What Is "Honest Selling" Anyway?

This is a good news, bad news situation.

Good news: More and more people are talking about honesty in sales. New books have been published. Blog posts have begun to pop. The idea of not being a salesdrip is starting to catch on.

Bad news: With the new entry of voices, comes the confusion of myriad opinion.

So I’m setting the record straight.

What “Honest Selling” Is Not

Honest Selling is not simply being honest with prospects. It’s not Consultative Selling. It’s not Solution Selling. It’s not High Probability Selling.

Yes, being honest is a component of Honest Selling. Yes, diagnosing the prospect’s situation (finding the pain) is a component. Yes, prescribing the solution to what you’ve diagnosed is a component. Yes, meeting with prospects that have a high probability of closing is a component as well.

But while these systems and Honest Selling share some concepts, they fall short of being true Honest Selling systems, because at their core, they are still focused on sales from the wrong perspective — that of the salesperson who wants to close more sales.

Listen up, salespeople. Because you need to understand this next point to truly get what Honest Selling is, and to begin to understand why Honest Selling outperforms all other methodologies.

Prospects don’t give a rats ass whether you close sales.

It is this self-centered perspective — how can I close a sale — that stops the salespeople who use these systems from achieving stratospheric success, because this type of me thinking creates a conflict with every prospect they meet. Prospects don’t care about you, they care about them. And unless you start caring more about them than you do about yourself, you will always have a barrier between you and unlimited success.

So What Is Honest Selling, Then?

Honest Selling differs from other selling systems in the following key way:

Honest Selling salespeople focus on helping their prospects make the best choice for themselves, even when it means sending them to their most hated competitors.

In other selling systems, the salesperson’s agenda and the prospect’s agenda are at odds — salespeople want to close sales; prospects want to make the best choices for themselves.

In Honest Selling, both parties’ agendas align.

It is the absolute, unconditional, in-your-gut suspension of self interest on the part of the salesperson that defines Honest Selling.

It is the true, service-minded attitude behind Honest Selling that produces the relationships that make Honest Selling work.

Counter intuitive? Yes! But the very best ideas usually are.

 

Gill E. Wagner, Sage of Selling
Founder and President of Honest Selling
Founder of the Yellow-Tie International Business Development Association