Has Your Client Sold You?

I spent the better part of yesterday in a training session and during one particular part of the course, I was reminded of one of my favourite movie scenes. The film is Boiler Room with Ben Affleck and Giovanni Ribisi. Affleck is giving his junior brokers a dressing down for their lack of sales and delivers this as his final thought:

“… there is no such thing as a no sale call. A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you a reason he can’t. Either way a sale is made, the only question is who is gonna close?”

There is a lot more to the scene, which you can click on the link at the end of the post to have a look (some of the language is NSFW), but it’s this particular statement that has always stuck with me.

If you’re fostering your client relationships right, not every phone call you make will be trying to sell them something. But nonetheless, this is a really interesting frame of mind to put yourself in.

Think about it when you next pick up the phone to pitch something. If you haven’t sold the client, has the client sold you on why they can’t buy your product? It’s not about being aggressive. It simply comes down to the questions you ask. Keeping in mind the 4 pillars of sales knowledge helps – understanding the market and client conditions can help you frame your pitch and anticipate objections.

And at the end of the day, if they still haven’t bought, they must have sold you. There’s a sales acronym, ABC – Always Be Closing. To my mind, it should be Always Be Questioning. But then I suppose ABQ doesn’t look as good on paper.

Watch the clip from Boiler Room here.