Sales is Like Watching TV

Recently I had a video deal go through—to my surprise, it was after 2-3 months of not talking to the prospect at all. And on the call I didn’t really interact or do much ‘selling’ as usual.

What I learned was that sales—is a lot like watching TV.

See, talking at the TV is useless. They don’t hear what you’re saying and the TV is going to show what the TV is going to show.

Much like this, once we’ve put in the groundwork for a lead, got on a call, created a proposal etc. Then our work is done. We need to simply sit back and ‘watch the TV’.

When I was selling door-to-door I would often stay in a set too long, trying to overcome every objection and I would. You can defeat every objection with logic and then at the end they say “we’ll need to think about this”.

Instead a more productive framework would be to generate interest, then let that play out.

Difference in Subtly

Letting something ‘play out’ is not to say that you shouldn’t put effort in or to say effort doesn’t produce results. Effort does produce results. Taking action produces results.

But over-effort can become a deterrent to success, especially in a field like sales. Try too hard and you look like it.

It’s not like sports, where your output is directly tied to how much you practice and how much you train.