Let’s say for now that trust is not an issue.  You’ve established a pretty good foundation and rapport with your potential customer, and they seem more at ease with you.  The next part of the process is assessing their needs.  There are really two parts to this step.  Understanding what they’re into in terms of your particular art, and also learning what their real motivations are.  This stage of the process is the first place where a professional salesperson begins to separate from everyone else.  The professionals use a secret tactic during this phase that gives them an advantage over most others.  This is the true key to sales, so pay close attention.  They listen.

My former manager, mentor, and friend Tim, the person who taught me most of what I know about sales, is fond of saying, “God gave you one mouth and two ears for a reason.”  I know he didn’t coin that phrase, but because of how much he taught me about this stage, I needed to give him some credit.  If you want to become good at selling people your product, listen closely to what they tell you, and remember what they tell you.  This is how you convince them that your art, your music, your book is going to be the right fit for them.  Let me make an aside for just a moment.  Your work ultimately may not be right for them.  They may end up hating your book, but how will they ever know if they don’t read it to find out, and how will they ever read it if you don’t convince them to try it?  When you are trying to sell a customer, your job is not to please them.  That’s customer service.  Your job in sales is to get them to try the product.  Even if they hate your book personally, there’s a good chance that they’ll give it to a friend or family member who likes it, so in the long run, they haven’t wasted their money.  As long as you are selling a legitimate product for a reasonable price and the customer buys it willingly, you shouldn’t feel guilty if they end up not liking it.

Now, back to need.  The first question I ask people when they walk up to my table at a convention is, “Do you like good action-adventure?”  If they say, “No” or “I don’t like to read” or anything other than yes, I wish them a good day and do not waste any more time on them.  I’m rarely ever rude, but those people are not potential customers because they do not need my book.  It’s simply not for them, and I’m not going to waste my time and energy chasing someone who isn’t a reader or doesn’t enjoy my genre.  It goes back to square peg, round hole.

If they do say, “Yes, doesn’t everyone?” then I will proceed to assess their needs.  I try to gauge their learning style  next.  If they are clearly a visual learner, I let them pick up the book and look at the cover, the back cover, the title page.  These people will also often look at my table quite a bit, my signs, my electric candles, my swag.  They are visually absorbing the stimuli and processing whether or not it’s for them.  For these people, I usually keep my mouth shut and let them absorb first.

Then, there are the active learners, those who learn by doing.  They usually pick up the book, flip it over and read the back.  Some like to flip open the book and skim a few paragraphs.  For these people, I like to hand them a copy of my reviews fairly quickly so that they can read them and add that information to their processing.  At first, I don’t talk a lot with these folks either.  Both visual and active learners wouldn’t really hear me anyway.  That’s not how their brain processes up front.

The audial learners are the ones who will ask, “So what’s the book about?”  They need to hear the explanation to process it.  For them, I have about a thirty second synopsis of my first book memorized to give them an overview of the story.  It’s short, to the point, and gives them just enough to make them want to know what’s next.  If they don’t seem interested once I’m done, I thank them for their time and wait for the next person.  Again, I’m rarely rude, but if the synopsis doesn’t grab them, they probably won’t like the book.

Notice something important here, regardless of which type of learner they are, I let each one show interest and move at their own pace.  That’s a big key to assessing need.  Rushing here comes across as desperate, and desperate people are the worst salespeople in the world.  I always try to lean back away from the customer, let them show me what kind of learner they are, and let them make the first move before I begin selling.

I’ll continue with the first half of assessing need next entry, and later on, I’ll provide some keys to look for when analyzing learning styles.

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One of my greatest assets as a salesperson is that trust is usually easy for me to gain.  Part of this is because I am a straightforward person.  If I don’t know the answer to something, rather than make up an answer, I admit it.  People tend to respect this admission and also tend to believe the rest of what I say more readily.  A great deal of my success in sales came from this approach of being honest with people, admitting my own limitations, and conducting myself as a professional.

Another important part of building trust is how you communicate with people.  In my experience, there are way too many creative people who talk down to “average” people, as if the artist is somehow more intelligent than everyone else.  Of course, there are dumb people in this world.  Of course, there are artists who are very intelligent, but there are also some extremely intelligent people in all walks of life.  Just because a person doesn’t have a formal education in a particular area doesn’t mean that person doesn’t have the curiosity or capacity to learn.  Here’s two quick examples to illustrate this point:

My grandfather was about 6′ 5″ and close to three hundred pounds.  He spoke with a fairly thick Appalachian dialect that descended directly from Middle English.  He was a expert marksman in his National Guard unit that served in the Korean War.  His highest level of formal education was high school, and he was a rural mail carrier for thirty-three years.  People who never looked beyond the surface saw an ignorant hillbilly and dismissed him out of hand, but anyone who spent any time around this man quickly learned that his curiosity about the world was infinite.  He knew as much about geology and botany as anyone I’ve ever known personally, and on more than one occasion, he amazed me by telling me what certain rock formations meant or describing in detail the varieties of certain species of plant.  He was also an avid bird watcher and kept at least three bird-feeders outside his front window to attract robins, blue jays, and hummingbirds.  The people who dismissed him as dumb missed out on one of the finest human beings I’ve ever known.

My next example comes from when I started graduate school.  On the first or second night of my first graduate level creative writing class, a group of us went to have a beer after class.  At some point, the conversation turned to Bluegrass music.  I’ve never claimed to be an expert on any form of music, but I enjoy listening to all kinds, and Bluegrass just happens to be one of my favorites.  However, either from a severe head injury I received in high school or just genetic defect, I have a terrible time remembering the names of people and songs.  It’s very frustrating for me, but one Bluegrass artist I greatly admire is Bela Fleck.  I love what he’s done bridging Bluegrass with Jazz and respect his ability as a banjo player.  On this particular occasion, my instructor, who had joined us at the bar, turned out also to be a mandolin player in a Bluegrass band, and rather than embrace me for my interest in his music, he chastised and demeaned me because of my apparent lack of knowledge as he rattled off name after name of musicians who I simply couldn’t recall.  I’m certain that I had heard many of them play, but that deficiency in my recall of names gave him the impression that I was not sincere in my love of the music.

I tell that story because from that point forward, I lost trust in what he tried to teach me.  His looking down his nose at me and talking down to me as if I were simple cost him my trust.  That’s something I’ve seen other writers do when they’ve encountered fans who didn’t have the same depth of knowledge of a particular subject.  If you want to maintain a person’s trust during the sales process, you need to talk to them on their level as if they are your equal.  Selling is not a pissing contest, and it’s not a measure of how much smarter than everyone else you are.  It’s about making a connection with a person.  To that end, find what you have in common with them and focus on that.  Talk about subjects that interest them and let them share their knowledge and passion with you.  If you do this, you will find that people trust and respect you a lot more than if you smack their nose and send them running with their tail between their legs.

To many of us, this sounds like common sense, but in my travels at various conventions, I have witnessed countless writers, artists, and musicians get into these kinds of ego matches with potential fans and customers.  In those cases, the sales process is dead before it ever gets started.

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The foundation of any sale is trust.  Without it, the potential customer will never move beyond the “just looking” phase, and trust is a very fragile thing.  It must be developed and cultivated throughout the sales process, but it has to be established first.  A professional salesperson achieves this in many different ways.  A car salesperson, for example, dresses appropriately for their business situation, and the good ones carry themselves with an air of confidence that says, “I know what I’m doing.”  Most creative people do not wear business attire on a regular basis, nor should they.  In most cases when it comes to clothing, what would work for selling a car won’t work for selling a form of art.  However, there are still things a creative person can do to come across as professional.

First and foremost, always look your customer in the eye and maintain eye contact as much as possible.  People who cannot do this, even if it’s just from shyness, come across as having something to hide, and few people want to spend their money with someone who seems shady.  If you have trouble with eye contact, work on it.  If you are good at what you do, don’t be afraid to look at your customer as you talk about your work.

Also, if you don’t already have a brief synopsis of what makes you a professional in your field prepared, you need to develop this now.  This synopsis needs to be brief and poignant, conveying in less than twenty seconds why you are qualified for what you do.  A good synopsis avoids personal information and focuses on your background in your field.  Mine is fairly simple, and I use it at almost every show I attend:  “I have two books on the market and am currently working on the third in the series.  I have a Master’s degree in writing from the University of Memphis and have worked as an English Instructor for over eleven years.”  That’s it. 

Obviously, this statement has evolved over the years, and if you are just starting out and feel like you don’t have much to offer, don’t worry.  Talk about your influences and study in your field, but don’t overload your customer with “data-dump.”  Few people have the patience to listen to your dissertation on the cultural influences of the Aztecs on Spanish pottery.  Just mention the names of your two or three biggest influences and be done with it.  If the customer wants to know more, they will ask.  If you are more established, avoid overwhelming your customer with all of your achievements, as this can be just as annoying and might make you come across as pretentious.  In terms of this synopsis, brevity is the key.

The most important part of trust sounds obvious, but it can sometimes be the most difficult to maintain.  Be honest about yourself and your qualifications.  Don’t exaggerate yourself or embellish your background.  You may get over on some people for a little while, but eventually, you will be found out.  If your credibility ever gets damaged, you will have a hard time getting it back, and in the long run, your career will suffer.  For those of us still in the early stages of our careers, we sometimes feel like we need to “puff-up” our accomplishments to stand out from the crowd, but in my experience, talent shines through in the long-run.  Trust yourself and your ability, and your customer will trust you.

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