Ep. 78 The Stern Truth: Stop Pitching Your Services and Do This Instead

We’ve all seen it. We’ve all heard it. We’ve probably even all done it. That constant barrage of selling your services right off the bat. 

My friends, we need to stop constantly pitching. Not to sound like an infomercial, but there is a better way. Let’s take the old way of selling - ABC, Always Be Closing. What if we tried a new ABC, Always Be Connecting?

I go headfirst into an example of buying a timeshare in Whistler. The way that timeshare was first presented to me didn’t sound like a pitch; instead, the salesperson was genuinely interested in me, my wife, and what our future looked like. 

I also go into why discovery calls shouldn’t immediately go into services. Why offer something to someone if you don’t know about them yet? As my mentor once said (and I often repeat), “Be interested, not interesting.” Ask people questions. Connect. Listen. It’s the best business strategy out there. 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Marshall Stern: Hi, I'm Marshall Stern and I've spent over 35 years leading and growing multiple small businesses. I know firsthand the struggles of entrepreneurship, feeling isolated, lonely, overwhelmed, and feeling like you have to do it all by yourself. I've been through multiple recessions, and I have felt the highs and the lows.

[00:00:24] I've been there, and I get it. This podcast is here to change that. Every week I will bring you straight talking advice, real world strategies, and honest conversations about what it takes to succeed in business without the fluff, the gimmicks, or the sugar-coated. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making real progress, then you are in the right place.

[00:00:47] This is the Stern Truth. 

[00:00:52] All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of The Stern Truth: Business Unfiltered. You ever have one of those days where you wake up in the morning and you check your inbox, your email inbox, or you're going to your LinkedIn and you, you, or even Instagram or Facebook Messenger, and you're bombarded with these messages from people pitching you, people trying to sell you their products or services?

[00:01:17] We have enough of that when we're scrolling, and we're seeing all the ads out there and people telling us to buy from them. You know, and then in the online space, the expert space, you know, the, "I can help you 10X your business," build, "I can help you build an eight-figure business." It's pitching. It's pitching, and you don't even –

[00:01:37] These people don't even know who you are or that you even have a desire or even a need for your – for their product or service. Here's the thing, and I've been doing this for a long, long time, you know, this business thing, for a long, long time. The Stern Truth is we need to stop pitching all the time and stop selling all the time, and instead, there is a better way, and it, it's a better way that it actually feels better.

[00:02:08] It's more authentic, and that's to connect. The old ABCs of selling was always be closing, right? Always be closing. The new ABC is my friend, always be connecting. Connect. Listen. There's nothing wrong with advertising, having promotional material out there. I'm not saying not to do that. If you have a program coming out, if you have a product or a service, if you want to put some advertising out there, some graphics out there, please don't, try not to AI it.

[00:02:41] Because it – the AI- AI stuff right now looks, they all look the same when it comes to the graphics. Or, you know, make it a little bit more your own. But here's the thing – that's just creating brand awareness. If somebody wants the product, they'll buy it. If somebody wants the service, they'll buy it.

[00:02:56] More times than not, especially in the B2B space, it requires something first. It requires a connection. I was recently on a coaching call with one of my clients, and we did a little role-playing, and she did her presentation to me trying to enroll me as a client. And at the beginning, she'd asked the question, "What's my objective?"

[00:03:19] But following that one question, she went into the pitch, showed her screen, all the different pricing options to work with her, and detail by detail, everything she will do for me. It was too soon. It was too overwhelming, I told her, and we slowed things down because the product – sorry, the service that she has, the packages that she has, and the outcomes she could help her clients with are tremendous.

[00:03:47] She's tremendous. But she, like so many people, falls into the trap of pitching too quickly, selling too quickly. I'm going to give you an example, a story, another story to show both ways of doing it. Many years ago, I went to Whistler with some friends, with my wife, with some friends, and it was one of these timeshare deals, right?

[00:04:10] You go, it's a free weekend. All you have to do is sit through this one-hour presentation. So ready to go for the presentation. I said to our friends, "Okay, we'll be back in a little over an hour." And my friend said, "You're coming back with a big binder." And I said, "No, we're not. We're here. We're just taking advantage of the free weekend.

[00:04:29] We love it. This is great. We'll just sit through the presentation, and that's it." So, a little over an hour later, we come back with a big binder, and we bought that timeshare. We bought into it, and we've been a member ever since. It's been almost thirty years. And the reason that we bought into it wasn't because of the pitch at the beginning.

[00:04:48] It wasn't because of this and this and this. It was because the salesperson didn't even talk about or pitch the services till well into the conversation. All she did was, she connected with us. She asked us about our li- lifestyle, our dreams, what we look for, I – you know, for traveling, our habits. She asked us, moving forward, are we planning – this is before we had kids. Are we planning on having a family?

[00:05:14] She helped us paint the picture of what it would look like to have – be part of this timeshare, this organization, and – it wasn't even being part of the organization – what it would look like to have this opportunity to raise our kids on these properties, going away year after year to these properties and not having to worry about it, having the consistency, the tradition.

[00:05:41] And that's what sold us, and that's exactly what we experienced over the next many, many, many years. My kids, we went back every year. Multiple times at times, and they grew up at this, this one particular property in Whistler. Fast-forward to about ten years later, 12 years later, kids were really young. We had an update meeting with the sales team, with the salesperson in this timeshare.

[00:06:09] But however, the company had sold to another company, a bigger company, one of the big hoteliers in North America. The experience was totally different. If I'd had that experience the first time around, we would have never bought. We – it was supposed to be one hour. For our time, they were giving us a gift card.

[00:06:26] I think it was a hundred dollar Visa gift card that we could spend anywhere. But I don't even think we stuck around for that. We left around twenty-five minutes into the presentation, all they were trying to do was sell us more points. Now, I get it, they're a sales team. It's not just a nice kumbaya, "Let's tell you all about the great services that we're working on," and this and that, and, "How can we help you here? How can we help you there?"

[00:06:52] Obviously, they're salespeople. They're on commission. They're s- trying to sell more points. But they positioned it at the beginning, "Member update. We tell you all about all the amazing things coming up with our properties and how you can benefit from it," and so on and so forth, and local places to visit, so on, so forth.

[00:07:11] Not one question was asked about us. Now, we had, our kids were probably, like, seven and, and four at the time, or seven and five at the time. They were still fairly young. All she did for twenty-five minutes was talk about the properties. All she did for twenty-five minutes was talking about how we could travel to Egypt, to Japan, to Sweden, and Switzerland, and all these amazing vacations, of course, that they would be, and we could spend weeks away, all as part of the timeshare.

[00:07:41] What she failed to do, my friends, is she failed to ask us what the first person did many years back, was what's our objectives, what's our habits, current habits, what would we like to see, what are we interested in, how old are our kids, and then paint us that picture of what it would look like. Rather, she just assumed we would want these glamorous trips, two to three weeks away in Egypt or Japan.

[00:08:09] Our thoughts at the time of being on an airplane with our young kids for that long, timing wasn't right. But she didn't even ask. She failed to connect with us. It was all about her and selling. She pitched from the start. Twenty-five minutes later, I had to stop her, and I said, "We're done here." So, instead of always thinking that you have to pitch and be interesting because you have something –

[00:08:36] I, like, say this all the time to my clients, "People don't care what you do necessarily." There will be a point in time that they will. Stop. It's like at going to networking events. Stop talking about yourself. People don't care. What they do care is that you are hearing them, listening to them. What they do care is that you're interested.

[00:08:58] What they do care is that you understand them, and maybe you can help them. Maybe you can't help them directly with your product or service. Maybe you can connect them with someone else who can. Maybe you have someone, like, to connect with them. How can you help them without being paid? Just be of service.

[00:09:17] Connect with people. We're missing this way, way too much. If you show up consistently – now, yes, you want to make it easy for people to do business with you, so you can't disguise what you do, but there will be a time and place for that if it's a fit. So, next time you go to a networking event, don't make it all about you.

[00:09:38] Be really interested. My mentor once said, "Be interested, not interesting. Be interested, not interesting." Make the other person feel good. When they ask you what you do for a living, try this on. Say, "Oh, I'll get to that, but I would really love to hear what you do." Change the story. People will be blown away. No one does that.

[00:10:01] Hopefully now people will because you're listening to this. I would love to hear your feedback. I'd love to hear your stories of maybe a sales conversation that went well and one that didn't go so well. Make your prospects, make, don't – not even prospects, people. Look, there's clients everywhere for us.

[00:10:22] Just listen. Eyes open, ears wide open, and just listen. Connect. The sales part of it, pitching your service, if they are interested, if they're a fit, you can do that down the road in the conversation or another conversation. But we have to stop always pitching and selling because it's so loud out there, and you don't even know if they are the right fit, and you don't even want to overwhelm them.

[00:10:53] So, connect with them. Connect with them. Love your feedback. Down below you see the links and give us your stories. Have a great week. We'll see you again next week with another episode of the Stern Truth Business Unfiltered. 

[00:11:11] Thank you so much for tuning in to The Stern Truth. If you found today's episode helpful, we would love to hear from you. Please like, share, and leave us a review. Also, if you'd like to be a guest in an upcoming episode or join us in one of our momentum accountability group sessions, simply email me to marshall@marshallstern.net.

[00:11:29] That's marshallstern.net. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep pushing forward and leading with confidence.