Sales training without tricks: your customer sees straight through it

Think back to the last time you bought something important. Not an impulse buy, but something you sat down for. Were you really listened to? Or did you mostly sense someone trying to hit their target?

You felt the difference straight away. That is exactly the point. Your customer feels it too.

There is a persistent idea that selling is about persuading. About the right opening line, the clever comeback to an objection, the closing technique that pulls the deal over the line. We have taught it to ourselves, and it gnaws at us. Because deep down you know: this is not who I want to be. And your customer, who these days has already looked everything up before you sit down at the table, sees straight through it.

I know that pressure from the inside. For twenty-five years I did sales, tens of millions in deals, for brands like Google, Microsoft, ING and Samsung. And yet my best deals never came from a trick. They came from genuine interest. From calm. From the simple choice to help instead of to sell.

That is the heart of honest and relaxed selling. Two core attitudes that lie at the base of everything.

Honest means that you genuinely care about the customer. About the puzzle you solve together. Set that as your goal, and you will naturally start asking the right questions.

Relaxed means that you let go of the performance pressure. That sounds soft. It is anything but weak. If you are relaxed, your customer relaxes too. The walls come down. Space opens up for a real conversation. And that just happens to be the place where trust is born.

Those two attitudes are the first two elements of the Customer Experience Model, the yardstick with which you get a grip on your customer contact. The other four are about your skills: your beliefs, your content, your process and your form. Together they determine whether someone stays a customer, or becomes a fan.

And no, this is not soft theory. Take entrepreneur Max de Weijer. He used to win 1 or 2 customers out of every 10 leads. Once he stopped pushing and showed genuine interest, that became 7 or 8.

Want to know where you stand now? Take the free scan and score yourself on the six elements. In five minutes you will see where the biggest gains are. And if you really want to master it, at your own pace or with your team, that is what the Sales Excellence Training is for.

Try it tomorrow in one conversation: leave your opening line and your closing technique at home, and simply ask what your customer needs. You will find it delivers more. And that it feels a good deal nicer.