What did you think SALES WAS? It is a handbook which is written by AJIL A L, in which he has faced a lot of challenges while along with corporate sales. This is a handbook for people who are struggling to make sales and have been underconfident about the work which they have been. Once upon reading the book, you would get an idea of how and what are the key features of making sales. Go through the chapters and implement them in your work and daily life to be successful in life. Success doesn't mean that you are earning millions, success means you took the first step rather than looking at the road how long it is.

2. Copyright © 2020 Ajil A L All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons,
living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express
written permission of the publisher.

3. What we really think is that sales are always about the numbers or trying to reach the target.
Perhaps, it is but; it is just one part of the sales. Sales always have two parts just like two sides
of a coin. On one side you can have the prospect you have converted to a temporary revenue
generated customer or on the other side, you can have a prospect really converted into a
customer by listening what exactly that person wants so that the customer is there with you for a
longer period of time and generating more business than the temporary revenue customer.
Many people think it depends upon one business model to another model that a prospect who
signs in should be there for a longer period of time or not. However, it always depends on how
the prospect is treated first, was that person offered ‘freebies or discounts’ which is always a good
thing to do, however not always nor on the very first interaction. If a business doesn’t have a
model which is into recurring revenue making then the prospect can be listed in your good contact
list, as the prospect will always make sure if that person comes across any other friend or family
members, it is for sure that person will recommend your name for further business and so on.
Having a customer is like having a family member because the same way when you need help
you can get help from the family or vice versa, same it is for customers, they will refer the firm or
an individual whenever they come across issues and if any of their known ones need help they
will promote the business if that individual or the company actually have helped the customer or
prospect to resolve theirs.

4. The following 10 chapters will actually help an individual or a company in getting more better
conversions with any sort of business model.
01. Why should anyone listen to you?
02. Desires and Understanding
03. Door in the Face Technique
04. Large request Technique
05. Buzzing Technique
06. Commonality Technique
07. Letho Nomia Effect
08. Cynicism Effect
09. Charisma and Confidence
10. Persistent then Consistent

5. Why should anyone listen to you?
Just ask this question to yourself. The answer to this is the benefits which they get while doing
those actions and also telling them the problems which will get removed if they take the action is
the only way they will listen to you. We human beings totally believe in taking the right or
precautionary action so that we don’t have any failure or monetary loser, rather the person wants
to try to get the satisfaction through the money which a person has spent.
When you try to combine both it mostly prospects buy anything for the temporary happiness rather
than permanent happiness because a sale is done when the representative is assuring that the
problems will be solved if they take the action at the current moment.
Let’s take an example of a married couple, the wife wants to eat outside so she tries to convince
her husband since he doesn’t want to go outside because of a bad headache working in the
factory. So, the best way she can convince him is by saying “Hey! Honey how about we go to the
restaurant tonight so that you can relax and for me to cook it will take a lot of time and we would
have to wait for a long time rather we can eat outside and get you head spa to ease out your
headache.”
So, if you look at the example, in every sentence we should add the benefits of what the other
person would get and the problems at the same time if they are ready to take the action. Let’s say
if a person is with a prospect and you have a massage service to provide and you want to pitch
in your new recurring service. You should be saying the service which you provide weekly will
help the prospect of getting relaxed, as this service is a stress buster. Also, giving an additional
service that you had to pitch for his back problem, you can say with every appointment we would
be improving on the back pain and giving you a guarantee that it will ease away.
So, selling anything to a prospect everyone should be expanding the benefits in small areas that
they don’t even think in their wildest of their dreams. Taking another example let’s say if you are
into providing online marketing services what all can you tell a prospect the benefits: it will help
you in getting more customers additional to what you are getting; you can leave one aspect to be
taken care of by our company; once you see more business with the company you can look into
ways of expanding your business like the competitors, by giving the person more ideas about new
upcoming products will make him think that we are actually caring for them; etc.
So always try to make sure that two things are done one is providing the maximum benefits and
resolving the problems which they are facing that is the only case the prospects will listen to you.

6. Desires and Needs
This is will be somewhat similar to what we had gone through in the above chapter, understanding
what your prospect needs and what exactly is desire. Because I have listened to many
salespeople who actually want the sale to be done in the first meet and want the prospect to be
influenced through their talks so that the sale can be done, but at times it never happens or let’s
say even it happens the customer doesn’t stick for a long time. What exactly we have to be doing
is rather than talking to the prospect we should start listening to their problems, needs, what are
they trying to achieve through the business. Ask questions in a way so that they don’t get offended
like what exactly their desire is, what they are looking to achieve through your product or service
if they have tried any similar services then why they were not happy, and all the excuses which
they had for not working with the last company.
Once you know the reasons you can add that in your pitch later and then try to influence the
people. You can tell them the services or products will help in providing simpler daily talks, help
in removing the stress, help you in saving time.
Giving an example which I recently had encountered was I had gone to buy a mobile phone for
my family member and the sales rep started off with that we have so and so brand but never
asked for whom the mobile phone is for, what is the budget I am looking to spend, what platform
I am looking to buy, etc. However, the sales rep could have asked, how much I wanted to spend,
why I wanted the mobile for (performance or camera)? The sales rep never was able to
understand what exactly I was looking for, if he would have asked me these questions first, he
would have shown me my range of phone along with the specs which I was looking for.
So, I would highly recommend listening to the prospect first and understand what his needs,
desire, and problems are after that ask questions about what exactly the prospect is looking for
and provide those solutions in your services what you are trying to sell. The most important thing
or you can call it an Ace card of any selling is Empathy, always show that you actually care for
the business and show them how growing their business will help you grow yours. There can be
circumstances where we have to be like ‘I understand that you are in a bad state right now, but I
would like to help you at least resolve a few which things which I have been helping others for the
past so and so years. In this way addressing what the person wants is really powerful because it
is human nature that the person will think that you are somewhere understanding.

7. Door in the Face Technique
The Door in the Face Technique is basically used to put across a message in such a way that if
you give something there is a high chance of getting something in return. But Why ???? would
someone return back something; there is two reasons (1) Kindness towards everyone. (2) People
usually don’t want to appear selfish. This is also known as the Law of Reciprocity.
We can easily use this to our advantage. How?? First, give something for free like a sample or
similar case study which shows them that they can believe in your services or products and then
the sales rep can start pitching the services or products to the prospect what they are actually
wanting to sell. The more value you try to give more chances of getting the conversion done.
When I have been doing sales, I use to do give out freebies to the prospect so that I can make
them believe how I work and then show them the packages which we have and tell them to decide
which one they want to select.
There have been case studies to prove the Law of Reciprocity for example, if a girl gives a boy
one rose flower, it is obvious that she would not get one but get a minimum a bunch in return, so
the return will be higher.
So always be generous with people so that you can have maximum output.

8. Large request Technique
In order to make a sale halfway, the Large Request Technique is used. So, for example, if you
want to asks someone $700 for your service? What you should be doing is instead of asking ‘hey
can you invest $700 for your service’, what you can say ‘would that be possible if you can invest
$2000; then the person would say that he doesn’t have it. Then you should ask ‘what about if you
can invest at least $700 which is our lowest price? Then the response would be for sure because
for him doing the comparison thing in the mind $2000 is very less compared to $700.
What exactly happened in the above example is that you have to pitch someone in which you
have a low chance of acceptance, then they will do a comparison in their head and we get what
we actually want. So, what will happen is that most people are not really comfortable, they don’t
say NO twice. In the person’s mind it will be going on that I already have told a NO once for $2000
and now the person’s intuitions say that says that at least I can invest $700 which is the least
price and check (because as I said earlier comparison for $2000 and $700).
So, now it would be up to everyone how to use it in your business life or normal day to day life.
But overusing everything has it’s consequences because if you start manipulating people it is not
good at sales. This is something which you can use only if you would be really in need of it.
A series of an example where people have been using this technique is while searching for an
apartment for rent, brokers show you a very pricy apartment which is not in a very good condition
then, they show you something which is less pricy and better condition. In which usually people
think that this is a better opportunity when they compare it.
Another example is which usually happens in offices at the time of appraisals, managers usually
tell that they have an appraisal percentage max which they can do is 8%, however, the employee
working under him doesn’t agree to for which a counteroffer is made of 14%. Then a fake meeting
is done to build the pressure and the manager comes back with 11% as the maximum which the
employee agrees to.
Think about it how to use it in different ways like the comparison to the competitors with services
or freebies etc which you are providing and how you can push their business to the next level.

9. Buzzing Technique
In order to make your service or product sellable, you can use the buzzing technique in which the
product should sell itself, sales reps are mostly the catalyst which brings it to life. So, let’s take a
couple of scenarios in this technique:
Scenario 1: If a customer looks at a service and thinks that this service has not been bought by
many people, so I shouldn’t be buying it may it is not of good quality.
Scenario 2: 1% chance is there that many people would love to try which others haven’t tried but
the service or product has to be niche.
Scenario 3: Customer looks at a service or products and says they have a lot of reviews and since
many people have already tried it a long time ago, maybe I should also be trying it.
Scenario 4: Customer looks at the service or products and says that they have a lot of reviews
but can’t say if it is legit or not, but when finding video testimonials is what becomes the decision-
maker.
In the same way usually, people do buy products or services based on what other people say or
who have used and another way round is that many companies have displayed on the website
that they have served X number of customers which is really good.
So the power of the Buzzing Technique is creating a buzz about the product or service so that
the new customer can get in touch with providing references about the people who have bought
similar services or products. They would think if it can work for them then it should be working for
him as well.
Now think about how you can use it in your personal life. Is it about that that people already tried?
Are you waiting for a lot of reviews and then you could? Is it about a lot of followers on the social
media channel which is influencing you?

10. Commonality Technique
If you want to have a friendship with the people around you, then you have to know what actually
friendship means??? Friendship means having people around you with a lot of commonalities or
you can say common traits then is the only case anyone makes friendship with someone. If
anyone who doesn’t like behavior or a trait in another person, it is less likely to create friendship.
In the same way as friendship if you doing sales you have to be a bit versed about what is going
on in the world so that you can commonalities between you and your prospect so that your
prospect start taking interest in you.
In order to know your prospect, you should be asking questions for which you would be getting a
common answer. There are actually sales rep lies about things which are not common between
the prospect however tries to make it common between them. So, the different questions which
you can ask them are about the interest in automobiles, parties, animal lovers, paintings, songs,
foodie, plantation, etc.
Another way of talking to a prospect who is running personal services is doing groundwork on him
and searching about his business and then reading his bio if it is public you would know what all
he is into and then if you have anything in common to the slightest interest you can open up and
talk about it and then slowly start talking about business.
Let’s say for example if you didn’t get a chance to explore the commonality or you don’t talk much
into the prospect then the best you can do is talk more and more about the daily thing which is
going on across the globe so that the more interesting conversation you have, the more chances
of the customer opening up.

11. Letho Nomia Effect
Letho Nomia Effect is a term in which we tend to forget the names. If your level of interest is high
in a workplace or if you have a passion for work, then you have a key to a good memory. The
more interest you show in a workplace, the more likely it will imprint itself on your brain.
In the same way, whenever you talk to prospect the greater number of times you say the prospect
name the more, he will be interested in talking to you. In the back of the mind, they will think that
you are not a stranger anymore or you’re being friendly.
So, whenever a sales rep introduces themselves listen to how a prospect pronounces their name
and always while they are speaking make sure you are memorizing that person’s name at the
back of your head.
The best example is let’s say we get a call from a bank who trying to sell their services and they
start off with Sir/Madam you would understand it about selling something and you would either
listen to them for the sake of it or you hung up. At the same time assuming they have our name
and they always take our name while talking about a few plans which they wanted to discuss we
would for sure listen no matter if we invest in the services or not.

12. Cynicism Effect
Cynicism is an attitude that shows not much trust is formed from one person to another. This
usually comes into action when the sales rep loses control of the conversation while selling a
service or product to the prospect.
Why does this happen???
Usually, there are two reasons it happens; one is that the sales rep doesn’t have full knowledge
of the service or product which he/she is selling or doesn’t trust if the product/service will do what
it says. The second reason is that the prospect things they have a business which is very niche
and they don’t think anyone can help and nor the sales rep had much information about that sort
of domain.
So, for this not to happen you have to be 100% convinced that you know about the product/service
which you are selling. If you are not confident then you lose the sales then and there. If you use
words like maybe, I think, for them, it had worked, etc, then you are not all confident about the
service/products.
In order to overcome this scenario, what you should be doing is take a piece of paper divide it into
two, one the left side write what you know about the service/product which you are selling, and
on the right side list down what you don’t know about them. Once you solve all the queries and
your right column is empty then interact with the prospect with confidence and try to influence or
tell them what you can do with the services/products you sell.

13. Charisma and Confidence
Where exactly you can get charisma or confidence? These are actually accessible inside you;
this is something that cannot be learned. There are different types of sales rep which I have come
across a few who have a higher pitch while talking at the same time there are people who have a
lower pitch while talking.
Having a higher or lower pitch doesn’t mean that you have less confidence or no charisma these
are to be accessed from within yourself and mold it accordingly. There are people who take calls
in low pitch but if someone shouts at them, they also go on a higher pitch to shout back and vice
versa. Everyone has this characteristic by default you just have to access it from within.
Sometimes it doesn’t appear because maybe you are shorter in target while others are ahead of
you, or sometimes when you are undergoing a lot of stress.
Who can and how to bring back the charisma and confidence in yourself? The only person who
can bring back charisma and confidence is yourself. What you have to do is basically think of the
last time your confident and charismatic enough to pull off a sale. Then remember how proud it
had made and the think about the benefits it had brought with you.
If this is something that you cannot do, then do one thing which is to watch a motivational video
that shows failure. Feel what exactly you would have felt at the moment in that person’s shoes.
Then close your eyes and feel how a confident and charismatic person would feel like, try like that
you are an actor. If this is something too shy to pull off then, talk to the person who is full of energy
in your team, or your partner or sit silently or listen to a song which makes you happy and then
comes back to what you were actually doing.
This will help you in improving daily which is watching motivational videos of people who tried 99
times to be successful and failed but go back up on their feet the 100th
time to be successful.

14. Persistent then Consistent
Persistence is the best technique out of all the above. If you are persistent in your job or any
action which you want to do then it is for sure that you will be successful even though you have
challenges and difficulties.
While Consistent is the second-best way on the best after persistence. Once you are persistent
you have to make sure that you are consistent in doing it.
Let’s say there are two sales rep one is John and another is Andrea, John is persistent and has
achieved higher results but not consistent in his results at the same time Andrea is consistent in
her results but has never achieved higher results.
From the above example, you would see that you can trust both because Andrea will bring an X
value always no matter how consistently while John is persistent towards the goal, he has but not
always but giving him a bigger goal can make sure the whole target is being met. But the question
is for how long it can run side by side?
But we have to try to be persistent first so that we go into an automated mode of facing all the
challenges and difficulties, then being consistent in what we are being persistent about.
Out of all the topics which I have mentioned if you do everything step by step then you would be
able to have great success for yourself.