you see?"

No fun, not effective, and just another way of trying to convince.

And, trying to pitch and reason with a buyer means you make them wrong:

When you're convincing, you're the one with the great idea, the reason why they should buy.

In other words: you are right, and you want them to see that.

But if you are right, you 'make them wrong'.

Pitching is good, and important, but you need to time it right.

Don't pitch until they are ready.

They are ready when they ask for your pitch, not before.

And to get a buyer to ask for a pitch, an offer or a proposal, all you need to do is ask questions.

When they do, you pitch with permission.

And what kind of questions should you ask?

There's a lot to choose from, frameworks and models & methods to use, but it all comes down to a very simple concept:

Ask people about their problems, right up until the moment that they ask you about your solution.

There: ethical selling in a nutshell.