How to Sell Anything: Summary of Harry Browne’s Book

These articles are mostly for people who sell SaaS, but this book really can teach you how to sell anything. There are a lot of books out there describing how to sell, but if you’ve already read my five top sales book picks, you know that my top recommendation is Harry Browne’s short book “The Secret of Selling Anything,” (if you buy from the link, my favorite charity gets a cut) because it gets at the root of why people buy–you’re not going to find advice like “be enthusiastic” or “use closing tricks.” This is the real deal, discussing how to talk with prospects as individuals, figure out what they want, and show how your product meets their needs. That’s what “selling” really is.

Harry Browne spent decades selling many different products and did a great job of documenting what he found worked and didn’t. The points we are going to cover today are timeless–these work just as well selling software today as they did selling insurance in 1950.

You Can Sell Anything If You Know Why People Buy

Browne says that it’s critical to make sure we understand human motivation so that we can connect with our prospects and get them what they want. What do we really want? Happiness! When do we want it? Now!

Since we each have a limited amount of time, money, and energy, we try to use them so that we optimize for happiness–but that means something different to everyone! So how do you decide which actions move you closer to happiness? We each assign value to everything we see–and those things that are likely to bring us the most happiness are the most valuable to us.

The most important thing you can do when selling (and also in getting along with other people, according to Browne) is to discover why your prospect is doing what they are doing or why they want to do what they want. No one does something that they believe will make them worse off.

Since everyone wants happiness, and we buy products and services to acquire happiness, it stands to reason that “profit” (or, in our case, “commission”) is the reward for helping someone satisfy their desire for happiness.

So what is the “secret” to success in sales? Help people get what they want! Your job is to find out what motivates your prospect, then show them how your product helps them get that. If it doesn’t, then this person isn’t a prospect and it’s time to move on!

Harry Browne’s 5 Steps to Selling Anything

1. Uncover the prospect’s motivation–what they want, what they don’t want, and how they intend to get it.
2. Summarize the motivation so that the qualification for a sale is clearly understood between the two of you.
3. Present your product solely in terms of that motivation.
4. Answer any questions, concerns, or drawbacks your prospect has.
5. Close the sale–ask the prospect to go ahead and get what they want.

You might look at that list and think “Easier said than done!” and you’d be right. But it gets a lot easier once you get good at the first two steps. Let’s talk about how to do that.

Uncovering Your Prospects Motivation

Step 1: Sit down and think about all the problems that your product solves. Write them down. All of them.

I was the third SDR to join ZocDoc. This was the company that really introduced online appointment booking to the world. It’s hard to imagine this, but in 2010, you couldn’t book a doctors appointment online. ZocDoc set out to change that.

Medical providers had to pay to be on the ZocDoc platform. So which problems did doctors want to solve by paying $300/month to be listed on a website that allowed patients to book appointments without talking to anyone? We identified three reasons people bought: they wanted new patients; they wanted to provide a modern convenience for existing patients; they really liked technology.

Step 2: For each buying reason, write down all the questions you can think of that might uncover that your prospect has that motivation. You should ask, for example, if they are in the market for new patients. That opens up the general need. To find out if they’re a good fit for your product, you’ll also want to ask questions like, “What have you done, so far, to try and bring in more patients? Did that work? What did you like or not like about that?”

Step 3: Write down all the key factors that influence your buyers’ decisions. For example, they might care about how long it takes to deploy your technology or if it integrates with something they already have.

Now you know what you need to know to prepare for your meetings. When you get on the phone with your prospect, you are going to ask them these questions in order to discover what they would want to accomplish with your product.

Restating the Motivation: Making Sure You’re on the Same Page

It would be very frustrating to get all the way to the end of your pitch only to learn you misread your prospects’ desires, wouldn’t it? Let’s avoid that because you’re not going to sell anything at all that way.

The easiest way to get this right is to ask! Summarize what you believe you’ve learned about their need in a sentence (or a few sentences, if necessary). This is a powerful technique for two related reasons:

1. If you and the prospect agree on their need, you can talk about only that need. Remember, selling isn’t about you, it’s about them.
2. At our roots, we all just want to be understood. If you can show that you understand your prospects needs after ten minutes of questions, you’re already giving your prospect something that they want. This puts you ahead of 90% of salespeople.

Here are some examples of ways to summarize the need you’ve uncovered:

“It sounds like your biggest priority this quarter is to increase your margins by 10% while still staying under budget. Is that correct?”

Or:

“In other words, if you can find a way to increase the volume of new customers, you’d be able to open the new location you’ve been thinking about. Is that right?”

Do NOT, under any circumstances, move on until and unless you have acquired the full agreement of your prospect.

Presenting Your Product

If you’ve just come out of product training, you’re probably REALLY excited to get a prospect on the phone and show them every little thing that your product does, right? You’re probably blown away by how cool your product is and how valuable it is to its users. (If you don’t feel this way, you’re probably in the wrong gig!)

DON’T DO IT!

This happens so frequently with new salespeople (even experienced salespeople at a new company) that there is a popular phrase for it: show up and throw up. Ask yourself an important question: do you like it when someone throws up on your shoes? Neither does your prospect! They want to tell you what they want and then they want you to tell them how your product can get them what they want. Everything else should stay in your stomach.

Talk about how X feature does Y so they can have Z. Connect the dots for your prospect and make it obvious X delivers Z. Then repeat for each of the things they’ve agreed that they want!

Answering “Objections”

You may get to the end of the presentation and your prospect asks to sign a contract. If so, GREAT! Buuuuut that is not the most common outcome.

Most likely, your prospect will ask you questions to clarify or will raise reservations. Take this as a win–it means they’re interested, still!

How do you handle such objections? Here’s the objection answering formula the book suggests: Listen, Agree, Suggest.

“It sounds like you’re not sure if X is true. That’s important because of so-and-so, right? Ok, let’s take a look and see if the product handles that for you.”

Then go back into the product and show how it fulfills the concern. Never disagree with your prospect; make sure you’re always adding to alternatives. Suggest moves that give them everything they have now, but with more benefits.

Closing the Sale

You probably hear salespeople or managers talk about how a top rep is a “strong closer.” Or you’ve seen movies tell you that “coffee is for closers ONLY.” That kind of talk probably makes you think that the close is the most important part of the sale.

It’s not!

True, this is the part of the process where your prospect gives you a credit card number–but that’s only if you did the earlier steps right. If you did the earlier parts wrong–if you never connected with a need–you’ll never hear those blessed words “This is a Visa.”

Here are Harry’s tips for this step. We’re going to get pretty detailed here because if you get to this step and the sale isn’t smooth, this is your opportunity to figure out what went wrong.

1. Don’t play games. You don’t have to use “trick” closes or anything. Just ask for the business. He suggests a few specific ways to do this, but anything simple should work.
   1. Is it alright, then, if I go ahead and write up the order?
   2. Can we call this a deal, then?
   3. I guess that’s it–I’ll go ahead and write up the order unless you have any reason why I shouldn’t.
2. Be prepared for the possibility of a “no.” If that happens, stay calm!
   1. If you were surprised, that just means you missed something. Go back to step 2 and review what you thought were the qualifications of the sale. Ask if you’ve understood them correctly.
   2. If they agree that you’ve understood the qualifications, review step 3–the parts where your product satisfies their wants. Then ask what you’re missing from the proposal.
   3. Remember: listen, agree, suggest.
3. Be prepared for “I have to think it over.” The “old” wisdom, according to the author, is to pressure the prospect into making a decision with artificial scarcity (we’ll discuss how to use scarcity soon!). Don’t do that! There are four possible reasons why someone might say they need to “think it over”:
   1. They are not convinced they want your product. Your move here is to go back and review step 2 and 3.
   2. They have not been completely honest with you. Ask, “Is there anything you haven’t told me that might help me better understand your situation?” Many people struggle to really describe what they want–especially in technology, where entire product categories (and problems!) get invented overnight. Get them to open up here and you can often help them find a way to articulate what they’re looking for. However, many people will refuse to give you the information you need. This likely results from a general mistrust of salespeople. If you can’t get the right information, your best bet is just to move on.
   3. They want to “shop around.” Most people DO NOT like to shop because we tend to want “good enough” decisions so that we can get on with our lives. Plus, a shopper will typically get confused by all the options and start comparing apples and oranges. If your prospect tells you this, it’s most likely because you discussed parts of your product that weren’t relevant, and you convinced the prospect that they should consider other factors that they were not ready to think about. Sometimes, though, they may want to shop because they’re spending someone else’s money or they’re required to look at a specified number of options. These last two are items you should have uncovered early on.
   4. The prospect is afraid they’re overlooking something. In this case, the prospect doesn’t expect to make a different decision later. They instead fear that they may remember something that didn’t occur to them during the selling process. If you did a great job in steps 2 and 3, then this is ok. Here’s what to do:
      1. Get a definite understanding of what is going to happen. If they ask for time, ask how much they need. 
      2. If the prospect is going to make the decision soon, ask when and how they are going to make that decision. You’re providing a professional experience by helping the prospect outline their buying process.
      3. Call halfway to that date. Tell the prospect you know it’s not that date yet–your call is premature–but you were curious if anything has come up in the meantime to alter the situation. In the course of that conversation, you may learn something new that that can help the prospect make a good decision.

A Few Reminders

1. We all just want to be happy. Figure out what about your product delivers happiness and sell that.
2. Every sales call should end with you getting one of three things:
   1. An order
   2. A definite “no” because you can’t give the prospect what he wants
   3. An understanding of when the prospect intends to make his decision, what the decision will be based on, and a scheduled time for the two of you to talk.
3. This trick will make your closing easy: the best way to be a great “closer” is to get really good at discovering and connecting with needs.

Next Steps

If you haven’t, already, go ahead and get started writing out the problems your product solves and your questions to help you discover if your prospect has those. Every time I’ve started at a new company, I’ve done this. And every time I’ve learned something. It’s so easy for us as salespeople to assume that we know what someone wants, but years of research show two things: 1) that’s not true; and 2) it can be if we ask the right questions!

If you truly connect with your prospects’ desires, show them how your product solves those desires, and avoid trying to sell something someone doesn’t want, you really can sell anything from software to yourself. Try it!

What do you think? Has this been helpful? What questions do you have? Shoot me a message!