Jason Cutter’s new book Selling with Authentic Persuasion reveals that not everyone is cut out to be a salesperson, but often people struggling as a salesperson simply don’t realize that they are acting as order takers rather than salespeople. In these pages, Jason Cutter, who has years of experience managing call centers, leading sales teams, and selling himself, guides readers through the process of determining whether you are an order taker or have the potential to convert. in a quota breaker. And then it shows how using authentic persuasion can make almost anyone comfortable with sales.
One of the first problems Cutter addresses is that many salespeople are unsuccessful because they fear being the pushy salespeople they’ve experienced and vowed never to be like them. Another problem is that some people simply have not learned the proper sales techniques or fear that the customer will not like them if they try to make the sale. In all of these cases, Cutter has advice to train readers to change their mindsets and away from the fears that keep them in order taker mode to find new levels of success and happiness. By using authentic persuasive, honest, and empathetic techniques to help customers and determine if you can help them, make the transition from order taker to seller much easier.
What is an order taker? Cutter defines it as “someone who takes orders for a living. The fundamental principle that drives the order taker is to be of service, interact with people with the aim of helping them satisfy their needs or desires … An order taker it’s about the satisfaction of the other person. The order taker is not about making sure they personally get what they need or want from the transaction. “
Cutter identifies the “I really like helping people” and “I don’t like forcing people to buy” mentality as a deadly combination for a career in sales. Instead, Cutter says that “the goal of a sales professional is to help people achieve their goals, avoid pain, and ultimately end up in a better place as a result of dealing with us … [W]We don’t want to force anything, but we use certain skills to make people buy. ” Those skills can be summed up as true persuasion.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome in helping someone go from order taker to salesperson is the individual’s fears, and not just fears that we don’t like them for being pushy, but more deeply ingrained fears that we are They go back to our early years as humans when we had to get it. together with others in our community to survive because rejection by the group could mean isolation, which would ultimately mean death. Although those fears may be irrational in our modern world, they still prevent us from acting, as salespeople, in our best interest.
Cutter offers a brilliant exercise to overcome these fears. We have all heard of goal setting. Instead, you want potential salespeople to use a fear-setting technique. Setting goals means setting a goal and then determining all the steps necessary to achieve it. Establishing fear means taking your fear of what could happen to the extreme. For example, you may fear that if the person you are trying to sell to thinks you are aggressive, you might report it to your boss, who might fire you, and you may not find another job, and then you won’t. being able to pay your bills, making you homeless and ultimately starving, the extreme being death. Realizing how ridiculous this scenario is as a result of a customer interaction can help people overcome the fear of selling effectively.
Cutter then works his way through all the clutter that gets in the way of effective sales. Talk about how the customer may feel desperate to sell and then run away. He talks about how using manipulation will backfire on you. And then he focuses on what the real goal of a salesperson should be: “Your job as a sales professional is to help each potential customer overcome their fear of change and buy from you for the right reasons.”
If salespeople are scared, so are customers. Cutter believes that most of them fear change and know that buying their product will mean having to experiment and cope with change. Cutter says there are only two main reasons people decide to change: fear of pain or hope of profit. It offers advice on how to respond to prospects’ fear of change or that they have made the wrong decision so that you can guide them to the sale, with the belief that you are not pressuring them by something they do not need, but you are actually helping them. them to meet your needs.
Throughout the book, Cutter uses examples from various salespeople who learned to use the authentic persuasion tools described in the book. For instance:
“Carol realized that she could help more people by effectively moving them to buy from her. She knew that if qualified prospects didn’t buy from her, they would find someone else who probably wouldn’t care as much about them as she did. Carol learned that it was possible for her to care about her clients, address their concerns, stay in control and close deals. “
Throughout Selling With Authentic Persuasion, Cutter covers many other situations salespeople face, such as the importance of saying no to prospects you are unsuitable for, how to avoid buyer regret, and effective ways to generate referrals when converting. to delusional customers. fans. Much more is discussed in the book than I have space to mention here.
Having worked as a salesperson and then as a manager in a call center for many years, I wish I had read this book a long time ago. I am absolutely convinced that by following the advice in this book, anyone who wants to step up in their career and go from order taker to quota breaker will be amazed at their results.
