"Authenticity"

Hey, Scott from The Sales Mastermind here. Today’s edition only takes 3 minutes.

Authenticity in sales is overrated and will cost you deals.

Instead, serve your buyers for mutual benefit.

Storytime

I am currently coaching a super-experienced sales rep who recently changed jobs, industries, and product type (from product to service).

And as much as “sales is sales” (and I believe that), every time a seller changes what they’re selling, they have to relearn sales for their new buyers.

Many experienced sellers achieve success early in their sales careers. Myself included. Those who don’t quickly find a new career path.

Then, because we can close deals and hit quota, we believe we have mastered sales. However, all we’ve mastered is selling a specific offer to a specific audience.

As soon as we change any combination of company, product, industry, or geography, we have to relearn sales for our new audience.

The fact that sellers have to rebuild and relearn anytime there is a structural change is why the idea of authenticity is so heavily overrated in sales.

It’s not about you

Sales will never be about the seller and their wants or desires.

If buyers bought on a seller’s timeline, they would purchase without ever talking to the seller, so all the seller had to do was collect a commission check.

Ironically, if buyers did what we authentically wanted them to do and bought without talking to us, then there would be no need for sellers to have a job.

Therefore, sellers’ authenticity is irrelevant and misdirects the focus.

Minimum Standards

If we take the buyer’s wants and desires to the extreme, they would only work with us if the product/service were free and we did all the work to solve their pain.

Which is as unreasonable and unrealistic as a seller’s authentic wants and desires.

Therefore, I am not advocating placing the buyer on a pedestal or acquiescing to every demand they make.

You need minimum standards.

Hero to Zero

It doesn’t matter if the seller just closed the biggest deal in company history, won every possible award at the company’s Kick-Off, or is the World Champion of Sales (if that ever becomes a thing).

Sales success doesn’t compound from deal to deal because every buying journey is just different enough - and every buyer wants to feel their problems are unique, challenging, and special - that every deal starts close to zero.

An authentic seller who relies on past success adds nothing to the buying journey.

Real Examples

To determine whether your focus is on authenticity or on serving your buyers, check three areas.

Firstly, review the last 10 emails you sent to clients.

How often do your sentences start with “I” vs anything else?

Examples:

• I enjoyed our meeting…
• I think the next step is…
• I would love to…

That is the output of a seller reflecting on their wants and desires, not what the buyer needs to move the deal forward.

Instead, flip the focus of the sentence to the buyer or the process. Examples:

• The next step is…
• Most clients tell me…
• Based on what you mentioned in the meeting, “copy a quote from your call recording or type it out”, this typically means we need to…

Secondly, listen to your call recordings and look for similar examples:

How often are you telling a buyer your opinion, or what you think they should do?

Examples are:

• I think the next step is…
• If it were me, I would…
• I want us to change direction and talk about…

These microphrases put the focus on you, the seller, not on the only person who can actually buy.

Instead, flip the focus of your language to the buyer or the process. Examples:

• From here, the next step is typically…
• Based on the pain you expressed, most of our successful clients focus on…
• Because you mentioned XXX, can you help me understand YYY?

Lastly, ask yourself;

Do buyers trust you enough to want to keep interacting with you?

Many buying journeys are so far progressed that it doesn’t really matter what the seller does or says; the buyer still wants to buy.

That’ll get you a close rate of ~10-20%, and you’ll have a ghosting rate of 40-60%.

However, if you’re an industry expert who provides value to the buyer in every interaction by asking the right questions and providing insights they can’t get elsewhere, then buyers will close at a higher rate (20-40%). Your ghosting rate will be below 20% as they trust you’ll accept their “no”.

Now, review some past emails, calls, or deals to see if being authentic is holding you back from closing more deals.

PS Did someone forward you this email, and it seems like something you want more of: Link to subscribe

PPS You can find the back catalogue here, all 110+ newsletters: thesalesmastermind.com/newsletter/