No one wants a mortgage. What they want is a house and a mortgage is a means of making that happen. This was the one thought process that allowed me to dominate the mortgage scene, when I was into that sort of thing. While my competitors thought prospects wanted a low interest rate, I knew they wanted a home, so that’s what I sold. 

In 2009, arguably the worst year on record to write mortgages, I closed 183 of them. It was the above mentioned thought process that allowed me to thrive in a time of peril. I sold results not a product. The result of my product was the prospect got to live in the home they wanted. So that’s what I sold. 

Too often times, salespeople get caught up selling a product instead of the results the product can produce. Most products aren’t cool. Let’s be real, mortgages, insurance, coaching, online learning, investments and 99% of other stuff we sell ain’t fun or cool. They are the necessary items it takes in order to achieve certain results. 

Selling a product is hard. Seriously, most of us sell something that isn’t even real. Insurance ain’t real. Payroll ain’t real. Investments aren’t real. They are just numbers representing money costing your prospect their hard earned cash. It’s hard as hell to sell products this way. If  you get caught up talking about your product, you’ll put the prospect to sleep from boredom. 

Same goes for my business today. No one wants to buy a program with 150 video training modules and dozens of scripts to read. We are all busy as shit. What people want from me is a fast way to get in front of more prospects so they can have powerful closing conversations with them. The video trainings are just the conduit to get there. 

Here’s the thing. As salespeople, we tend to fall in love and drink the kool-aid of whatever it is we sell. We love the shit out of it, but our prospects don’t. Think of it like dogs or kids. You love your dog or kid. You could talk about them forever. But your friends and family, who don’t have a dog or kid, don’t really give a shit about yours. Then, when you keep forcing them to endure you talking about them, they finally get fed up and flip out.

The same goes for your product. You may love it because you see the results it’s made in other clients, or in your life, but you need to sell those results not the product. Fall in love with the results not the product. in reality, you’re most likely in love with the results any way, you just think you love the product. 

No one loves insurance. Most of us hate it. It’s forced on us from the Government and banks. We have no choice but to pay it. So if you’re trying to sell me insurance, I don’t give a shit. But if you try and sell me a way to protect myself, my family and my assets while saving me a substantial amount of money I’m already paying, I might listen. 

We may sell a product, but we get paid from results. The better the result, the better the experience for our prospects the more likely they are to buy from us, send us referrals and repeat purchases. The product can be amazing but if the results it produces aren’t amazing as well, the product is considered shit. We live in a results driven world.

The sooner you start selling results, the sooner your closing ratios increase

Here’s some practical action you can take immediately in order to make the shift from product sales to results driven sales. First things first. What are the results your product produces? Take a few minutes and write down the results people get when they use whatever it is you sell. Not just the top results, but all of them. Empty your brain out onto the piece of paper. 

After you’re done, go back to the paper and next to each result write who benefits from it. For example if I sell mortgages and one of the benefits is having a place to raise a family, a family would benefit from my product. You need to list out each person and how they benefit. How the father, the mother, the kids, everyone in the equation. I need to know the results and benefits they will all experience, in order to properly sell to them.

So now you have a list of results and who stands to benefit from them. The last part is the how. We have the who, and the what, now the how. How does the father benefit from owning a home? How do the kids benefit? In what ways are their lives improved? Get as detailed as you possibly can on this. The clearer you are, the easier it will be to sell.

After you are done, I recommend looking at this piece of paper each day before you start prospecting. It will give you clarity and remind you what to look for when having a sales conversation with a serious prospect who wants to experience the results your product offers. Do the above exercise and make the shift to results based selling, from product sales, and you’re on your way to the top. This small shift will yield huge results. 

Take this with you when you go, we sell results not products. Product peddlers work in the middle of the mall. We sell results to real people who benefit from the products we sell. They want the result of our product, not our product. No one wants a drill, they want a hole. Sell the hole.