I know professional salespeople know all of the basics, but sometimes they get so used to being on automatic pilot that they forget to use them and begin shortcutting the process. It is then when sales slumps occur and getting back to many of the basics helps to get back on track.

Nobody wants to be sold anything. The last thing a consumer, a business owner or even a professional buyer wants is to feel like they are being sold something. Encountering a pushy salesperson makes you feel as if someone is doing something to you, that given free choice you would choose not to do. Giving the buyer an opportunity to say no, removes some of the feeling of being manipulated. But even better from a salesperson’s perspective is having the ability to “walk away,” from the prospective sale. This lets the prospect pursue you and actually buy the product or service rather than feeling pressured in into buying or being sold.

Because people do not like to be sold and most salespeople fail to recognize this simple fact and continue selling, buyers come up with objections that kill or stall the selling process. Those stalls most often used are the ones that each buyer has found to be most successful in pushing the selling process to the side and break any chain of communicative obligations. The best one in current use is some form of “I have no money” but in B2B sales it sounds like “My budget is spent.” If you want to see the best human imitation of a deer caught in the headlights, tell the next enthusiastic salesman you encounter that your budget is spent and you have no money.

All professional salespeople know that people buy not based upon logic but upon emotion, yet the logic of “I have no money,” stops nearly every salesperson in his or her tracks. Why? Because most salespeople are just too lazy to sit down and craft an empowering response to that question. If the opposite condition existed and the prospect had all the money they needed, then a truly hard objection would be tossed out. Since most products and services either make or save money for those who buy them, the lack of funds on behalf of the prospect further justifies why the salesperson should continue to push to make the sale. A prospect that neither needs to save nor wishes not make more money, in the end is a much harder prospect to sell.

Prospects generally don’t offer objections because they are true they offer them because they work, i.e. they stop the process of a salesman selling them something. If the salesperson allows an absolute objection to be spoken, they kill the prospects ability to buy. Never will a prospect who has declared the lack of funds, do a 180 degree turn after hearing more product features and admit to being less than truthful. Leading a sales conversation to the point of an objection is one of the best ways to lengthen the sales process.

People do not buy products or services. They buy solutions to real or perceived problems. If you continue to focus on your product or service, your prospect will quickly become bored and disinterested. If on the other hand you delve into the prospects problem and dig deeper into the consequences of not addressing the problem, you will soon discover a prospect that is looking to purchase a solution. You can only get to that point by being trustworthy and not uncovering the problem just to offer a solution.

Most salespeople are uncomfortable talking about money. As silly as it sounds, most salespeople would rather not have to talk about price, the very thing that pays them for their efforts. This leads to the prospect wondering why they won’t mention price. The obvious conclusion most often is that the prospect believes the price isn’t mentioned because the salesperson expects an objection because the price will be too high? So in avoiding the price discussion, the salesperson is creating an atmosphere where the buyer with justification or not begins to question the price before it is even mentioned.

Payment terms are another topic most salespeople avoid. Again the avoidance leads the buyer to speculate the worst and begin building a case against deciding in favor of the product. The unspoken when it comes to money causes many problems when its time to consummate a transaction.

This morning I read a tweet on twitter that referred to the words “pull” and “push” in terms of selling. Those who are not into selling usually do not understand the difference or the distinction made by using these words. Let me give you an example. For push selling, we can all identify with the sales rookie who shows up at every social gathering to grab you or your spouse figuratively by the collar and give you a non-stop litany of reasons to buy his product. Truly the atypical bore a “push” sales approach is what gives sales its bad image. Unfortunately, far too many new salespeople only understand the push strategy of sales.

Pull sales techniques can best be described as seduction. Not only do you not have the feeling of wanting to jump and run away from the practitioner, you are actually drawn to their attitude of “I’ve got it and you don’t.” The better pull sales techniques actually make you ask for the product.

The first style makes you feel like you were sold something, the latter makes you feel like you found a rare opportunity that you might even want to share with your friends.

I have a dear friend and excellent salesperson who once worked for me. She has a naturally charismatic smile and personality. But every once in a while she would call me all frustrated and depressed. She was in a sales slump and I could immediately tell she was pushing her prospects. Even though she knew her product was the exact solution these prospects needed, she pushed so hard that they intuitively resisted. Every reason she gave them to buy, was received like she was pushing them in the chest and taunting them. Their defenses went up and they dug in their heels in resisting.

I could not tell my employee what was wrong right off, because she was too intent upon helping her prospects. I had to play a trick on her. I picked a topic I knew was always on her mind, her weight. Like many women she had an obsession about maintaining her figure and was always depressed about where she was in what she viewed as her battle with weight. She spoke about it often and knew that her aversion to committing to an exercise program made her weight program difficult.

So I listened to her complain about her sales problem until she had finally released most of her frustration. Then I guided the conversation to her “other nemesis,” weight. As she complained that she need to drop three pounds (believe me she didn’t, she looked great), I jumped in and said I thought five or six days at the gym would take care of her problem. She agreed, so I pressed and said I would be more than happy to put together and list of exercises and routines that would get the pounds off. She resisted so I pressed harder and said, really I was tired of hearing her complaining. Was she committed to losing the three pounds or not? I really pushed her to start that day. She said she’d think about it and was ready to hang up when I said¸ “Wait.”

I told her I wanted to talk about her sales problem. I asked her to describe how her prospects acted when she pushed them to do, what she knew was right for them. She said they acknowledged but became a little distant. So I asked what she then did. She said she pressed a little harder because she felt they were so close to buying that all she needed to do was press a little harder. When I asked what happened then, she said they acted like they wanted to get away from her. I asked her if they reacted like she was literally holding them by the collar and they were trying to get away and she said, “Yes.” I then asked if she thought they might feel emotionally like she did when I pressed her to do my exercise program minutes earlier. Silence….,

I love “ah-hah,” moments. When I first discovered them it was a pleasure seeing the recognition in others eyes as they get it. It was a great thrill to be able to witness their recognition. Now I don’t even have to see others when they get it. Their words, lack of words and/or even their breathing convey the same thing.

Of course this particular salesperson is one of the salespeople I know using pull techniques. Her clients buy from her, she never sells them. They love the she seduces them with the results her product offer. She let them know that getting those results are entirely up to them, because she is not going to push her products onto anyone. When she walks into a room, her clients and prospects migrate toward her rather than our “push sales” guy, who cause a stampede of people moving away from them.

Too many people, salespeople, think because you can talk, you can sell. It’s not true. Selling involves much more than talking, at least pull selling does.