Today we’re discussing how to sell your services without being pushy; because nobody likes to be sold to but everyone loves to buy. My guest is Eric Schulman.

Eric brings over 5 decades of business experience to the table. A “Serial Entrepreneur”, he’s worked with both tangible and intangible products and services in B2B and B2C environments. After building 5 businesses on his own, he started Consultants Can Sell! specifically to work with Business Owners, Consultants and Sales Professionals to provide sales training that really works.

The Accidental Salesperson

Eric believes sales is an accidental profession and nobody ever plans to be in sales. His accident happened when Eric was a kid. He used to sell stuff door to door, if the reader remembers door to door. But at the age of 12 years old, his mom and dad opened a record store in Levittown, New Jersey, in 1963.

Six months later, there was a group called The Beatles that was on the Ed Sullivan Show. Eric was the 13-year-old kid in Levittown, New Jersey, whose dad owned the record store. Most people’s parents teach their kids things such as children were seen and not heard, don’t talk to strangers and so on. Eric’s mom taught him something different.

On one busy day his mom told him to go wait on a new customer. She effectively said “Go talk to a stranger”. What that taught Eric was don’t talk to strangers until you’re old enough to earn a commission. That’s how Eric accidentally got into sales. He found that he was good at it. He could connect to people well. Because of that all through high school, Eric was the only one who always had money in his pocket.

In addition to commission Eric also earned an hourly salary. That was nice and he liked having money. Eric likes to say that salespeople are coin operated; they do what the money tells them to do. If his mom and dad hadn’t opened a store he probably would have wound up in sales, but not at such an early age.

The “Official” Start of a Sales Career

Eric says his sales career “officially” started in his early teens because by the time he was 18 he had been accepted to three colleges, but he didn’t want to go to college.

Eric liked what he did. He was making decent money as a kid. He was making hundreds of dollars a week in 1969. When you were making that much money you could buy a house back then. Eric believed he didn’t need to go to college. He was very, very well read and he went to college but wound up dropping out after one semester.

Then he gave college another try one year later and stayed for two semesters. He achieved a 3.9 GPA. His parents sold the store in Jersey in 1973 and moved to Orlando and opened a chain of stores.

Eric was the heir apparent to the family business and decided that was his career path. So consciously around the age of 19, he decided that’s what he wanted to do. He didn’t need to go to school. Eric worked for the family business until I was 28 or 29 years old.

Sales as an Adult

Eric came to an interesting realization. At the age of 29, he did the math and realized he was never going to get rich in the family business. So, he made the decision to leave the family business after doing the marketing for eight years. Eric started in the marketing field and wound up forming a direct marketing agency in 1980 and bought a computer when they cost $30,000.

He mortgaged the house and started providing direct mail services. In five years he grew that business to 54 people in a 17,000 square foot facility. Eric was doing 90% of the sales. He sold that business in 1993. Eight months later, he met Sharon, who owned a wedding back business and would eventually become his wife.

Eric bolstered the value of the business and they sold the business in 1995. They moved to upstate New York and Eric took a job where he became the number one salesperson in the company.

From there he opened a Sandler Training franchise in Orlando, Florida. He made more money in eight months than he had made in the previous year and did that for almost two decades. He sold the business just before the pandemic and struck out on his own as a sales trainer. Eric created a sales system called truth-based selling that showed people how to create a place where people can feel comfortable being honest with you.

The rest, as they say, is history.

From there we dive into topics including:

Why most salespeople default to high pressure selling.
How to develop relationships with prospects whether or not they buy from you.
How to break down the wall of resistance with prospects so they’ll trust you enough to speak honestly with you.
The real reason prospects are coming to you, and it’s not to buy something.
How to discover the real reason prospects are coming to you.
The process of “Building radical empathy” of how to leverage it in your sales conversations.
The three steps of diagnosing your prospect’s problem.
How to navigate the road between creating a safe space to talk and closing a sale without being pushy.
People buy based on emotions. How to get your prospects to emotionally want to buy from you.
Why you should discuss money early on in your sales conversations.
The principle of scarcity and how to leverage it in sales conversations.
The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to close more sales without being pushy.

…and other golden nuggets of advice!

You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea”

About My Guest

Idea Climbing Podcast Eric Schulman Sales

Eric Shulman started his career helping build and run a successful chain of music stores in NJ and FL. He started National List Council, a direct marketing company in 1980. Over the next 12 years, he grew the business to 17,000 square feet with over 50 employees.

When he sold NLC, he joined his new wife’s business: Sprinkles Custom Cakes! In just 6 months, Sprinkles grew from doing four wedding cakes per month at “grocery store” prices up to 15 to 20 per week at double the price! After selling Sprinkles in 1995, he led a national sales force selling Business Consulting Services in NY, Boston, DC, NJ, VA, and FL.

His close ratio was five times the company average. When his earnings potential capped out, he opened a Sales Training Business in 2003, and was named Rookie of the Year in just eight months. After almost two decades in that field, he sold in 2019. ConsultantsCanSell.com is his latest venture: Putting his 50 years of business expertise to work for others.

Learn more about Eric’s company; Consultants Can Sell!

Reach out to Eric directly: (321) 301-5700 Eric.InsideMan@gmail.com

Want to learn more about sales? Check out this Idea Climbing Podcast episode: “Story Selling: How to Know What Stories to Tell to Sell with Sylvain “Sly” Haché”

How to Sell Your Services Without Being Pushy with Eric Shulman