can-dor [kan-der] -noun 1. The state or quality of being frank, open and sincere in speech or expression; candidness: The candor of the speech impressed the audience. 2. freedom from bias; fairness; impartiality: To consider an issue with candor. synonyms: openness, frankness, honesty, truthfulness.

transparent [trans-pair-uhnt] -adjective 1. easily seen through, recognized, or detected. 2. open, frank, candid: The man’s transparent earnestness.

Candor in sales unfortunately seems to have all but disappeared. Transparency has been eschewed out along with it. (Maybe not by you, but just in general.) Bring them back and watch your prospects become loyal customers and a huge source of repeat sales and referrals!

Do a Google search on “sales techniques” and it will return about 23,300,000 website results. Now start clicking on each site to absorb as much as you can on the various sales tips, tricks and techniques “that work.” Go ahead. I’ll wait. What? You don’t have time to click through them all? Yeah, me neither. Heck, I didn’t even click on the first one.

Now, I’m not saying that there isn’t merit to learning various techniques to assist you with your sales efforts. I study sales through books, blogs and websites like many others. However, I don’t rely on strategies or techniques as a crutch to sell for me. I would say most people know when they are being “sold.” You can see the slick salester coming from a mile away that relies on, if not depends on slick tricks and techniques.

Instead, my sales approach is a little more old fashion, if you will. It is a combination of candor and transparency. It’s from back in the day when your word was your contract and a handshake was your purchase order. Back before pushing the up-sell and filling quotas ruled the roost. You have a prospect with a need or dilemma. Provide them with a solution and give some options to consider, but focus on the true need at hand. We’ll look at how doing so will naturally up-sell for you later in this article.

Unless your prospect is totally clueless about what they need - and most never are - too much up-selling will insult their intelligence and drive their right away. With the internet, our customers are very savvy and many times know most of what they need to know to make a buying decision. All they need from you now is a few ideas as to the various options and a price.

(I’m tempted to go off on a tangent here and discuss the importance of adding value to the service and information you provide your customer. But I’ve done that in previous articles -visit the Archived Newsletter page at my website - and will do so again in the future. Just know that for the purpose of this article, we are focusing purely on sales approach.)

Start out asking great questions so you are clear on what their need or dilemma is. Confirm with your prospect that you do in fact have full understanding of what they need. Then, with full candor, provide your solution. Be descriptive with the benefits and paint the picture for them of how the features of your product or service will produce their desired outcome. At the same time, be forthright with potential drawbacks, if there are any. It is very rare that there isn’t at least one Con to go along with all of the Pro’s. We all know this and your prospect will appreciate the heads up.

Sharing the potential drawbacks of a product or service, not matter how insignificant, is selling with transparency and is another thing your customers will appreciate. Transparency tears down the walls of skepticism and builds a foundation of trust. With that foundation in place, you now can build a long-term sales relationship.

Let me share with you a story of a meeting I had very recently. I was meeting with a potential client when a competitor showed up early - a day early - for his consultation. Before he showed up, I had already assessed my prospect’s dilemma, concerns, budget restrictions and what kind of bells and whistles would be acceptable as well as which would be frivolous to him. I had gone over a few options and candidly explained the benefits of each. I had also explained a few of the drawbacks or reasons why someone may not consider that feature to be important.

When the other guy showed up, I introduced myself to him and gave him an opportunity ask his great questions to uncover the prospect’s need. Instead, he skipped right to his “pitch” and began bombarding the client with feature after feature. Upon seeing his approach and the confused looked on the client’s face, I sat back and just let this guy finish. He then left as quickly as he came, and I continued to work with the client towards the solution that best fit his need.

I never once mentioned some of the bells and whistles the other guy was trying to up-sell because I knew they didn’t fit with what the client was looking for, nor did they make sense with the budget he was working with. He did ask me about them, so I candidly explained why I didn’t bring them up. I shared with him the benefits they could provide, but also why the benefit was offset by the additional cost, lack of return on his investment or the potential drawbacks.

The last thing he said to me as we wrapped up the visit is how much he appreciated my candor and how up front I was with everything we talked about. As I was about to leave, he chased down a bicycle ice cream vendor that was going by and bought me the best watermelon popsicle I’ve ever had. Yeah, I think he appreciated the candor!