Sales advice. How your personality makes a difference when closing a deal.

Dear Sales Pros,

our last post was about “closing deals even when your client has a better offer from a competitor”. An important point that we mentioned was: “Making business is about trust. If you are an honest and trustworthy character, people will prefer doing business with you. […] So be honest, sincere and authentic!”

Authenticity is the magic word here. But what does that actually mean? Short answer: If someone delivers on what he promises, acts in line with the values he portrays and has a consistent personality, we can say that this person is authentic. While that sounds easy on paper, it is not easy in real life. So how can you do that? How to be authentic and make the customer feel it? Besides your character, there are a few rules to follow that will enhance your authenticity:

1. Identify yourself with your product 100%. If you do not believe fully into the product you sell, why should your customer? Before anyone else, you need to be passionate about the product you sell. Products are things. Things are not passionate. Your passion makes the product shine.

2. Never make false promises. To create trust, your customer must be able to fully believe in what you say. Anything you promise must be delivered exactly as you promised it. As soon as you start over-promising, your customers will eventually find out and realize that whatever you sad was not true and this will put you in a bad light.

3. Say no if you must. Being able to decline a deal shows that you truly care about your customers. Everyone gets into the situation where you have a potential deal with someone that does not fully understand what he is signing. Being able to say that this is not the right thing to do only leads to positive outcomes. That customer will realize that you just sold him something that does not fit anyways at some point. Declining right away will only lead to this person talking positively about you with friends and business contacts.

4. Speak the language of your customer. Don’t hide behind a perfect sales rhetoric that only aims to make the customer say yes. People feel it if you are pretending or if you are being genuine. Therefore, talk as your customer would talk. Keep it real.

5. Don’t bullshit. Many sales professionals answer questions they do not have a good answer to, with loads of bullshit. No one likes to admit not knowing an answer to something they should know, especially not when you are the one in charge of convincing a person of you and your product. However, this is not the right way to go about it. Be honest, be straight and tell your customer that you do not have the answer right now but will look into it for him. Use the situation to your advantage. Instead of being caught telling half-truths, be the one who delivers on his promise to bring an answer.

All in all, being a sales professional means living your role without hiding your true personality. The more you stick to an honest, sincere and authentic personality, the easier it will become for your customers to trust you. You will be able to convince more people, close more deals and feel better about your job. Therefore, be yourself. Your customers will love that person.

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