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Become a Sales Master with Victor Antonio

By Arel Moodie

Wow guys. Am I EXCITED to bring this episode to you! Today I had the honor of sitting down with the speaker who inspired me to start speaking myself. Sales Master Victor Antonio of Sellinger Group fame came to speak at my college when I was 22. His presentation motivated me to become a speaker, and I told him to "watch out for me in 20 years!"

His response blew me away.

"Well, why don't you just do it right now?"

That blew my mind all the way back in college. Today, Victor returns to blow my (and hopefully your) mind again in the art of sales. We discuss how sales is a very noble profession (despite all the used car salesmen jokes), and how you've actually been selling successfully in your life already. 

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Highlights

Don't think you're a salesman? Think again! (and how sales is a noble profession)

Believe it or not, you've already been selling successfully throughout your life. Let's take a trip down memory lane and look at some common life events for people:

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Exhibit A: Baby crying. Ever cried for your mother, who then was convinced she needed to provide nourishment or protection? Selling, and pretty effective too.

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Exhibit B: Kid wants a cookie from the cookie jar. As a child, did you ever make a sad face as you pleaded with your parents for a cookie? Maybe you were savvy and tried to bargain with them for the cookie. Which is selling, again!

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Exhibit C. Marriage proposal. Yup, you have to sell yourself to your significant other too, so they know that you're a stand-up guy/girl who is worthy of a relationship too! Selling again.

See how important selling is in our lives? We've already been at it in our personal lives, but Victor drops some statistics on us to show that we sell even more:

Did you know that 1 out of 9 people are employed as professional sellers? And of the other 8, these people spend 40% of their time persuading and convincing. What's that again? Sales.

Sales is the fire that gets business, relationships, and extra cookies from the cookie jar going. If you can provide something of value, you will need to sell it to make sure people will benefit from it. This, as Victor says, is the reason why sales is a noble profession.

The Iceberg Analogy in Sales

Even if in the business of selling you think that your product will be super helpful and cut back on costs for your client, you still have a lot of ground to cover before completing the sale. What are your customers thinking about beyond the initial benefits?

So you say you’ll sell this system which will save money and time for me in the long run. How long will it take to retrain my staff to use this system? Will I see a dip in productivity while we adjust to this new system? How long will this dip in productivity last?

All these questions make up the bottom, less visible part of the iceberg.

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Solution: Assuage these fears when selling your product by being upfront with them. Anticipate these concerns and cite your solutions for dealing with them.

If you can anticipate these concerns and prove a net benefit to your client with your product, then this will address the 90% bottom of the iceberg.

Let’s apply this tip of the iceberg analogy elsewhere.

Say you’re interviewing for a job, and you answer all of their questions. With regards to the interviewer’s concerns, you’ve addressed 10% of their concerns, the proverbial tip of the iceberg again!

How do you hit the other 90% and assuage those concerns? Address them upfront. Maybe there is a learning curve to the job that the interviewer is always concerned about for new hires. Ask them: “How long is the learning curve for this job?”

When they give their answer, you can discuss what you can measurably do to accelerate and make more efficient your own learning curve for this job, addressing one of their deeper concerns.

Your interviewer will think that “you get him,” which is a great place to be, salesman or interviewee.

For everything else that comes in an interview, check out the Art of Likability Interview Manual to absolutely KILL it in your next interview.

Thank you Victor for coming on the show! You can find Victor at www.victorantonio.com and his 12-12-12 Sales Mastery Intensive Course at http://www.sellingergroup.com/workshop.html.

Victor also runs his own podcast, the Sales Influence Podcast.

Remember: I promise you this episode will be entirely useless to you-IF you don't apply what we've discussed.