Be Someone Worth Buying From

There is no reason to try to trick your prospect into buying from you. That isn’t what professional people do. By trying to trick someone into engaging with you or buying from you, you destroy trust, thereby making the goal of trusted advisor an impossibility.

Built on a Lie

If you type “Re:” in the subject line of an email in an attempt to have your prospective client believe that your email is a follow up to an earlier email in which they had already engaged with you, you are lying. How many positive, meaningful relationships do you have that began with—or were built on—a lie?

Your prospective client can easily search their email to discover whether they have engaged with you in the past, exposing you as a someone who would deceive others to get what they want.

Deceptive Practices

If you advertise that you provide a service for a lower than expected fee as a trojan horse to trick your prospect into engaging with you about the more expensive service you really sell, then you are being deceitful. (There is an ad running on my Facebook where the “sales guru” suggests this tactic. He warns readers not to use this magical approach to do something untoward, suggesting that there is some purity to the method as he describes it.)

Your motives matter. Most people are sophisticated enough to see through a ruse like this, and once they know you for what you are, you have eliminated the possibility that all but a few rubes will buy from you.

You can forget about all the things you have read or heard about what it takes to sell effectively. You can forget about the sales process, closing, objection handling, and presentation skills. You can forget all about consensus, leadership, and insight.

Until you are a person of character, you will never be a great salesperson.  There are no tips, tricks, or secrets that can help you sell more effectively, least of all any built on lies or deception.

If you want to succeed in sales, start by being someone worth buying from.