Earlier this week, a salesperson told me about a difficult conversation she was about to have with a client. In asking for my advice, she said there was a chance this customer will ask for a price reduction and that she’d have to do a “dog and pony show” to convince them to keep working with her at the current rate.

I told her she needed to “kill the dog and corral the pony.” As you may suspect, there was a long pause on the other end of the phone after such a startling pronouncement.

No one really likes to be sold to, and buyers have no patience for such antiquated sales tactics where salespeople pull out all the stops in making their pitch.

Buyers do like to buy, when it’s in their best interest to so do. The practice of Sales Yoga is about creating a dialogue instead of engaging in a monologue. Done right, buyers are given the opportunity to talk themselves into an idea rather than the salesperson attempting to do it for them.

Buyers always believe themselves and only sometimes believe the salesperson. So, let the better salesperson sell in the conversation. No dogs and ponies required!