The goal of selling has always been to figure out the best way to get in front of customers, find out their needs, tell them about our incredible products, and to finalize a purchase order.

Most of the time we don’t think of Jesus as a salesman. If we take a deeper look though we discover that He was a master salesman. He sold something people not only wanted, but also desperately needed. The only difference was he’s not selling a product, but rather Himself.

Throughout the Bible, we see how Jesus went through certain stages in order to draw in engagement from His “customers”. In our original blogpost, How To Sell Like Jesus, we introduced each of these stages: Connect, Content, Close.

We’ve been going deeper into each stage to explore how you can effectively grow in each area. We started with How to Truly CONNECT With Your Customers. 

Now, we’ll move onto the second stage: Content.

Convincing the Customer Your Content is the Best

I’m pretty sure most all of us have had this happen before:

You’re in a meeting with a potential client, insecurity gets the best of you and so you anxiously go right to the brochure or powerpoint presentation. Basically, you’ve just “shown up and thrown up” on this potential client.

In this common experience, we try to mask our nervousness with our product competency and we lose the customer within five minutes. Yes, they are nodding their head, but they are not listening and you’re certainly not earning their trust.

Looking at Jesus, we see how He used some simple tactics to share content in a way that radiated passion for the Good News and spoke from a position of approval and confidence.

Here are three things that can help your client see that your content has the answer they are looking for:

Start with the pain points

As Jesus connected with various individuals, He could have rattled off all their sins naming them one by one. However, we see that His approach was different because it was directed to their pain point.

With the rich young ruler, Jesus talked about the man’s desire to gain eternal life and what he must to do get it. With the women at the well, Jesus talked about her desire for living water and to never thirst again.

Based on the information we learn from the customer, we need to start with the pain points and position our product and services to only those needs. If your solution to their biggest pain point is on page three of the brochure – start there. If it’s on slide eight of the presentation – go there first.

Don’t let anxiety cause you to needlessly go through content they don’t need to hear. Position your presentation based on their pain points. When you do this, you get to their felt need and can then show how your product or service can help.

Tell Stories

Jesus spoke in parables because they are meaningful and memorable. Instead of sharing only data, percentages and numbers, try to use customer stories to convey your point. Tell the story of how a customer saved 10% by using your product or increased revenue by 15% with your service.

By doing this, you help the client see themselves in the story. It becomes a living example for them. It gives them a picture of how your product or service could do this for them too. After all, we know that a picture is worth a 1,000 words!

How can you get more stories into your sales calls? Video testimonies? Case studies?

Speak Truth

We don’t have to look far in scripture to see where Jesus spoke truth. Sometimes though during our interactions with clients, we can exaggerate our product’s abilities. In the end this always comes back to haunt us.

It is crucially important to speak truth about your product’s abilities and even the shortcomings if asked.

I love hearing stories about this in action. Like the one about the sales guy who told the customer that their product wasn’t the right fit and directed to the competition. But low and behold, the customer bought future goods from him because they trusted him!

Good salespeople know their products, as well as their competitors’ products. However, great salespeople know how to truthfully explain their products in a compelling way that meets the customer’s needs and build trust by speaking the truth.

What’s next? 

Check out our final post where we take a deep dive into the third stage: How to Gain a Customer and Close the Sale. Here we take a look at Jesus and learn some incredible sales behaviors that can change how you close the sale!

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If you’re ready for help now with your sales calls and want coaching, contact Cory Carlson to learn more.