Data-Driven Selling By Sales Insights Lab

1. Believe in what you sell.

This may sound painfully obvious, but very few salespeople actually talk about the importance of believing in what they sell. In fact, many salespeople challenge me on this point. They say, “No one really wants what I’m selling…” and I ask, “Well, do you believe in what you’re selling?” and they give me a reply along the lines of, “Uh, kind of…”

If you don’t believe in what you sell, then you’ve got to sell something else. You absolutely must believe in what you sell. If you don’t, then when prospects push back on you, you’re going to have a subconscious part of your brain telling you, “Yeah, I’d probably say the same thing if I were them.” That mentality sets you up for failure.

2. Not making a sale hurts the prospect.

This is one of the most powerful mindsets that top performers have. I rarely, if ever, hear this concept come into play when talking to average or low-performing salespeople. However, top performers are always thinking, “If I don’t make this sale with a prospect who is a good fit, then it’s actually going to hurt them.”

The key to this hidden secret of sales success is that you don’t just start persuading and pitching and putting tons of pressure on every prospect to move forward. You should only activate this mindset if the prospect is obviously a good fit for what you sell.

3. No’s are good.

Our data shows that about 50% of initial prospects you come across will not be a fit for whatever you sell. And that’s okay. 

One of the keys to a good sales process is that, early on, you must determine whether a prospect is a fit. If they're not a fit for what you offer, then it’s got to become a “no” pretty quickly—because you want to move on from those disqualified prospects as fast as you can. 

Recognizing that no’s are good is one of the most powerful hidden secrets of sales success.

4. TIOs are bad.

TIO stands for “think it over”—and TIOs are about as black-and-white as it can get in sales.

If someone tells you they have to think it over and get back to you, that’s bad. This might run counter to what many of us have been taught in the past, mainly that there’s nothing worse than a “no” in sales. But as we just covered in the last tip, hearing “no” is actually a good thing—it’s TIOs that must be avoided at all costs. 

5. Persuasion doesn’t work.

Instead of trying to persuade prospects to think about something the way you do, you want to simply engage prospects in a real conversation to find out where they’re at and what challenges they’re facing. Then, if you determine that their challenges are ones you can solve, it’s time for you to demonstrate that you can do so.

6. Get commitment before presenting.

This sales secret doesn't mean that you need to get commitment from prospects that they're going to buy from you before you present your offering. That's truly putting the cart before the horse.

Stop kicking that can down the road over and over and over again. Get commitment before you present your solution.

7. Objections are an opportunity.

This is one of the most powerful selling secrets out there in today's world of sales. Most salespeople are terrified of objections.They try to run away from them instead of confronting them. But when we see objections as an opportunity, it allows us to really unpack what the prospect's concern is. And that’s key to sales success.

Objections are an opportunity. Get your prospects to air all of their concerns, all of their money concerns, all of their concerns about your offering, about you, about anything and everything. 

8. Hold prospects accountable.

This sales secret runs counter to mainstream selling today. Many salespeople are told that the prospect is always right, or that they work for a “customer-focused” organization, which is taken to mean as a “prospect-focused” organization. In reality, there’s a huge difference between your customers and your prospects.

If you start to play by the prospect’s rules, and do whatever the prospect asks, you’re just going to be a dancing monkey. Instead, you should be following your sales process and holding prospects accountable at every step along the way.

9. If you made it up, it’s not good. 

I hear so many salespeople say things like, "Oh, I use this line when I talk to prospects, and I find it works really well." And I ask, "Okay, well, where'd you come up with that?" And they often tell me, "Oh, I just made it up."

If you’re just winging your sales process, and making up your own sales lines without any sense of what the data tells you really works, then chances are that it's a lot worse than it could be.