Manipulation ≠ Sales: How to Sell Without Being a Jerk
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Brooke Greening: Manipulation is just like, I'm going to convince someone to do something, whether they wanna do it or not, whether it's in their best interest or not. There is no amount of manipulation that is good when we're talking about sales conversations and in business life.
If it is for my sole benefit, we have crossed the line and we have gone into manipulation.
The best way to know if you're being manipulative or not is if you've had an honest conversation with your potential customer and you've realized.
This is actually probably not gonna be the greatest fit.
there's a difference between being manipulative and being uncomfortable.
Scott Greening: And if our main experience has been with people that maybe are on the manipulative end of things, we just get this idea that, oh, this is what sales is.
And it's, it shouldn't be. It doesn't have to be. And you can be great at sales without manipulating
Hey everyone. Welcome to Sippin' Matcha and Helping You Make Sales. I'm your host, Scott Greening, joined by my wife and sales coach, Brooke Greening. She's got her matcha, and we've got a question from you from Anonymous that's coming up here shortly. Let me right at the beginning, invite you into the conversation.
We'd love to hear your questions anonymous questions that you have about sales, we won't blow your cover. And you can do that at buildingmomentum.info slash matcha. And we'll get your questions and you may show up on a future episode. Brooke, here's today's question, is the all sales manipulation.
And if so, can it be a good kind of manipulation?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. This is taking me back to a conversation we had at our dinner table a little bit ago with my mother-in-law who told me the exact same thing, told me that all sales is manipulation. So now that someone else is asking it, I think it's a great, it's a great question.
And my mother-in-law. Yeah,
Scott Greening: I was gonna, I was gonna say, I think instead of anonymous it. It might be from my mom, but it's not, I promise. But we did have the conversation. No,
Brooke Greening: no. And it was very surprising to me because, one, I love my mother-in-law dearly. She knows who I am. She knows my heart. She knows what I do, and so
for her to just put me in the lot of everybody else and just being like, well, you're probably just good at manipulating and not making people feel like they're manipulated, It was very eye-opening. So anyways, here's the answer to the question is all sales manipulation and if so, can there be a good kind?
One, no, there cannot be a good kind of manipulation. Manipulation is just like, I'm going to convince someone to do something, whether they wanna do it or not, whether it's in their best interest or not. There is no amount of manipulation that is good when we're talking about sales conversations and in business life.
So to answer your question. No, I don't think that there is a good kind of manipulation to answer it again, I do believe that sales can be without manipulation and that is what we have tried very hard to continue to build. I have been in sales for over 20 years, and I have seen manipulation time and time again.
And I've also been in sales where there was no manipulation. And it is possible and it does work. And so what I wanna encourage is, one, I am not saying that manipulation doesn't work. I'm not gonna stand here and say, no, no, no, no, no. If you manipulate, no one will buy because that's not true. There are a lot of people that manipulate in their sales and they make a lot of sales. I am saying I have no desire to build my business on manipulation, and the clients that I work with have no desire to build their business on manipulation. Yeah, and so there's one thing
Scott Greening: I would, before you jump in and share that, I would just say, I know that there's a stat that we found from HubSpot on that, like people's defacto experience, unfortunately with salespeople.
Is like manipulating or a bad experience. And some there, the stat we saw was something like only 3% of the public trusts, salespeople.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. And then it's like 5% for marketers, which awesome. That means roughly 5% of the population trust us in what we do. But the reason that is, is because so many people use those tactics for sales, but it doesn't have to be that way.
So this is gonna be my question for you when you're trying to figure out. Am I being manipulative? Because that's what good sales professionals don't want to do. They don't wanna be manipulative. A good way to check to make sure that it's not is just asking yourself, am I doing this for my sole benefit?
Am I pushing this because I need to hit a quota? Am I doing this because I know this is gonna benefit me? If what I'm doing and what I'm saying when I am talking to people and working with them in regards to whether they decide they wanna work with me or not. If it is for my sole benefit, we have crossed the line and we have gone into manipulation.
But if it is for their benefit. That is not manipulating them, that is guiding them, that is helping them to see how you might be able to help. Those are not manipulative techniques, and I know a lot of times people just, because unfortunately, they've always encountered manipulation in sales, they just feel like everybody is like that, but it doesn't have to be.
I know a lot of great people who don't use any manipulation in their sales conversations, and I don't teach it either.
Scott Greening: All right, so we've affirmed that it doesn't have to, what does non-manipulative sales look like in just a quick overview.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, when we're doing non-manipulative sales, so like a lot of times when we think of manipulative, we're thinking about creating urgency, we're thinking about handling objections, and that can quickly turn into a manipulative type of technique.
But there is a way you can do it that you want to be able to serve your clients.
Scott Greening: Hey, it's Scott here, letting you know that this podcast is brought to you by our company Building Momentum Resources. If you're listening to this podcast, chances are you're a business owner or a sales professional who genuinely wants to be good at sales, but maybe it still feels harder than it should.
Like, you're having conversations, you're meeting with potential clients, you're putting in the effort, but the results aren't quite lining up. I get it. And more importantly, I've been there. Really I've been there and that's why we put together the sales conversation assessment. It's a short free tool to help you figure out where your sales conversations might be getting off track and how to fix it.
No pressure, no gimmicks. Just a quick pulse check on how you're showing up in your sales conversations. Think of it like a GPS for your sales strategy, helping you get where you want to go faster and with fewer detours. You can take the assessment right now at building momentum.info/assessment. Again, that's building momentum info slash assessment.
If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start having sales conversations that actually convert, we're here to help. Alright, let's get back to the episode. Brooke's probably about to say something way smarter than I ever could.
Brooke Greening: But there is a way you can do it that you want to be able to serve your clients.
And so when we are talking about creating urgency. It's in regards to what they've already shared with us. If they've already talked about timelines or what they need help with, that's what we mean when we're trying to help them to know how we can be able to help them.
And then the other piece in regards to overcoming objections, different things like that. We're always looking, how can we be able to serve them? Are we giving them direction and hope and what it would look like in working with us, or are we just trying to convince them to do something so we can hit a quota?
That's how we know the difference between manipulating and actually serving. So the biggest way that you can know, because a lot of times people are like, I do not want to be pushy. I do not wanna be manipulative. So then they swing all the way to the other side and they don't do anything. The best way to know if you're being manipulative or not is if you've had an honest conversation with your potential customer and you've realized.
This is actually probably not gonna be the greatest fit. I'm not gonna actually be able to help meet the needs that they have, that you tell them that, and then you give them other resources to help them move along and get the support that they need. If you know that is what I'm going to do, you can be confident that you're gonna walk into every sales conversation and it's not gonna be manipulative.
One of the things on the flip side is no one is used to having conversations like that. And so if you are truly doing that, they will usually come back in regards to something else that they need, or they will bring someone else and say, Hey, it didn't work to work with Brooke for me, but I know that she's a trustworthy person and that she can do great work.
You should go talk to her.
Scott Greening: Yeah, I know we've gotten referrals for our business because you've done this and you've been open-handed and served people. You've been straightforward and when it hasn't been the right fit for any number of reasons yeah. You've continued to provide value and point people in the right direction when it's something that, that you can do.
Now, I think you're awesome and can do anything.
Brooke Greening: No, but I think also, so when we talk about our service framework, the very first piece we have is setting expectations. That is something that can help you to not have it be manipulative, because you are going to tell them, this is the goal of our conversation.
This is what we're talking about today. And you're also telling them in that setting expectations. If I can help you, we're gonna be talking about the investment and what it looks like to move forward with me. If I can't, then I wanna give you other resources to help you along the way. That's how you can start it off and know that you're gonna be able to keep.
To keep it in regards to serving them. I just think so many times as I work with my clients, they get nervous because they're, and I just wanna encourage you, there's a difference between being manipulative and being uncomfortable. A lot of times we come into a sales conversation and we kind of get stuck, or someone may say something and we're not sure how to respond, and so then we start to kind of feel awkward and unsure, and we can take that as uhoh.
I'm getting ready to be manipulative, or I'm getting ready to be pushy. I need to back off and go away. That's not it. A lot of times you are not being pushy. You are not being manipulative. You're just not entirely sure exactly what to say next. And so that uncomfortable feeling starts to make you think you're gonna be pushy when that's not what's happening at all.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And sometimes when we don't know things like the structure of a good sales conversation or whatever, we kind of default to whatever our experience has been.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm.
Scott Greening: And if our main experience has been with people that maybe are on the manipulative end of things, we just get this idea that, oh, this is what sales is.
And it's, it shouldn't be. It doesn't have to be. And you can be great at sales without manipulating so to
Brooke Greening: hundred percent
Scott Greening: to, to bring up. The question review is all sales manipulation, Brooke?
Brooke Greening: No.
Scott Greening: it doesn't need to be manipulative at all. And so anonymous or mom here's your answer. Hey thanks Brooke for doing that and for answering anonymous question.
If you found this helpful, we'd love to a little review on the podcast. We'd love a little, like, sharing is caring. All those things help us get the word out and allow more people to become good non-manipulative salespeople, which I think everybody in the world would be happy that there's more good salespeople out there.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm.
Scott Greening: Any final words, Brooke?
Brooke Greening: No, just keep going, keep valuing your customers and make more sales.
