Why the best salespeople give Easy Outs
Times are tough and selling is getting harder. Today’s business owners are competing for attention and market share while the landscape becomes more challenging: Economic and inflationary pressures mean more discerning buyers. Technology bolstered sales outreach means your inboxes are likely inundated with automated messages providing an irrelevant piece of content or asking for a virtual meeting. The Golden Era of Influencing means too many online experts are providing coaching and advice on things they’ve never successfully achieved for themselves. In the age of skepticism buyers are wary and you need to build trust or die. Okay that was melodramatic, but you get the point.
So how does one disarm a skeptical prospect? By giving them an easy out.
Most conventional sales advice will emphasize rapport building as a means to build trust and while this will indeed build trust you’re not reading this to get run of the mill sales advice. If you want your prospect to like and trust you, quickly, give them an easy out. Remind them that they have the power to end the conversation if it’s not serving them. An easy out during a sales conversation will sound something like this:
”If what we discuss is not a good fit for you - please tell me! You won’t hurt my feelings, and it’s important to me that we’re both on the same page”
An easy out during outbound outreach could look like this:
“I’d love to connect further and know you’ll get a lot out of the conversation whether we work together formally or not”
This simple act achieves two things:
It establishes that you’re on the same side as your prospect with the goal of finding a mutually beneficial outcome
It takes the pressure off both you as a salesperson and your prospect.
Easy outs are counter intuitive, especially as a lot of traditional sales advice encourages high pressure sales tactics and, as a culture, we view sales with winners and losers (won deals, lost deals, etc). But they’re an integral part of sales and exist at multiple stages of the sales process. Email marketers have unsubscribe buttons on their email blasts, many content creators will encourage people to “keep scrolling” if the message isn’t resonating. Giving your prospect an easy out during a sales conversation is not a sign of weakness but rather a reminder of the prospect’s agency and your integrity as a salesperson.
I challenge you to incorporate easy outs in your sales outreach this week, and if you or your team want more personalized sales support don’t hesitate to send me a message.
Happy selling!
