Give value first

A while back I put a job out to bid to redesign a website. Many people placed bids, with the usual links to their portfolios and customer testimonials.

One web designer, however, went one better: She actually built an all-new site per the specs in my job posting, and sent me a link to it with a note saying that, if I chose her, she could have the site live on my server almost immediately after receiving payment.

She got the job!

In all of these examples, you’re seeing how people get ahead, and get sales, by giving value first before expecting to receive anything in return.

And that’s where most salespeople fail.

Chances are, you’re out selling, not because you are going out of your way to give value first, but because you need to make sales.

In other words, you’re trying to get something from the prospects you call on.

And they know it.

No one wants to buy from a salesperson who needs a sale. Or is out to get a sale. They want to buy from people who show value and give value first – because that means THEY are the ones who end up getting more value in the end!

Cold calling is the worst form of this. When you’re cold calling, what you’re actually doing is sub-communicating to prospects that you are out trying to get sales. It sends a message that you need a sale, and they can either give it to you, or say no.

What you really need to do is to have prospects wanting what you have – and leaving you in the powerful position to provide it, on your terms.

When you make a cold call, you make it completely impossible to employ this power dynamic. In a cold calling scenario, you have given the prospect complete power to say either “yes” or “no” and have left yourself with zero power to control the sales process going forward. The prospect is in charge now.

And most important of all, you’ve done nothing to give value first.

Cold calling takes away your power in a sales interaction, and it leaves prospects with the impression that you offer zero added value.

The very top salespeople, on the other hand, always go out of their way to show value first, and only try to make a sale after. And they avoid cold calling like the plague because they know that cold calling hands all of the power over to the prospect.

So if you want to become one of those top sales pros, then stop cold calling, start giving value first, and watch your sales numbers explode!