What Childbirth Taught Me About Sales

This will probably only resonate if you’ve had kids. If not, you may want to skip to another blog.

 

Ok, still here.

 

You’ll be pleased to know that I’m not talking about my own birth (though that would be some story).

 

So, baby number three arrived last month. All well, fine, happy thanks.

 

The lesson for me came from the moment I called my parents, a good 12 hours after the birth.  I was high on emotion – like I hadn’t felt in a long time.  Despite having done this twice before.

 

So, why was it so emotional to call them?

 

I think it was because I had to form words to describe the exhaustive experience of the last 12 hours, beginning with the simple phrase:  “We’ve had a baby girl”.

 

Wrapping words around the emotion made the experience much more real in 3 ways:

 

1.  It solidified the occasion.

 

2.  It brought home to me what I should have already realised but hadn’t quite gotten hold of yet.

 

3.  The act of moving my lips and communicating this message brought the enormity of the occurrence more vividly to life than actually living it.

 

This got me thinking about sales: 

 

As you well know, when selling we have to help our prospective clients feel the pain that could be relieved by our help.

 

They will have experienced some pain, which is sitting somewhere in their mind.

 

However as I have recently learned, knowledge & experience doesn’t necessarily bring the problem to life:  you must get them to articulate their experience, gently coaxed out by your questioning skills.

 

When your prospective customers articulate one of their issues, they will achieve full recognition of its enormity and its effect on their working (and sometimes personal) life.

 

Putting the already-known into words, into detail, makes it more real than it was when unsaid.

 

It doesn’t change the facts but it makes them more apparent, more keenly felt and more important to address.

 

Please don’t shy away from delving, probing and doing your utmost to ensure your clients articulate their pain.

 

Words count more than you can possibly imagine – whether you’re having a baby or nursing a sale.

 

At Natural Training we can help you to develop your natural questioning and listening style, so that you are a world class sales performer.  Give me a call to understand more.