When people ask this question you need to clarify what they’re really asking you. Are they genuinely asking for the best or simply the easiest?

The easy way is to lower your price. Of course, with all the websites, discounts and e-coupon websites this will most likely mean you need to lower your price to the point where you make no profit. Not a good option!

There is no easy way to make a sale. And, there is no one best way to make a sale. Ethical and valuable (from both yours and the customer’s perspectives) selling is not manipulative. It’s not a SWISH method, or the RACHET approach. Selling is offering worthwhile options for the customer to engage your products and services to successfully achieve their needs and/or solve problems. You may occasionally make a manipulative sale.

But if you’re still trying to find the pain, cold-call, or close the sale, it won’t work. Customers are too intelligent and sophisticated. They themselves have probably already read, learned or been exposed to those methods previously, and will be offended you think so little of them to attempt to work them that way.

The best way to make a sale is:

1. To have your reputation do it for you.
2. To become known as the “go-to person” in your field.
3. To be valued as a resource by your markets.
4. To ask provocative, intelligent questions that engage the customer and identify true need not just wants.
5. To have options of how the customer can do business with you, rather than whether the customer will do business with you.
6. To be user-friendly and accessible.
7. To have researched and understood the customer and their business, thereby being respectfully prepared.
8. To meet with the real economic buyer not the middlemen or gatekeepers.
9. To be confident, articulate, intelligent without being condescending or salesy.
10. To reach conceptual agreement before attempting to offer the sale.
11. By conveying value rather than features and benefits.
12. By focusing on outcomes and ownership.
13. By responding promptly and being available to your customers.
14. By supporting your representation with testimonials from satisfied customers.
15. To become the trusted advisor to the client.
16. To be passionate about your products and services.
17. By allowing the customer to buy rather than you trying to sell.