Love Takes Time: A Key to Building Trust & Value-Based Selling

It is one of those songs from the ’70s that just makes you feel good! “Love Takes Time” was released by the band Orleans in March of 1979, and today it serves as a great reminder for salespeople. Because you know what else takes time? Value-based selling: the process of building trust on a sales call with a prospect.

Most salespeople believe two things about how they should conduct themselves on a sales call:

1. I need to do the majority of the talking
2. The more I talk, the faster I will get to the presentation, and the faster I will win the deal

Now, if you are familiar with Anthony Cole Training Group, you know that we could not disagree more with this kind of approach. We have known for quite some time that the most important distinction between great salespeople and average salespeople is the ability of great salespeople to ask great questions. Of course, these great salespeople are also great listeners.

Think of it this way – every time you are speaking, your prospect can make the conscious decision to ignore you. I am not suggesting they will interrupt you, nor am I saying they will throw you out of their office. But they can ignore you, even if they might act like they are interested in what you have to say.

But here is the good news: they cannot ignore their own thoughts.

Long after the meeting has ended, might the prospect still be thinking about the conversation they had with you? Might the prospect still be thinking about their problems, how long they have been dealing with those problems, and what happens if they don’t fix those problems?

That process has a name, and it is called the art of gradual self-discovery. It should be the goal of every sales call – to get the prospect to self-discover that they have a problem that they need to fix.

Of course, as the song goes…love…and a productive sales call takes time.

Maybe it’s time for you to slow down and work on value-based selling.

Now, go sell like a champion today!

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