Over the past fifteen years, I have been studying the art of selling. In that time, I have written hundreds of articles and columns on sales, and have been mentored by nearly 100 top sales masters. Here are the ten most surprising facts from my experience. 1. Customers really want to buy. Everyone loves to buy (don't you?), but no one likes to be sold to. That's why when you try to persuade, convince, or manipulate customers into buying something, they distance themselves from you. The key to selling is helping customers make the best decision, thereby adding to the innate desire to buy that lies deep within them. 2. The elevator pitch never works. I don't know where this nonsense about the "elevator pitch" came from, but there is nothing that will bore a potential customer faster than talking at length about yourself, your company, and your product for two or three minutes. Think about it: do you like listening to others go on and on about the "stuff" of their business? 3. Cold calls make you stronger. Even professional salespeople usually hate cold calling and will go out of their way to avoid it. Even so, calling people you don't know to see if you can help them is still one of the best ways to strengthen your mental "muscles" in this world, as you learn to handle rejection and quickly build rapport and empathy. 4. The key to selling is listening. The challenge in sales is to get the customer to talk, not to talk at the customer. If your mouth is constantly moving, how can you figure out whether you can help a customer, or how to help them? Let the customer enjoy being in control of the conversation. 5. Sales training cannot create sales stars. If someone tells you that sales training can turn everyone on the sales team into a top seller, your nonsense detector should go off. Sales training can improve performance slightly, but it cannot turn an average salesperson into a sales star, just as a great coach cannot turn a weekend amateur into LeBron James. 6. Introverts usually sell better than extroverts. The stereotype of a salesperson—outgoing, fast-talking, aggressive—still exists in popular culture, but in the real world, that pushy attitude and posture makes customers want to throw up. Because the key to selling is listening, it favors introverts who can set aside their ego and listen to the customer's voice. 7. Customer experience creates the brand. Big companies typically invest millions in their "brand," and even small companies sometimes obsess over naming, slogans, logos, and so on. What a waste! Your "brand" is how your customers feel about you, which is necessarily the result of their experiences dealing with you. In those experiences, the "brand" plays a minimal role. 8. Closing the sale is a process, not an event. Contrary to popular belief, there is no (and should not be) a moment when you "ask for the business." If your goal is truly to help the customer make the best decision, you do everything you can to achieve that goal. If the best decision is to buy from you, you'll find the conversation gradually shifts from "if" to "when." 9. Loyal customers are better than new customers. Getting new customers to buy from you is expensive and unreliable. Getting existing customers to buy from you is cheaper and easier. Getting loyal customers to buy from you costs almost nothing, and they do it automatically. Therefore, the most important thing for you is always to convert existing customers into loyal ones; new customer acquisition is only most important when you are just starting out. 10. Everyone is in sales. Although some people make a living from selling (they are called salespeople), no one in the business world—from the CEO to the mailroom clerk—is not frequently selling the value they contribute. Unless your job description is something like "staring at your navel," you are selling. Take my word for it. 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