Storytelling is a great teaching tool to use in many fields, especially sales. In one of our recent pain workshops, a participant from a technology company shared a story about an experience he had in a large television store. This person came into the store to learn more about flat panel TVs, with no intent to buy. He just wanted more information so he could make an informed decision when it came time to buy a TV and get the best deal online, not in a store.

When our participant entered the store, he was immediately greeted by a salesperson, and before he knew it, the salesperson was telling him about all the great features and benefits of each widescreen TV. The salesperson never asked a single question as to why he was visiting the store, or if he had been there before. The seller was nice but never discovered any pain. All he did was say, “Can I help you?”, and then he proceeded to “spill his candy all over the lobby” and gave our contestant all the ammunition he needed to get his best deal online. The seller never had a chance to close the deal.

Too often, vendors try to make a living by spilling their candy in the lobby. They throw free information and advice and their own time, money and resources against a wall in the hope that some of it will stick. “If I go to enough networking events, make enough new prospecting calls, talk enough about my product, ask enough people if they need this for their business, and make enough cold calls, then I’m going to be successful.”

The numbers game is one way you can approach your career, but it requires a lot of work and often wastes a lot of time. On the other hand, the Sandler System is all about working smarter, not harder. Also, if you combine the same tenacity and work smart to uncover a prospect’s pain, you will become a Robo-Salesman. Armed with new and effective questioning strategies and proven sales techniques, you’ll uncover prospects’ problems and deep-seated emotional needs, pains, and desires for solutions (that you can provide). This will result in a drastic increase in your sales and a reduction in your work time and the stress that comes with it.

Another participant in our Sandler Sales program sells gauges to auto shops and other businesses. This guy is very meticulous and had a phone prospecting system that he followed diligently, but when he left messages, very few returned his calls. Sounds familiar? Well, this guy signed up for our advanced training program and carefully tracked all of his results. This is what he found:

After the first year of learning the Sandler Sales System, his sales market to auto shops experienced a 5% decline, however his personal sales increased 28.6%. Since he was working on direct commission, his personal income increased by the same amount. So his income went from $93,000 to $119,598. Our salesperson attributed this to learning how to leave an effective voicemail message, encouraging their prospects to call back, and it worked. After his second year on the Sandler course, his sales were up another 32.3% and his income increased to $158,228. Why? He became more effective at closing deals. In the first two years of the training program, he had increased his commissions by 70%. In short, none of his success would have happened without learning to discover the pain of his prospects.

By the way, if you’re one of those people who think “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, check this out. This guy wasn’t a kid. He was in his late 50s when he started learning the Sandler way, and yet he made those drastic improvements. I am pleased to say that 14 years later, he continues to attend and take advantage of our President’s Club classes. This sales leader is committed to staying ahead of his industry’s sales knowledge curve and providing for his family, himself and his own retirement.