Selling: The 5 Golden Rules

Selling is one of the most important business and personal skills to develop sharply. It’s that simple! We need it for absolutely everything we want to do in our routines. Did you know that on average, you will be using your selling skills around 20 to 30 times per day?

As a profession, selling is one of the most difficult skills to perfect that absolutely all companies eventually need. On a personal level, it’s unlikely you’ll achieve anything relevant in your life if you do not know how to sell a few things effectively.

First, we all sell ideas about ourselves. For friendship, for love, or for partners. Life is about selling! Of course, understanding “selling” like all those activities and actions we need to take is important in order to offer something and get another thing in return smoothly. When you were a baby and you were able to get your parents to kindly give you the cookie you wanted, you were selling your sweetness in exchange for the cookie.

Let’s check some of the most important pillars to follow with some common related English expressions:

1. Start by asking, listening and understanding carefully. Whatever you want to sell (a product, a service, yourself…), you need to openly understand how what you are offering can help the other person. You need to understand what the pain points of that person are, where he or she needs help, and why. Only by doing things this way will you figure out how to better approach the situation.

• “What is the biggest bottleneck you have now?”
• “What do you think are the 3 things that could help your business (or anything) right now the most?”
• “Would you like someone to come and help you with this situation?”

2. They don’t only buy what you offer. They really buy you. You don’t buy an iPhone and pay extra only because of its features, but because it’s Apple and you know Apple is about “thinking differently”, it’s quality, it’s fashionable, and it’s cool. You want to be quickly connected to this image and brand. When you offer something, at the end of the day, it’s all about making the other person willing to be around you and what you represent. So what you project in terms of values and standards matters a lot and sometimes even more than the offering itself. 

• “I believe in hard work as a key principle to help others achieve their goals.”
• “I think we should stand and do something to improve that situation…”
• “We consider everything we do has to be connected to those three values.”

3. Trust comes when the perception of balance and a fair deal match perfectly. There is only one deal that makes all parties feel good in the short and long term. These are the deals in which the buyer has the perception that both are equally winning (win-win). Any kind of unbalance will bring distrust to the other person or the regret of not playing well. Long-term agreements that generate healthy sales will come when both parties feel like they are gladly winning. 

• “I think we should both celebrate this terrific agreement that will allow us to achieve great milestones.”
• “I’m so glad that we are becoming partners because I believe we will do great things together.”
• “I’m sure this is the beginning of a great win-win relationship for both of us.”

4. If you get in by price, you get out by price. It’s very tempting to use short term hooks to win a sale such as providing a discount opportunistically, a low price or some kind of reward. But at the end of the day, a good sale only happens when the offer is taken because its value is solving a problem well. If the only argument you have is your price or short-term incentives, sooner or later someone will come with a better price and you will be out as violently as quickly as you came in. 

• “I’m sure you can find more affordable options and I’m mainly looking for clients who know how to value the uniqueness of our service.”
• “Despite the fact that others might be priced lower, ours is actually cheaper than all of them because we offer something far beyond their capabilities. “

5. Selling is boldly transferring your passion enthusiastically to another person. You know what you are selling and as much as the features can be seen on paper, the excitement about whatever you offer needs to be seen and felt clearly so the other person can take part in it. Make that other person become emotionally attached to it and you will gain a true partner. And there is only one way for you to do that, you need to truly feel it or the other person will realise you are not genuine. 

• “Look, I know I could sound childish, but I really found something that could make a radical positive change”.
• “It’s just the very beginning and I’m fully convinced that in a matter of months we will be number one. I would like you to be part of it.”

Grammar – Adverbs of Manner

Related Course Units  

Unit 83 – Adverbs of Manner: Quickly and Quietly  

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