The Slow Sale: How Slowing Down Wins More Deals.

By Brandon Bruce

It’s been said that time kills deals, but unfortunately that trite phrase too often sends salespeople into a nervous tailspin of activity. Time can also deliver and save deals. The key, of course, is the wise use of time. That’s where the concept of the Slow Sale comes into play. Customer communication that wins sales and builds relationships is more about context than speed. The Slow Sale does not promote slowness for its own sake. It’s not about turning off lead generation and allowing imminent deals to grind to a halt. No, it’s about permission. What is the rhythm that drives the Slow Sale? Smart effort. Bold action. Patient waiting. Get off the hamster wheel, slow down, and think. By selling slowly, you’ll win happier customers and bigger commission checks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543902693

Book preview

Author

Introduction

Sales. It’s a polarizing subject. People love sales, or they hate it. A lukewarm middle does not exist.

For starters, most of us have had at least one bad experience with a high-pressure salesperson. This perpetrator probably didn’t have greasy, slicked-back hair and a polyester suit, yet somehow that stereotype has wiggled into our collective consciousness.

We attribute sleazy sales tactics to certain products and industries—used cars, whole life insurance, personal injury attorneys, infomercials, multi-level marketing companies, and door-to-door sales reps, to name a few.

So when a stranger with a clipboard rings the doorbell, we square our shoulders. Sure enough, it’s a rep for a security company selling installations. He has received training in the sales school obsessed with basic human emotions like fear and greed. He won’t take no for an answer, and he won’t leave until you threaten to call the cops. True story.

New sales methodologies come and go like trendy diets. Dodgy sales psychology can be used to manipulate and bully. Sales can get ugly.

Are fads and fear-mongering the sum total of sales? Sales equals sleaze – is this as good as it gets?

No. The story doesn’t end there. Sales can meet needs and improve our lives.

Sales can be education.

Sales can be beneficial persuasion.

Sales can be entertainment. What would the Superbowl be without those commercials?!

Sales can be a healthy and necessary part of human interaction. It can be attentive service. It can be honoring, not strong-arming. How can you make every customer feel important? If you can answer that question, you’ll succeed in sales.

At the end of the day, the bag of sales tricks used to exploit people occupies a very small corner of the big tent. When you look around you, you will discover tried-and-true techniques that honest people can use to make a respectable living.

Someone has to sell, right? Heck, a security system is a good thing to have in some neighborhoods, so the product isn’t the issue. It’s the packaging – the sloppy, pushy pitch of the sales rep.

We dislike sales as coercion, but we welcome sales as consultation.

For sales reps who ask good questions, listen intently, and help us gain fresh insights into our circumstances and needs, our door is always open.

When you stop to consider that sales might simply be persuasion, you realize that we’re all in sales.

•      Convincing your friends to watch the movie you want to see.

•      Explaining to your business partner that the company can afford to send you both to a conference.

•      Getting to know a new prospect and figuring out whether or not your service is the right fit.

It’s all sales. We’re all in sales.

We like sales when it makes problems go away. We like sales when sales makes things go ourway—assuming we’re not exploiting other people along the way.

To be fair, money makes some people stupid. The same people who wouldn’t pressure a friend will sell in a heavy-handed, self-centered way in a business context.

In the frenzy of business, it often seems like fast is the only option. Move it or lose it. Now or never. Time is money. These promptings drive us forward and drive us mad.

Slowing Down

A few years ago, I took a family vacation during the first year of launching my startup. It forced me to slow down and reflect. Rather unintentionally, I got off the hamster wheel and discovered what I now call the Slow Sale. During this week in paradise, while I thought I was dropping the ball, I was actually making the best discovery of my business career.

When my co-founder Ryan Huff and I first started Cirrus Insight, we