Ask HN: How to learn how to sell?

[giansegato]

I've become convinced that "sales" is a pivotal skill that everyone should learn. You constantly have to sell: sell yourself, sell your ideas, sell your product, sell your vision.

However I see no easy way to learn how to sell. For sure the direct way seems preferable (learning by doing), but having a job already + living abroad makes it a bit hard.

Any tips would appreciated.

[muzani]

Selling is just convincing the other person that you have the (best) solution to their problems and that it's cheaper than dealing with the problem.

Good selling is invisible, because the customer convinces themselves. You don't remember why you picked your car model or why you thought an expensive sugar drink would cure your thirst better. Don't copy "salesmen".

Problem mastery: I once interviewed for a job selling oscilloscopes. The guy who interviewed before me was charismatic; I doubted I'd get the job. But I was the best pick because of technical ability. The boss said that sales was easy to learn, but the customers didn't care about your sales skill, they just wanted to know that you understood the oscilloscopes and weren't bullshitting them.

Dance: Nature has mating dances. There's a kind of sales dance too. It's a suit. It's a cup of coffee and a sandwich. It's "Are you free for a zoom call Monday or Wednesday? We give free t-shirts." It's the Product Hunt newsletter. The other person has to know they are being sold to and consent to it. The sandwich helps them think they didn't just waste an hour.

Storytelling: It's a natural way to communicate. Testimonials are the most effective. A video works too. A list of features works for some people (see dance) but it helps if they can visualize the solution. An effective trick is to inspect element their site and plant in your solution, then email them the screenshots.

Keep it short: A pitch is like a joke. The longer it is, the less impact it has. Cut out as many syllables as you can.

Follow up: Very often the timing is wrong or they have to compare options. Sometimes they won't reply at all. If there's one sales "trick" that works, it's following up.

[sagarpatil]

I can't stress enough how important following up is. Anecdote: I had a business owner send me 3 follow up emails, I was busy and I couldn't reply. When I got the third email, I was like f*k it, let's do it. Today, that email is going to make him $31,500.

[Invictus0]

I interned at an organization which was interested in purchasing a million dollars worth of oscilloscopes. Tektronix sent out two reps and I was in the room watching them chat with my boss. My boss basically just asked them about the different features of the scopes and their compatibility with our existing systems. So to your point, it's exactly true: the scopes sell themselves, it's just a matter of explaining how a particular model fits the needs of the customer and contrasting it with the competitor offerings.

[fred_is_fred]

> Selling is just convincing the other person that you have the (best) solution to their problems and that it's cheaper than dealing with the problem.

In a lot of cases selling involves convincing someone that they have a problem that needs solving. That's the more difficult part because the easiest (and cheapest) option is always just to not buy anything.

[tarsinge]

These are good points. Also don’t obsess with learning the “dance”, what is useful first is knowing how a sale cycle works and what is expected at each step, so it shows you are a professional that has seen others.

If you know a bit of the formalism then just showing you are competent and have a solution to solve the customer problem is enough to start making deals. The rest is optimization.

[artfulhippo]

> Keep it short: A pitch is like a joke. The longer it is, the less impact it has. Cut out as many syllables as you can.

Uh, are you into standup comedy? One-liners aren’t the be-all-end-all.

And seriously, institutional sales cycles at the 7-figure level often take months not minutes.

[IA21]

> Keep it short: A pitch is like a joke. The longer it is, the less impact it has

I see you're never read Nate the Snake: https://natethesnake.com

[awb]

Here’s what’s worked for me doing 7-figures in web design/dev sales:

1) Confidence. That only comes from knowing your product/service inside and out, you can’t learn confidence IMO.

2) Caring. It helps a ton if you genuinely care about your clients. Making some connection about kids, sports, books, etc. goes a long way. They start seeing you as a friend and you’re typically much more forgiving of your friends, which inevitably comes in handy at some point. Read the room though and if the client gives you short answers, move on to business talk. If they light up, keep conversing until there’s a natural break and transition back into business talk.

3) Reputation. A solid portfolio and written testimonials are huge. It’s worth it to pick up a cheap projects to get a good reference when you’re starting out.

4) Speed. Time is money. Write people back as soon as you read the email. My response times were sometimes only a few minutes and it impresses people and gives them confidence that they’re a priority for you.

5) Follow through. If you say you’ll get a proposal out by the end of the week, be willing to make sacrifices to meet that commitment if necessary.

6) Write super simple proposals. Your client cares about what they’ll pay and when it’ll be done and the scope of work. The rest is fluff, which isn’t bad, but make those 3 things front and center because that’s what they’ll be scanning for.

[perl4ever]

>Your client cares about what they’ll pay and when it’ll be done and the scope of work

So...what is up with the people who write an agreement for providing services with a price and no details about the work or when it will be done? And then it's like pulling teeth to find out what they will do and what exact equipment is included?

I read in various places all sorts of rules for doing business the right way, and I think, yeah, that sounds obvious, and then in the real world it largely doesn't seem to be practiced.

[clairity]

research (as learned in mba school) indicates that two qualities correlate to sales success: empathy and ego/competitiveness. the first relates to your points about caring and simple proposals. the second relates to confidence, speed, and follow-through (you want to score points and win).

selling is not that hard for most analytical-types if viewed as problem-solving where problems can be creatively coerced to look nail-like for your product/service hammer (not being off-putting helps too).

[runjake]

  > you can’t learn confidence IMO

I completely disagree. Anyone can learn confidence by directly addressing their own shortcomings.

[pgwhalen]

I have no experience in sales, but as someone who has been sold many things, the list seems really correct to me.

[jesterson]

It's funny how you didn't mention the product quality at all. Perhaps it's modern way to choose a product based on how sales person makes you feel vs. cutting the bs and assessing the product qualities.

[punkspider]

I liked this 5 video playlist by Louis Rossmann https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI9Z_fJ38lM&list=PLkVbIsAWN2...

He is an independent repair technician/youtuber/right to repair activist, and not a guru of some sort, and he's speaking from his experience here.

-

Salesmanship part 1 - Don't present without knowing the priorities of the customer

Salesmanship part 2 - Don't be NEEDY just because you're a salesman!

Salesmanship part 3 - Focus on the PAIN & MISERY of your customer!

Salesmanship part 4 - Give people MULTIPLE CHANCES to SAY NO to what you are offering.

Salesmanship part 5 - The customer is rarely RIGHT, but ARGUING always makes you WRONG!

[capex]

How do you give multiple chances to say no? Is it like persisting with further offerings or different pricing etc?

[rewgs]

I'm a freelance composer, so selling is just part of my job description. However, I kind of accidentally stumbled upon a good way to get your sales skills up to snuff:

Craigslist.

I really enjoying flipping instruments or anything else I know I can make a profit off of. It allows me to "rent" something I want to check out for a while, but still probably make a profit off of. Take a topic you know about or enjoy, find cheaper-than-usual examples of that thing (especially lightly-broken things that just need a bit of TLC), and then flip for a profit. You'll deal with all sorts of weird personalities, as is tradition with Craigslist, but doing just doing it on a regular basis really pushes you quite quickly to get your sales skills up to snuff. It's hard for me to even point to specific aspects of those skills in particular -- it's more a general mindset, an understanding of people's psychology, etc. You just get a feel for it -- or at least I did.

[jrvarela56]

This would be an amazing premise for an online course.

[abcc8]

I did the same with boutique guitar pedals for a time. Having and using each pedal for a month or so before flipping it ended up usually costing just the shipping amount in the end. It was a fun experience and I was able to indulge the hobby in an inexpensive way.

[dietdrb]

I arrived at the same realization as you--having sales as a skill is beneficial no matter the career path a person is on.

As developer of ~10 years experience, the path I took to get sales experience was to take a job as a sales engineer for a technical product in my software domain. It is the best career decision I have made so far.

My fear was that I would lose my technical knowledge, but I quickly realized that was not the risk I thought it was. I am consistently challenged by the breadth and depth of questions posed by each customer based on their unique needs. As a sales engineer, I learn more in my technical domain than I did at my last humdrum dev job.

And on top of that, of course, I get exposure and practice in this other side of the business and set of skills that was previously an enigma to me.

For me, sales engineering is the best of both worlds.

[blodkorv]

The hard thing about selling in my opinion is not the sell it self.

Its the things that sourounds it.

You need to be very organized and keeping track of multiple leads and their info.

Be able to remember dates and numbers in your heard in situations where you cant take notes.

Remeber names and places.

Not to be afriad of dealing with angry people or disapointed people.

Always be happy and social even when you have a bad day.

Knowing where you can reach leads and where to find contacts.

Knowing where to "start" when you have no customer base to go off.

Always always always follow up, no matter what. Dont let things slip from your fingers.

[aynsof]

I fully agree with this. I work with a lot of sales people, and this describes the best ones.

They are also the best at running meetings. They never let a meeting end without clear actions and owners. It's quite impressive to watch - I didn't realise how much skill there was in running meetings until I saw one of these folks run a few.

[berkeshire]

Benefits first, features later. A narrative rather than a list.

How will your product help the buyer? Why is your vision superior to others'? Where do your ideas plug into the prospect's work? How would you make that difference in the new employer's setup?

Or: Focus on the "why". Why should someone buy whatever you are selling. Not the "what" - as in, dont focus initially on "what are the features".

Why first, what later. And when talking about the "what" - more of a couple of key Unique Selling Propositions and then the checklist of features.

[Exceptions will apply where it is purely technical sales and features / standards / compliance carry more weight than the 'story'. The narrative then shifts to "being compliant"]

[gwbrooks]

If you can afford it: Sandler sales training. They're not the only solution, but they're very good and (at least in the past) part of your fee includes lifetime access to go back and retake the training, freshen up your skills, etc. (I'm not affiliated, but I did go through their training; it made me the best salesperson in my circle of small-consulting-shop friends and colleagues.)

If you can't afford it? Read The Challenger Sale, a data-backed look at the most effective techniques.

[allyourhorses]

Selling is a horrible misnomer, the process is entirely about understanding that you have something the other party might want, and communicating this effectively. You could take a shit hot salesperson and give them a garbage product, and force them to work an idiotic market segment and they'll sell nothing. On the other hand, you could take a person (like me!) with almost no interpersonal skills whatsoever with a solution to a very specific issue faced by people they're already in contact with, and they'll sell like champions.

So the whole framing of product and market, and communication media is way more interesting (IMHO) than 'selling' as an explicit skill. (And yes, I do "sell", but I'm not "good at selling", because my skillset is tied to a tiny handful of niches where I have this framing figured out)

edit: there's another bit that annoyed me about this post, and it's the idea of explicit 'selling' before having a solution to sell. It's something akin to putting the cart before the horse. Any selling opportunities I've discovered have always been in the pursuit of solving some other problem. I suppose basically if you have a genuinely good solution to any problem, selling is barely a skill worth worrying about. This is as true in interviews as in product marketing

[rpeden]

It's worth noting this can vary a lot depending on target market and deal size.

I've had the fortune of being in a tech role where I got to join plenty of sales calls. And I've observed that when selling large deal to large companies, selling is both a skill and a process and the difference between a good salesperson and a mediocre one is literally millions of dollars a year.

If you're looking to close large deals with good clients who you aren't currently in contact with (but who really, truly have a need for what you offer), it's worth looking at selling as a discrete set of skills including prospecting, nurturing leads, getting meetings, and closing deals. Closing can be an adventure even after a prospect said they want to buy. Shepherding a deal through an enterprise onboarding and procurement process is no walk in the park.

A lot of people see this kind of formal selling process as distasteful. I used to feel that way, too. But when I observed it in action it didn't seem like enterprise decision makers viewed the process negatively. They expected to be sold to and were generally receptive to it because the product met a need.

So as I mentioned, it's highly dependent on what you sell and who you're selling it to, but I think a wholesale dismissal of selling as a useful skill would be a mistake.

[solatic]

> the process is entirely about understanding that you have something the other party might want, and communicating this effectively.

More to the point, it's also about listening to what your sales prospect is actually looking for and helping explain to them how what you're selling fits their needs or wants, so that they'll make a decision to commit to the solution you're offering.

If you have no sales prospects, then you have a marketing problem, not a sales problem. Marketing is about explaining why your solution is desirable to as many people in the first place, ideally people who the arcane-black-magic-practicioners tell you are totally going to become sales prospects, if only they knew you existed. But leave aside reaching your audience - if you can't explain why you're hot stuff to somebody who is naturally inclined to want what you're selling, then you have a confidence problem, not a marketing problem.

[jliptzin]

Agreed. If your product just works, “sales” is a piece of cake. If it doesn’t and you find yourself hiring a fancy expensive charismatic sales team just to convince people to buy your product then that’s borderline fraud imo.

[taylortrusty]

I'm a big proponent of Sandler's methodology. The book is cheap and an excellent read. I use the things I learned in it every day:

https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Teach-Ride-Bike-Seminar/dp/09671...

[jamesleonard]

Hi,

Sales Director, previously head BDM roles and direct sales.

You are correct in thinking that it is a pivotal skill, anyone can learn. To add some simplified advice you learn by doing (as you've guessed).

You can read books, take classes etc, but so much of the practise is about interrupting the scenario and adjusting.

To get some practise with a full-time job, living abroad etc, do what you can. Obviously you aren't meeting in person, but try your hand at email outreach, cold calling, linkedIn messaging.

Unsure if you have a product or service to sell as yet, if not, make one up, think about whom the customers are, research the companies, understand the structure, try and understand how a purchasing decision is made at ABC company, and work backwards.

Never assume anything, details details details.

[Honga]

Sales to me is being honest, knowing when to break the corporate line, working outside of the job description to build trust (doing things like suggesting alternative solutions that may or may not include our product), and deliberately not knowing everything.

Your customer is the domain expert, not you, and you're their opportunity to further their expertise, and their representation inside their company.

It's fluffy, but in general it's hard to be tangible about something that is human to human. So I think selling is about being easy to talk to, and giving more than you take from the relationship.

(For context I was working on sales of 50k-1M)

[kypro]

Whatever you do needs to come off as genuine. Some sales people use their humour and likability to sell, others try to come across more professional and trustable. I guess to some extent it depends on what you're selling too, but I don't think all sales techniques would work well for all people. If you look like you're trying to run a sales routine on someone they'll see right through it.

I'm not great at sales, but for me working in a computer shop when I was younger helped me a lot. The key I found there was understand the customer's needs and reassuring them that you know what the right product for them is. If you know what you're selling and have confidence in the products you're recommending the customer will be likely to trust your judgement.

But I guess this wouldn't apply to all sales. I had the luxury of the customer already looking for a product so I was really just there to assist and reassure them. If you're cold selling my guess is that your personality will be far more important. In those cases you'll need people to first like you enough to hear you out. As someone who's introverted and a bit socially awkward I doubt I'll ever be great at that side of sales, but I'm sure a little door to door sales or similar would go a long way if I ever wanted to practise that.

A lot of sales is just good social skill though. Just trying to start and hold conversations with strangers would probably give you 90% of what you need to be a good sales person.

[ryall]

I recommend "The Introvert's Edge". The premise is to break down sales into a process, measure then iterate.

For me it removed a lot of the sleazyness feeling I had associated with selling.

[andrei_says_]

I recommend Kathy Sierra’s Badass, making users awesome.

The gist is, no one cares about the thing you're trying to sell.

anyone considering your offering is trying to get something done. Help them get their job done so well that they feel awesome about it.

The book is not fluff. Highly recommended.

Also look into the job at o be done framework.

[im_down_w_otp]

I suppose this framing may be generally true, but there's nuance that has very little to do with their nominal job in many cases. For instance, if you're selling a solution to certain ecosystems of software engineers, then you're not selling them a thing for the job they have. You're selling them a thing for the next job they want, that they want an excuse to play with at the job they're at.

All of which is to say, it's not always enough to look at a person's tasks and work to find high-value "pain points". Often you need to look more closely and a bit obliquely what their actual ambitions might be, and sell to that.

[hargup]

Skimmed the through the book, I felt the book is great about how to build a product, but selling is an orthogonal art. Unless you belive "Build and they will come".

Selling is especially important if you are in any kind of B2B business where the user doesn't necessarily make the buying decision. For example, if a company is buying a Customer Support software, the executive making the decision won't probably be using the software on day to day basis.

[dave_sullivan]

Read SPIN Selling and The Challenger Sale. Only 2 good sales books, takes a reasonably sophisticated approach of interviewing salespeople and then doing PCA on their responses to generate clusters of sales behavior and then noting "the challengers" are most successful.

[mathattack]

You can start by practicing selling ideas in your current employer or situation or non-profit.

My observation is Sales success is about understanding someone’s needs, more than pushing a product. As such, listening is much more important than speaking.

[geocrasher]

The book "To Sell is Human" is surprisingly good:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0087GJ8KM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...

It focuses on selling as a means of convincing people of your argument, whether a monetary transaction is the goal or not. I really enjoyed it. A company I used to work for offered a small bonus for having read the book inside a month. I figured if it was that important to them, I'd read it. I was glad I did! Plus I got a few bucks extra. That really sold me on the idea.

[Vaslo]

Remember that it’s about them, not you. Just because you find a feature useful doesn’t mean they will care. I can’t tell you how many software sales folks have come by hammering me about some feature of their software that they found really great that my team couldn’t have cared less about.

And make your customers personal when you can. Nothing makes a vendor less interesting then when I see an email begin “Hello, “ and then go into some spiel where they say they could save me millions without realizing I already have most of their genius already implemented through another tool.

[zahrc]

Quoting a comment I posted on here some time ago

You can learn about the theory of sales, I’ll leave the others to post it. Long time sales specialist here: Sales is situational and hard to generalise. There is an important social aspect to sales. You need to know your customer and be able to read their reactions. All individual customers are, well, individuals. They react differently, have different expectations and bring different experience and behaviour to the table. You need to adjust during conversation and be prepared for the worst case scenarios.