Sell Without Selling - How to get away from the typical sales pitch that nobody likes

The goal of this walkthrough is to create an effective sales call process that gets you results and effectively converts leads to customers. 

As you start to use it, you will find what works best for you, your particular skill set, and your communication style. You’ll also become more comfortable and confident in your calls when you are in control and have a process.

On this call, the number one thing you should strive to do is to deeply understand their problems. Don’t sell, lead with genuine curiosity.

Here are the building blocks which will set you up to have a successful call.

1. Build a connection
2. Introduction
3. Uncovering and understanding challenges
4. Evaluate if it’s a good fit
5. Deal with pushback
6. Next actions

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Building rapport and building a connection 

When you get on the call you should take the first few minutes to build rapport. You want the other person to like you and find you competent in their first impressions of you. 

One simple way to do this is to address them by name and use their name a few times. Make sure you get the pronunciation right, there’s nothing wrong with asking if you have it right, and then continuing to use it. 

You don’t want to appear timid or unsure or uncomfortable especially in the first few minutes. Getting completely ready and set for the call a few minute before the start time can also reduce the chance that you get flustered.

After a little rapport is built you want to take charge and be in control of the meeting and how it progresses. 

Eventually, being a consultant, you want to start talking about the challenges they are facing and how you are positioned to help them.

To get there, take charge after a little small talk and rapport building and suggest quick introductions.‍

Exchange quick introductions

You don’t want to seem controlling but you definitely want to be in control of the conversion so here are a few phrases you can use to initiate introductions and still be in control of the direction of the call. 

“Do you want to introduce yourself and business or should I tell you a little bit about my background?”

Giving them a choice feels easygoing even though you know exactly what you want to talk about next and where you want the conversation to go.

Here’s another one:

“I really appreciate your time today, I wonder if we could do some quick intros both ways, and then I’d love to ask you some questions about your business."

Either way, in these intros you want to avoid long, drawn out, or directionless talk that will eat up valuable time.

If you go first you can encourage them to be concise by giving your own introduction in less than 60 seconds.

You should have your intro prepared and practiced. Hit on your niche and value and possibly 2-3 experiences you’ve had where you added value as a consultant. 

A good way to end your concise intro is:

“Now I help [type of company] with [value add]”

...and in the above sentence personalize it for the person you are talking to.

For their introduction, try as best you can to not let them ramble for 10 minutes but find a natural place to steer the conversation towards asking them discovery questions to understand their challenges. 

You need a line to get to challenges. As you take more calls you will be able to do this naturally but one way is to show them you’ve done your research: 

“I saw you just launched in City early last month, how’d that go?”

Uncovering and understanding challenges

As mentioned in the intro, the number one thing you are trying to do is deeply understand their challenges.

The number one thing you are trying to do is deeply understand their challenges. 

Sound curious, not interrogating them.

Curiosity is much better than trying to pitch because you know they have a really deep problem, you are an expert in that problem area, and when you validate your experience they will pay you to solve that problem.

To naturally create this dynamic you need to first figure out what their problems are. Start out pretty high level.

“So, tell me, within [niche industry] what keeps you up at night?” "What goals are you striving towards?" “What are your most pressing needs?” "What’s an upcoming growth or profitability milestone for you?”

Possible answer: 

“Well, we’re a seed stage company, we’re trying to get to our series A in the next 6 months.”

Then, ask a follow-up question.

“Great, then what metric do you need to hit or what milestone do you need to hit to be able to raise that series A?”

Possible answer: 

“We need to hit 1MM ARR to raise out series A.”

Now, save this answer in your mind so you can reference this goal and this number for the rest of your call. 

Because of your domain authority, you already have a pretty good idea of all the components and pieces that come with that big goal so start to ask questions within your area of expertise to figure out how big their pain is. 

These deeper questions will vary depending on your expertise:

Eg. Customer Success: 

“How do you approach your current sales to customer success handoff? How do you set these expectations?”

“How are you thinking about customer success in relation to the profitability of your company and how it relates to retention? “

Eg. Operations: 

“How do you think about scaling up the business without adding tons of headcount to inflate your payroll?”

Eg. Growth: 

“Is your growth strategy product, marketing, or sales led? What are the specific growth levers within your growth strategy? How do you choose which levers to pull? How effective have you been? “

Eg. Sales: 

"Do you have a goal for CAC and what do you consider to be good for you? “

At some point, you will uncover an opportunity in questions they don’t know the answers to. If they know all the perfect answers to these questions then they don’t need you.

Any ‘I don’t know’ answers are an opportunity to legitimize yourself and your consulting business.

When this happens they will likely ask you what you think or why that is important. Share an anecdote: “When as company x we did this and realized this. In my experience, when x is this way, then you should y.”

In all of this, see how big of a challenge they have and how well-equipped they are to solve it.

Evaluating if it’s a good fit

By asking these questions and then elaborating on answers, at some point you will identify issues and gaps. If you don’t get to this, it’s not a good client. 

Your job is to find a massive pain that they currently encounter that is holding them back from X milestone (growth, fundraising, profitability, etc.).

Remember that first question asked about their goal and the main metric that may be holding them back? Is there a gap that you can solve that is holding them back from their goal.

Identify the gap and ask what they are going to do to address it. Do you already have some ideas from the conversion of things that will move the needle for their big goal and the metric they chose?

To move from this stage, after you’ve uncovered their problem, and after you’ve determined that you can help them, you can ask questions like:

“How important is this problem to the company right now?” “What have you done so far to address it?” “Is there a way I can be helpful?” “What’s your current budget to address this problem?” “Who needs to sign off on getting help with this problem?”

You start avoiding future pushback by asking these questions. 

Common-pushbacks and how to navigate them

There are really only three reasons a client won’t hire you. Any other excuse is a polite way of saying one of the above 3 things.

They are:

• The problem isn’t big enough to be a focus right now
• They don’t think you’re the best person for the job (you didn’t legitimize yourself well enough) 
• They genuinely do not have the budget to pay you
  

Your job is to find the real reason so you have a chance at addressing it. The only way to do this is to show you're genuinely curious. 

If the budget is too high, is it too high for them? Do they not have budget at all? Do they not have budget for this specific problem? Not the sign person to sign off on? There’s a lot of things that could be going on. 

Ideally some of the questions you asked them while evaluating if you were a good fit touched on these ahead of time. It’s always best to get out in front of these questions after you’ve determined it’s a good fit. 

The key when getting pushback is to know what’s going on and know what you’re going to say so you’re not caught.

You can come across very competently with these answers or look desperate or floundering.

The goal is to legitimize yourself; once you’re legitimately adding value, then you’re working for them. Some people will try to advance and ask more questions, or provide resources, processes, work, etc. and it’s your job at that point to say: “Okay let’s get a formal contract in place and then get to work.”

Take action with next steps

First of all, if it’s clear there is no way you will work with them, ask for 2 intros. There will certainly be people in their network who you can bring value to.

If it is a good fit the next step with either be another call or to send a proposal over.

If you need a proper discovery call and more information before sending a proposal then book another call while you’re on the current call. It’s not enough to go with: “I will follow up via email to book another call.” Open your calendar and find a time for the next one.

Perhaps you don’t need another call and you’re ready to send a proposal. Then tell them: “I will send over a proposal within 24 hours”.

Send them the proposal promptly and if you like get them on a call to review it.