@thesotiris 22 September 2025 more from that month

How to Do Sales 1: Who owns the decision?

The problem with sales is that the majority of salespeople don’t know and don’t understand sales at all. Especially in high-ticket sales and B2B sales, I’ve seen salespeople who don’t know what the hell they’re doing — no strategy, no plan, no workflow, no connection, just a generic aim “to sell more”. The only reason they manage to make a few sales in their workweek is that they are instinctively good with people, or they somehow happen to find themselves in an inevitable logistics chain — and that’s about it. Others are great at being ass-kissers, which unfortunately works. You can sell most people almost anything if you only tickle their narcissism. That’s why so many of us keep buying the wrong things and the wrong people. But people skills or flattery do not satisfy **the objective of sales**: To figure out if the offering matches the prospect’s demand, or if the solution sufficiently addresses the problem. **The goal of sales** Did you think that the purpose of sales was to sell? It’s not. If you keep this mindset, you will be limited to quick “bad” sales at the expense of long-term trust and reputation in you and your offering. “Bad” sales are the result of spontaneous, ill-informed buying, usually when the buyer is too excited and emotional during the purchase, which means they are likely to experience buyer’s remorse. They will either blame themselves for this costly error or blame you. Either way, your offering will be associated with a negative experience, and so will you. Long-term sales strategies are not about selling to just anyone; they are about finding only the right people for whom the offering is the ideal solution. It’s about discerning whether a prospect truly wants what you sell. Your aim is to sell ONLY to those for whom your product is the ideal solution to a problem they experience, a problem that is unique to them. Right off the bat with this mindset, you dissolve the salesperson’s desperation, and you add an air of qualification to your offering, which makes it scarce and therefore more valuable. People value more what they feel they need to qualify for, even if they have to pay for it on top of it all. **You must make it clear that you understand that the problem solved by your offering is a result of** ***their*** **personal circumstances**. You take the time to listen to their pain points, their problems, and their limitations, all to see whether what you offer can help them or empower them. This is how you build trust, especially if you are genuine about it, if you show true care about learning what their predicaments are. ***A sale that results in buyer’s remorse is worse than no sale. A bad sale costs you more in endless returns and refunds, and when these are not possible, you get irreparable damage to reputation, loyalty, and future potential sales.*** ***With each sale, you risk your reputation. Make sure that each sale is accurate and that it will truly prove worthwhile to the buyer.*** **Flattery** Your goal as a salesperson is not to satisfy people; it’s to satisfy their want. Don’t be a people pleaser. You are there to help them solve their problem, not to flatter them. Yes, flattery works in the short term, but it wears off quickly, by which point the flattered will see through you and feel deceived by you. **The decision** You don’t own the decision on the sale. Your prospect does. Don’t *tell* them “this is right for you”. Ask them if they think this is right for them. A key aspect of sales is to let your prospects make their own mind about whether or not what you offer is good for them. If it’s their conclusion (not yours) that your offering is right for them, they are more likely to stick to the decision, and more likely to value the purchase long after they’ve made it. You, as a salesperson, must not directly *tell* them that what you offer solves their problem. **Self-respecting people don’t appreciate being told what they want**. It’s arrogant to presume to tell strangers you know what they want more than they do… Sure, telling people what’s good for them might work with the impressionable ones, but they will then experience buyer’s remorse after their enthusiasm for your people skills fades. You must, after making the effort to hear them out, **ask** ***them*** **if what you offer can solve their problem**. You don’t just announce that your offering is the solution to their problem. You can’t know if your offering is good for them because you are humble enough to acknowledge that you don’t know them as well as they know themselves: you know your offering, not them as people. Thus, you need to ask *them* to tell you **if your offering is good enough for them**. This gives them the power, grace, and ownership of the decision. They will appreciate the respect you show them. This is how you do it: After you’ve made the effort to figure out their unique challenges and problems, and then checked the boxes to see how your offering addresses those challenges and problems better than your competitors’, you present your case to the how your solution addresses each little nuance of their predicament, and then ask them: “What do you think? Does this solve your main problem of …?” **Self-disqualification** Show them how your offering solves their problems, and let *them* decide if it’s OK for them or not. You might have to **disqualify yourself and admit that you’re not sure whether your product solves a particular aspect of their problem, or their entire problem**. It doesn’t matter if you lose a sale — if you lose it, it’s not because you “admitted” it wasn’t for them. You would have lost it anyway, even if you lied that it was for them (or worse, you would have made a bad sale). Disqualifying yourself might cost you a quick, meaningless sale (that will bug you with returns and unsatisfied clientele), but you build long-term trust when you honestly admit to prospects that your offering cannot help them. And again, disqualifying yourself shows you’re not desperate to sell, which makes you and your offering all the more valuable. Scarcity is value. **Conclusion** Don’t declare to your prospects that your offering solves their problems. Your job as a salesperson is simply to list all the ways in which your offering addresses each aspect of their pain points, their problems, and then ask them if they think it solves them, without pressure. Don’t claim you know their problems better than they do by announcing that your solution is good enough for them. It’s *their* decision to make. This way, they feel they have **ownership over their decision to buy**, so they are more likely to want to buy, to want to pay, and to stay satisfied with their choice.