It’s been about 7 months now since I became a salesperson. I spent the majority of my life acting like I could never sell. In hindsight, that attitude is the single biggest thing that held me back in music. Now I know I can sell, so the idea of convincing you I’m dope sounds easy. It used to be a very stressful prospect. Chances are you fine reader can sell if you put your mind to it.
In all fairness there are levels to being a salesperson. I don’t believe I’m an expert by any means. I do believe that as a newbie, I have learned a few things other newbies may want to hear. This one is for the people who are stressed about sales but need to hear that they can do it.
At the end of the day the world of sales has evolved so much. It used to be that you needed to instil faith based on charm alone. Now you have the internet and facts to help you. It makes things a lot easier. People will fact check you so the game is now about coming correct.
Let’s get into the 3 things you should know we’ll talk about today.
Sales Tip 1 - Be patient, you never control the timeline
While you should do everything in your power to close a sale as fast as possible, you really need to be patient. A lot of the time your proposition is one of many things the person you are selling is dealing with. You, as a human, can empathize easily. There must be a lot of things you wish you could do, but for whatever reason the timing isn’t right.
When you are out there pitching you need to think of yourself like a gardener planting seeds. Some plants will sprout up quickly. There are days where the initial contact, invoice and payment are all handled on the same day. I also have deals where the person and I first spoke in September and it took 6 months to move forward.
To quote one lady, “we were so busy that we couldn’t think about it. That’s a good thing though”. While they wanted to acquire new clients, they were dealing with their current workload. It looks like they are interested in doing something for Mother’s Day. That will be from September until May to move forward.
You need to head out there every day with the knowledge that if you contact 20 people every single day, you will make sales. It may take a couple of hundred contacts for you to get into the swing of it, but once you do the sales will come. Plus, a lot of people you speak to are actually interested, but only when life allows.
Always let people know you are available when they are and move on with your day. When they are ready they will remember how you respected them. I know I blew a couple of bigger sales being a bit too annoying with my follow ups.
Sales Tip 2 - Don’t assume how the call will go
There are a lot of times I think the call went bad. It didn’t feel like the person and I were vibing. As I went through the pitch their answers were cold and stiff. The entire call would take under 5 minutes. They really didn’t care about being sold. I left quite a few calls feeling like I had botched it.
Then a week or two would go by and I’d get a follow up message. They were ready to buy a package. In some cases bigger ones than I expected. You never actually know how people feel. I’ve had people give me the information for an invoice on a call and then ghost me.
What’s important is that while you are on that call you get through it, keeping your head high. Even when I didn’t like the vibe I would finish my pitch. Once or twice I got laughed at. This guy literally hit me with the pompous indie rapper, “I don’t need promo” and then laughed and hung up. In the future maybe he does need promo and has a budget for it. He may just remember us.
It’s easy to give up midcall. I tried doing outbound cold calling and I would give up on a lot of those calls. It was just miserably overwhelming. I was assuming they did not want the services and it showed in my calls. End of the day I did not do very well.
I am 100% convinced that what we are selling in restaurant promo land is worth the money. It makes it a lot easier this time around to make the sale. No disrespect to the other place, they were legit, but the clients made too much sense to me.
Sales Tip 3 - B2B is a different beast than B2C
Business to business (B2B) is when you, as a business, are selling directly to other businesses. This is different from business to consumer (B2C) where you are selling to individuals. When you hustle your music to fans that is a B2C transaction. You convincing a festival to pay you to perform is more in the B2B lane. A lot of the mainstream disdain for sales comes from B2C.
I am currently in a B2B role. I love it. The people I pitch to are in businesses and can follow along with what our value proposition is. They understand the lingo, or the need for what we offer, and it lets me spit game effectively. In the world of B2B you need to be prepared and have real facts. The people you are talking to either know what you are offering, or have smart people around them they will consult before spending money with you.
A lot of the time the job is just researching the people you are speaking with to create some kind of customized pitch. For a restaurant their location will impact what angles I take to sell them. A restaurant in Laval and the Plateau have different realities. Both have different benefits and needs we can help with. The type of food matters. So does brand image and a lot of other things when you want to convince someone to buy promo. You need to show people the return on investment when dealing with B2B.
It’s fortunate when you work in a domain with clear ROIs. A designer can say, hey look I made these designs and they made X% more than designs made by other designers. This is clear and easy to measure. Sometimes you work in intangibles, it’s harder to make the sale but also harder to prove your efforts were irrelevant.
B2C is about leveraging emotions to part people from their money. I’m good with the fact-driven weirdos who research specs before buying something. I have more trouble when the product is luxury based on the value that is simply perceived. Apple has done a lot to prove you should pay more for their products. It’s worth studying for better B2C moves.
When you think about your experience with sales, it may be that B2C is not for you. Try out some B2B sales. It’s a lot easier to represent a company and sell to other companies than you’d think. Sure getting a hold of a decision maker can be tough, but with the right intro pitch you can provide them with some real value off jump.
Anyway these were some tips that are worth thinking about from my little PRSPCTVS.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
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