📄 Permission --> Trust --> Vision --> Decision --> Sale

A potential client will only make a decision to buy, when they are good and ready - and that means, they need to see themselves enjoying the benefit of having bought your solution.

That’s the vision element of a sales process: getting to the point where they too see the vision that you have for them.

But before they’ll buy in to that vision, they need to trust you.

Unless there’s trust, they’re not going to have that vision.

And, in order to gain trust, you need to gain permission first.

Permission to explain, permission to ask questions, and, yes: Permission to ultimately ask for the sale.

And so selling in an ethical way, where you have sales conversations that people enjoy, works like this:

First, you gain permission - to explore their situation, assess the problem and how much it would cost to keep it, to address objections, to discover what they need.

Do that right, and you’ll earn their trust. Trust that you’re looking out for them, that you’re not just in it for the money, and - very importantly - that your product or service is what they need, and that it’ll solve their problem.

That trust causes your buyer to get curious, to ask you questions - and that is what builds a vision in their minds.

And once that vision is ready, and they’ve sold themselves on wanting your thing - that’s when you get to ask for the sale, and that’s when they make the decision to buy or not to buy.

And if they don’t, you graciously accept their no, and you continue the conversation (i.e. you follow up in a pleasant way) until such time that they are ready.

Everything starts with permission, and if you try to sell without gaining permission first, all you're doing is effectively trying to coerce your buyer.

"I want to do a little exploration of the situation here, is that ok?"

"Do you mind if I double-click on what you just said?"

"Would you mind if I ask you to tell me the dollar-amount you lose there each month?"

"Is this a good moment to talk about working together?"

Your buyer says yes, and you gain permission. You're driving the sale forward in the most ethical and collaborative way possible.