New book reveals key to authentic persuasion for comfortable, competent salespeople
Jason Cutter’s new book Selling with Authentic Persuasion reveals that not everyone is cut out to be a salesperson, but often the people who struggle as salespeople simply don’t realize they’re acting as order takers rather than salespeople. In these pages, Jason Cutter, who has years of experience managing call centers, leading sales teams, and selling himself, walks readers through the process of determining if you’re an order taker or have the potential to become a quota violator. And then he shows how using authentic persuasion can make almost anyone comfortable with selling.
One of the first problems Cutter tackles is that many sales people don’t succeed because they fear being the pushy salesperson they’ve experienced and swore they’d never be. Another problem is that some people just haven’t learned the proper sales techniques or are afraid the customer won’t like them if they try to make the sale. In all of these cases, Cutter has advice to coach readers through shifting their mindsets away from the fears that keep them in order-taking mode to find new levels of success and happiness. By using authentic, honest, and empathetic persuasion techniques to help customers and determine if you can help them, make the transition from an order taker to a salesperson much easier.
What is an order taker? Cutter defines it as “someone who takes orders for a living. The fundamental principle that drives the order taker is to be of service, to interact with people with the goal of helping them fulfill their needs or wants… An order taker it’s about satisfying the other person. The order taker is not about making sure they personally get what they need or want from the transaction.”
Cutter identifies the mindsets of “I really like helping people” and “I don’t like forcing people to buy” as a deadly combination for a sales career. Instead, Cutter says that “the goal of a sales professional is to help people achieve their goals, avoid pain, and ultimately end up in a better place as a result of dealing with us… [W]We don’t want to force anything, but we use certain skills to move people towards the purchase.” Those skills can be summed up as authentic persuasion.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome in helping someone go from an order taker to a seller is the person’s fears, and not just the fear of not being liked for being pushy, but deeper-seated fears that go back back to our early years as humans when we had to get together with others in our community to survive because rejection by the group could mean isolation, which would ultimately mean death. Although those fears may be irrational in our modern world, they still prevent us, as sellers, from acting in our own best interest.
Cutter offers a brilliant exercise in overcoming these fears. We’ve all heard of goal setting. Instead, you want prospective sellers to use a fear-creating technique. Goal setting means setting a goal and then determining all the steps necessary to reach it. Setting the fear means taking the fear of what might happen to the extreme. For example, you may fear that if the person you’re trying to sell to thinks you’re pushy, they might report you to your boss, who might fire you, and you might not find another job, and then you won’t. being able to pay his bills, so he will be homeless and ultimately starve, the end being death. Realizing how ridiculous this scenario is as a result of interacting with a customer can help people overcome fear to sell effectively.
Cutter then cuts his way through all the clutter that gets in the way of effective sales. He talks about how the customer can feel desperate to sell and then run away. Talk about how using manipulation will ultimately backfire on you. And then he moves on to what a salesperson’s real goal should be: “Your job as a sales professional is to help each prospect overcome their fear of change and buy from you for the right reasons.”
If sellers are afraid, so are customers. Cutter believes most of them are afraid of change and know that buying their product will mean having to experience and deal with change. Cutter says there are only two main reasons people decide to change: fear of pain or hope of profit. He offers advice on how to respond to prospects’ fear of change or that they’ve made the wrong decision so you can guide them toward the sale, believing you’re not pushing them into something they don’t need, but actually helping them. . them to meet your needs.
Throughout the book, Cutter uses examples of various salespeople who have learned to use the authentic tools of persuasion described in the book. For example:
“Carol realized she could help more people by effectively moving them to buy from her. She knew that if qualified prospects didn’t buy from her, they would find someone else who probably didn’t care about them as much as she did. Carol learned that it was possible for her to care about her clients, address their concerns, stay in control and close deals.”
Throughout Selling with Authentic Persuasion, Cutter covers many other situations salespeople face, such as the importance of saying no to leads you’re not right for, how to avoid buyer’s remorse, and effective ways to Generate referrals by turning customers into enthusiasts. fans. Much more is discussed in the book than I have space to mention here.
Having worked as a salesperson and then a call center manager for many years, I wish I had read this book a long time ago. I am absolutely convinced that by following the advice in this book, anyone who wants to get the edge in their career and go from order taker to odds breaker will be amazed at the results of it.