Sales Principle 2: Be Authentic. Be Genuine.

When you first set your mindset to help your customers as I discussed in Sales Principle #1, then you are on a journey to immense success. To make the journey more enjoyable and sales less of a grind, I firmly believe being authentic and genuine are essential.

If you are a complete bozo, I’m not sure what to tell you. Hopefully, this article can help.

This is more about building real lasting relationships. None of that fake stuff. Keepin’ it real.

At Skiplist, one of our core values is “Relationships over Money.” Easy to say but very hard to practice.

Everyone at Skiplist profoundly believes in our core values. This is our differentiator and what makes working at Skiplist a blast.

The Long Game

Salespeople are pulled in all kinds of directions. Hitting your yearly, monthly, or even weekly quota is difficult enough. How do you focus on relationships when your manager is breathing down on you to sell, sell, sell? Not easy.

The top salespeople and great companies understand deals don’t happen overnight. They take time. Our job is to guide deals through the process which on average can take six months or more.

Don’t get me wrong, even though deals take a long time that doesn’t mean you sit around. I’ll talk about pipeline management in another principle.

Throughout the length of a deal, you’ll want to be on constant communication.

Good solid communication is not going to happen if you don’t have a good relationship with your customer and you won’t have a good relationship if you are not really authentic throughout the process. Customers can snuff out fake. They will be less forthcoming with crucial information.

If you are not always focused on short term results and you genuinely care about your customer’s success. Everyone can feel it, and the oddest thing happens. Deals close smoother and become more predictable.

A salespersons’ dream.

Scaling Values

When Andrew and I were in New York recently, we spoke to Gary Vaynerchuck about scaling values in an organization. It was a fascinating discussion around how he leads by example. We could see and feel it with everyone we met in his office.

Imagine how VaynerMedia then treats its customers. I’m sure it is an excellent experience from the salesperson all the way to Gary.

There is no such thing as B2B really. It is all P2P or person to person. Authentic relationships matter.

Fortunately, there is a ton of opportunity as most salespeople focus only on the transaction.

As a final thought, I recommend never go through robotic scripts, don’t be transactional, be a giver not a taker, build a close network of people who love to help, and please never go through the motions.

Instead, be present, be thoughtful, be authentic, be genuine, and always hustle.

Cheers,

Fahad Shoukat @Skiplist #thoughtfulrevolution