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Ask HN: How to master the Art of Selling

8 points by scorciapino ↗ HN
It's very easy to deal with people that need you. I've always had the pleasure of dealing with such clients, always cooperative people that got to know me by word-of-mouth, often technology enthusiasts who want to make their core business easier and pay me to do it.

Yet I want to grow my freelance activity into a business by reaching this promissing but scary thing called market. I've thought for a while and got a good idea of what my revolutionary product will be about - all I need to do now is to code it and sell subscriptions.

I'm absolutely sure that it will be great, but I'm not so sure that my clients, the ones whose doors I'll have to knock and arrange meetings, will agree. We, geeks, are geeky; my potential clients (ie, small business owners) are not. I wonder if we speak a different language, and, if so, how I can reach them.

In other words, I wonder how I can sell them my product. Tips and reference are both welcome.

A related question is how to pick this quality among my potential partners? I've got a friend who swears that he is a great seller, but, frankly, he looks too shy; there are others who are more extroverted, but I wonder if this is a reliable indicator.

Thanks!

6 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 28.9 ms ] thread
zizou
first things first, product needs to be really good. and when you're selling try to quantify the experience of your product in a simple way. As to what it is, what it does and how it does, in a non-tech,no jargon,no bulllshitting manner. this has always worked for me .period!
tdm911
Love your product and know EVERY single facet of it. There is no better selling technique than knowledge and enthusiasm.

Personally, I've never been able to reliably see a product I don't have a passion for. Maybe this makes me a bad salesman, but I know I've had a lot of success over the years selling what I love and have never had to resort to sales 'tactics' or otherwise.

asher
Sounds like you're ready for a good sales book or two. I think one of the best is "SPIN Selling". It's not what it sounds like. It's almost the only sales book based on real research.

http://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-Rackham/dp/007051113...

I see advice in this thread to make a great product or know the product really well. I'd say the focus needs to be on the customer, not on you or the product.

Better to know the customer really well than to know the product really well. Of course if you can do both, do both.

Read a few good books on sales and you'll start noticing how inept almost all salesmen are. They just want to talk about their product, and don't ask the "obvious" questions about the customer and his needs.

seven
Since about two years I try to learn as much as possible about how to be a salesman. Some of my insights so far:

Try to watch how successful sales-people work. You will get so much fun out of this, after reading some books and spotting their tricks.

Selling is not about logic. It is about feelings.

Do not tell, but ask. Questions are nice to produce images in other peoples head, without being to obvious. 'Where would you place your new $Item?' Implies that the other is already owning the product.

Listen very careful to the answers.

There is some buzz around NLP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming). As far as I know there is no scientific evidence behind it. In my non scientific experiments, some techniques seemed to work great. But the success could be a result of me focusing more on the other person in general. And I see this as a key to a good sale.

One of my clients is a very successful salesman. Asked about his best advice he told me: 'Expensive shoes. -pause- You will have to walk in them for many miles.'

CyberFonic
Demonstrate Compelling Value! Deliver something people WANT! Need is good, Want is much better.

Another vote for "SPIN Selling", good one asher!

Remember, if they don't have a need or don't have the money, no amount of persuasion is going to make you a profit. Difficult customers will bleed you on support, complaints, etc. At the end of the day, Sales is a Numbers Game, understand your sales funnel and cycle. If you can optimise it ... great, otherwise just keep filling the funnel.