Section 01 – Climbing the Stairs of Selling

In my book The God Kind of Business I looked at an introduction to some basic attitudes that are necessary in a salesperson. Now I am going to expand it into much more detail in this book The Practice of Business.

I want to start by looking at the actual selling process, which is kind of like climbing stairs. As you climb each stair it leads you automatically to the next one. If you want to succeed and make the sale you need to climb all the stairs.

Some people make a lot of effort to climb one or two of the stairs, but they can’t understand why they didn’t make a sale. It is because they didn’t climb all of the stairs.

So in this Section I am going to give you all five of the stairs that you will need to climb if you want to be successful in selling.

Using the AIDA

Anybody who knows something about selling knows that there is a simple formula that has been used through the years which still works. So I am going to start with that formula and use it as the basis.

It is known as the AIDA, and each letter stands for a specific part of the selling process.

AIDA stands for:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

I am going to divide the action part into two steps, so that is why I have five steps instead of four.

I would like to give you the way I believe the AIDA should be presented, and show you the way I use it. I believe that if you will take the principles that I am going to teach you here, you should be able to succeed in selling anything to anyone.

Three Main Parts

I have divided these stairs into three main sections. I have called the first one The Doorway. I have called the second one The Build Up, and the third one The Close. It is kind of like an outline for a teaching or a sermon if you are a preacher. You have your Introduction, your Main Part and your Conclusion.

Selling is really just like a little lecture or a little sermon that you give. And the process of preaching and bringing people to the Lord is the exact selling process. It works the same.

Actually with anything in life where we persuade somebody to our way of thinking and convince them to do or to give us what we want, it always follows the same process.

Part 1 - The Doorway

So with that in mind let’s look then at the five stairs of selling. And the first thing you need to do is go through the doorway.

Stair 1. Attention

The very first stair, the A in Aida, is for Attention.

Before you can even begin the selling process you need to find somebody to sell to. This is another whole teaching on its own and I will look at the realm of marketing and prospecting separately.

So let’s assume you have found a person who is a possible prospect or customer; somebody who you might be able to sell your product to. The first thing you have to do is to get the person’s attention. This is very difficult these days because everybody is calling for that person’s attention.

Everywhere we go we are being bombarded by media. If you are on the Internet and have an email address as most people do these days, every day in your email box you are being bombarded by spam. Every person out there is trying to sell you their product and persuade you to their way of thinking.

How do you get a person’s attention right in the middle of all that?

It is kind of like being in a room where everybody is speaking at the same time, and you hear this hubbub and noise of speaking. If you walk into a room like that, you don’t clearly hear any specific person speaking, unless you go up to them and choose to listen to that person.

Unless somebody gets your attention, you probably won’t hear what anybody says. Just go into a crowded public place, into a shop or anywhere where people are milling around, talking and making a noise and I guarantee you actually don’t listen to anything.

The exception is if you are sitting in a restaurant and have some loud person sitting next to you who has been drinking too much. Then they don’t give you any choice. They impose their conversation on you, and you cannot help but hear it even though you are trying to tune it out.

A lot of people market that way. They bombard and force their marketing on you and you are trying to tune it out. You try to find a way out of there as quickly as you can because you can’t stand it!

Something needs to get your attention so that you can make a choice to listen. I would like to give you a few suggestions of things that you can use to get the attention of a prospect.

Be Original

The first thing you need is originality. You need to present the person something that they are not familiar with. If you present something that they have heard before, that they know or that they are expecting you to do, they already have a preprogrammed way of getting out of it and brushing it off.

They will say, "Oh I’ve heard that before. It’s another one of those. No thanks."

When people try to sell us, our first impression or response is usually, "Thanks, but no thanks."

Somebody gets you on the phone and says, "Hello my name is so-and-so and I’m from an insurance company."

"No thanks I have insurance."

Standard approaches don’t work. You need to be original and present something totally unfamiliar to the person.

This is not very easy, because people have already thought through most new ideas. So you will have to be creative. You will have to come up with a creative alternative; a different approach.

People in the advertising media are coming up with new things all the time. All the time there are new approaches in advertisements and some way of getting you to stop and say, "That sounds interesting. Let’s have a look."

Use Shock Tactics

Now if you can’t be original, the next possible method you can use is to present the unexpected and shock them.

Preachers have to do the same thing every Sunday when they stand up to preach. The people come to church and sit through the long sermon, get bored with it and try to keep awake. And they are there out of obligation because it is the right thing to do.

If you want to get people to listen to your message you may have to sometimes shock them. Say something outrageous or unexpected; something that they didn’t think a preacher would say.

You will need to do the same thing in your selling. You will have to take a shock approach at times to get people to sit up and pay attention to what you have to say.

So don’t think that you just go out there and say, "Hi, my name is Les D. Crause and I have this wonderful product that I would like to tell you about."

Their first programmed response is, "No thanks I’m busy. I don’t have any money. I have no time. Thanks, but no thanks."

You have to get their attention.

Use Curiosity

Probably the most powerful way of all to get anybody’s attention is to use curiosity. Make them want to know more about what you are saying by presenting a question or a statement that gets their minds going; something that they want to know more about just out of pure curiosity because they have never ever heard this before.

So that is great, you have come original. Perhaps they are shocked that you would say that. And now they are even more curious. But you want to move in on that curiosity and you want them to effectively say, "Oh that sounds interesting. Tell me more."

You have to get their attention! How are you going to do this? This is going to depend on your product. It is going to depend on how you are selling, whether you are selling to the person face to face, whether you are going out knocking on doors, whether you are doing telephone canvassing, whether you are sending emails on the internet, whether you are creating marketing videos.

You may use many different methods of marketing, and we will look at that in more detail when we look at the marketing side.

Get Their Attention

But the most important thing of all before you come with your sales pitch is do not even start until you know that the person is paying attention. Otherwise you are going to go there and give your whole sales pitch.

And you know some people are very aggressive and assertive. They won’t let you say two words and they will stop you right there and say, "No thanks!"

Other people are a little bit more polite and they will wait until you have gone through your whole little sales pitch, your wonderful little thing that you built up and as soon as you take a breath they will say, "No thanks, I’m not interested."

Well you just wasted five minutes of real emotional energy there and it deflates you.

You say, "I gave them my best!"

Don’t even begin until you have their attention. Make sure that there is a very clear sign from the person that they are interested.

Well you don’t even have their interest yet because that is the next one – interest - but at least you have their attention. They are ready to listen.

How long are they ready to listen? Probably at the most about 30 seconds, sometimes even less. That is why most advertisements these days are so fast that they barely last 30 seconds.

A 30 second advertisement these days is a very long advertisement. Some of them are five, ten seconds each just to get the point across very quickly while you have the person’s attention.

Stair 2. Interest

Now you have to zero in to the next stair, which is interest.

You may have their attention; you may have shocked them or said something that they haven’t heard before and so they are curious to know a little bit more. But it doesn’t take long for that attention span to disappear unless you can take them up the next stair, the stair of interest.

They have to be interested in what you have to say, otherwise they won’t let you get past the first sentence. So once you have the attention you have to say or do something that will arouse more interest in them.

Use Statements and Statistics

Now you can do that in different ways. You can start by making some statements of fact, statistics. Statistics are very curious and interesting things.

You say, "Did you know that scientists have proved that on average, every single person does…?"

Do you want to know more? Are you ready for more? You are interested already.

"Every single person especially women over thirty…"

Do you want to know more? You see I have your interest. You want to know more. I have given you statistics.

And you know very few people will actually say to you, "Where did you get those statistics? I want proof that they are true."

No, they are so interested in what you have to say because they have never heard anything like this before.

Statistics are a very powerful way of arousing interest in a person. So make yourself a list of statistics, of facts, of little known facts and secrets. Secrets is the third one. I have jumped the gun here.

Ask Questions

So you start with statements and statistics. And then the second way of getting interest is to ask questions.

You say, "Did you know that most men under the age of forty by the time they reach their fortieth birthday find..."

"Find what?"

"No I didn’t know that."

Do you know? Have you heard? You ask anything that is a question, except one that has a yes or no answer.

"Did you know?"

"Yes I did."

"Did you know?"

"No I don’t."

The question must be a question that arouses interest and curiosity. Not a simple question, "How would you like to know how to make more money?"

"No thanks I don’t."

It takes a little bit more than that. You have to expand your question into a thought provoking thing that gets the person thinking. "Well you know I have never really thought about that subject much."

"What is it that makes some people get wealthy no matter what they do? And other people no matter how hard they work, they just cannot ever seem to accumulate wealth? The money just goes out faster than it comes in."

"What is it that makes some people rise up in success?"

You see now that arouses interest.

"Do you know the one most important principle of all that every business owner should apply if he hopes to succeed in his business?"

"What are the three things that you should never ever do to your customer?"

You want to know the answers to these don’t you? It has aroused your interest and your curiosity.

Use questions wisely and it begins to arouse an interest in the person.

Use Secrets

And then the third one which I mentioned already is secrets.

You say, "We would like to reveal to you a little known secret about how any single woman can find the man of her dreams and choose who she wants, because there will be so many prospects that she will be overwhelmed with offers."

Do you want to know this secret? If you are single I guess you do.

"What is the secret to accumulating wealth without working eighteen hours a day?"

Secrets are things that everybody hopes exists. And they must be there because some people seem to have found them.

Some people just get wealthy all the time. Some people just get what they want in life. Some people don’t have a problem losing weight. Some people look beautiful all the time. What is their secret?

You see if we could just find that secret and grab hold of it, the knowledge of that secret will allow me to become just like that person, to achieve the same results, to be successful and wealthy. To be whatever it is. Secrets are very interesting things.

And I don’t care who you are, the moment you hear that word ‘secret’, it arouses your interest.

Someone says to you, "Don’t tell anybody but I have this little secret."

You say, "I don’t want to hear your secrets. It is none of my business."

I have never heard that!

"You have a secret? Oh well perhaps it is not that important, but actually I am curious. What is it?"

It is human nature. We want to know the thing that has been withheld from us, the thing that the select few in the world know. It has been withheld for this little elite group of people. They are the only ones who know this secret.

"And now we are making this secret available especially to you my very special prospect. This is not available to the whole world. We are not publicizing this to everybody but I am giving you right now, the opportunity to learn a secret that has been carried in my family for generations."

I want to know more. I am interested. Now I am listening.

Does the person think, "He is going to try and sell me something for sure."?

He probably knows it, but he is so curious it doesn’t matter.

He says, "We will handle that when he gets to it. I am so interested in what he has to say. You know I have no interest in buying from him. I don’t have any money, but I really would like to know more."

You have to draw the person in. If you cannot get the person’s attention, if you cannot arouse an interest in them, you have not even entered the doorway yet. This is the doorway to the sale. And once you have your foot in the door, you will not be kicked out very easily.

But if you haven’t got your foot in the door yet, it is going to take one slam in your face and you are gone. If you miss your sales presentation up until this point, you have no sales presentation. You have no chance whatsoever of making a sale.