Private lenders can use these five tips to accelerate their mastery of the sales process—and close more deals.

Sooner or later, everyone realizes the importance of knowing how to sell. It is a vital skill, and the sooner you learn the fundamentals, the better and easier your life will become.

The best way to acquire any skill is through personal repetition. You can expedite the learning curve if you approach the process with the right perspective and intentions. Here are five tips to assist you in shifting your paradigms about sales and accelerating your mastery of the sales process.

1. Build the Need

If you read any sales book or participate in any sales training, you’ll realize they all essentially boil down to a sales process dependent on the same four principles:

  • Discover
  • Educate
  • Recommend
  • Close

The problem?

Everyone skips the first step—that’s why you normally despise the typical salesperson!

Discovery is the most important step in the process. It is the step when you ask the prospect questions to discover their “why.” You are attempting to get at their core motivations. But you need to go several levels deeper than simply asking questions. You need to build the need.

Building the need requires asking a series of open-ended questions to help the client realize they can benefit from a product before that product is even brought up.

Think about the standard sales experience. The salesperson tells you about the product first and then gives you a list of reasons why it will change your life. But now your guard is up because the salesperson went into sales mode.

When you start by building the need, you discover the prospect’s pain points. Then, and only then, can you provide your product or service as the solution.

Practical Do’s for Building the Need

Here are some examples of how the “discovery” step can play out in a private lending exchange:

  • “I would love to help fund your deal! Before we go over those details, can you please share with me your prior experiences using private money?”
  • “I would like to know more about your business. If money was not an issue, how many deals would you like to complete in the next 12-24 months? What is your vision for your business?”
  • “Tell me a little bit more about your portfolio. Apart from this fix-and-flip deal we will be working on together, do you also have rental properties? Do you have any free and clear properties? What are your long-term plans for those?”

2. Nurture 2 Important Characteristics

A good salesperson has many attributes; however, if you have the following two, you’ll have enough of a foundation to start developing the rest. Here they are:

C _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

A S_ _ _ _ _ M _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Any guesses?

The first is easier to guess. It’s consistency. Especially in the art of sales, consistency is very key.

To be successful in sales, you need to stay consistent in areas such as:

  • The sales process
  • Marketing
  • Results
  • Drive
  • Reliability

Without consistency, you will have everyone guessing, including yourself and your clients.

Consistency is also vital because without it, the second characteristic will be almost impossible. That second characteristic is a strong mentality.

Why is having a strong mentality so important in sales? Because sales is a psychological battle. You need to be prepared to lose many more times than you will win. You need to be prepared for rejection time and time again and not to take it personally. You need to get out of your own head and into the mind of your prospect to understand their thoughts and perspective. You need to be mentally present and fully focused on the interaction, rather than on distractions such as what you want to say next.

Without these two characteristics, you will never achieve mastery in sales. Sure, you may possess other strong attributes and be above average. But to be the best, you need to be reliable (consistency) and have perseverance (a strong mentality).

3. Sell Value, Not Price

The natural anchor in any sales conversation is price. The customer will always gravitate towards the price. The mistake many salespeople make is to do the same—and then try to justify it. That is a terrible approach, and it rarely works. In any transaction, the value of the product must be greater than the price exchanged for the product.

So, focus on “value”—sell the value of your product or service. Sell yourself with the appropriate value, and do not diminish or discount it. Talk about the value for as long as possible, before disclosing the price for your product or service.

As a general rule, the earlier in the conversation price is brought up, the more it diminishes the value; the later in the conversation price is brought up, the more it adds to the value. If you add enough value throughout the conversation, and your product becomes the solution to their pain, they will pay whatever price necessary to attain it.

Practical Do’s for Selling Value

Here are some practical examples of how to talk about value in the private lending space:

  • “Regardless of what may be most important to you in this deal—speed, bringing the least amount of money to the table, having the lowest possible monthly payments—we will make sure we give you the best of all!”
  • “I can see that price is important to you. It is for us as well, but beyond that, I will make sure we take care of you throughout the entire process to ensure you get the best possible yield out of this opportunity.”

4. Focus on Behaviors

As a salesperson, whenever you focus on the sale, you lose all credibility. But, when you focus on the behaviors of the sales process, while staying genuine and authentic, the sale flows naturally as a byproduct.

Behaviors are KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that you fully control and can properly monitor, track, and adjust. In other words, focusing on the behaviors allows you to control what is within your power. But, if you focus on your desired result (the sale), you won’t develop to the next level. As hard as it may be to believe, the sale will be there more often when it isn’t the primary focus.

Think of Sales As the Ultimate Form of Customer Service

Understanding that sales is the ultimate form of customer service rather than the absence of it requires a 180-degree mindset shift. Most salespeople look at sales as the opposite of customer service. In fact, most salespeople detest customer service, thinking it gives the client the upper hand and is generally a waste of time because it doesn’t make them any money. Although logical, this approach only “benefits” you in the short term. In the long term, not serving your customer will kill more sales than it will save you in time.

Think about that for a second, and then take it a step further. Sales is a form of customer service.

What is bad customer service? Selling someone a product that falls below their expectations.

What is good customer service? Selling a product that is in line with the expectations of the client.

What is the best form of customer service? Selling someone a product that will exceed their expectations. In other words, it is selling a product they didn’t realize they needed because it solved a problem they didn’t even realize they had! Now, you have a customer for life.

Practical Do’s for Practicing Customer Service

  • “I love your deal, and I’m looking forward to working with you on it. I’m not sure whether you know this or not, but we can do multiple deals at a time (insert your own niche here). Let me show you how we help your business scale by creating a long-term relationship with us.”
  • “I know this deal is very important to you, but your reserves may be a little low. We want to make sure you have enough liquidity. Those rentals, as well as the free and clear properties you told me about earlier—have you considered refinancing those to lower your monthly payments or doing a cash-out to take advantage of all that equity? Let me show you what that would look like.”

The Formula

As you work to develop stronger and more effective sales skills, remember:

  • These paradigm shifts take a lot of work.
  • This is not an exhaustive list.
  • These five tips will work with any sales style or approach.

Apply these tips to your own company or circumstances. The beauty of sales is there isn’t a universal formula for success. So, create the formula that works for you—and reap the benefits!