How to Sell Anything to Any Audience (Complete Beginner’s Guide)

Have you ever tried selling honey to a bee?

How about sand to the Sahara?

Or sawdust to a lumber mill?

Okay, I’ll stop. You get the point.

For some people, selling is something that comes naturally — it’s second nature.

But, for the vast majority of people, selling is a completely foreign concept — like learning a new language.

But, it doesn’t have to be.

The truth is, selling is just a skill, like anything else!

Chances are, you’re skilled at something. Whether it’s cooking, riding a bike, designing, programming, kung fu, or even doing TikTok dances.

Think about it. What areas do you have some level of mastery in — whether work-related or not?

At one point in time, you didn’t know the first thing about riding a bike. Now, you can (hopefully) ride one without even thinking about it.

But… there were some key components you had to grasp before cycling away on your own:

• First, you had to learn to sit on the bike.

• Then you had to know how to keep your feet on the ground when stopped. 

• Then you had to learn to balance (chances are, you started out with training wheels).

• Then you had to learn to quickly start pedaling. 

• Then, you had to learn to use your hands to steer.

• And… don’t forget the brakes! 

Add in a bell, gears, and all the equipment you need to stay safe (like a helmet), and boom! You can ride a bike!

While riding a bike is likely automatic for you now, there are critical elements you have to understand to ensure you can safely and effectively ride a bike to wherever you want.

The same is true for selling.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover the key components of sales mastery to ensure you can sell anything to anyone. 

By the end of this deep dive, you’ll be able to reach any audience, generate more sales, and overcome the most common sales challenges, whether you’re selling a product or service (online or offline).

Let’s dive in!

The Art of Selling Anything

Whether your goal is to master sales in person or you want to generate sales online through an e-commerce store, you need to first understand some key sales components to master the game.

Selling is the same no matter where or how you’re going about it. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling:

• A product or service

• To one person or a large audience

• Digitally or face-to-face

It all boils down to a single process: you need to persuade someone to hand over their hard-earned cash for something you have that will make their life better.

This is the heart of sales. 

No matter what you sell (or who you’re selling to), the same foundational principles apply.

Here are three foundational concepts you need to have a basic understanding of to set yourself up for success in the world of sales:

Understand Your Audience

While you can sell just about anything to anyone, it doesn’t mean it’s easy.

And, let’s clear something up really quick. 

I’m not saying you can sell a single product or service on Earth to just anyone.

But, what I am saying is that you can sell to any audience if you truly set your mind to it.

The first step in the process is to first gain an understanding of who your audience is. The reality is, it doesn’t matter if you have the perfect product if you aren’t able to find and connect with the right audience for that product.

You need to first understand who you’re targeting if you’re to be successful in the game.

One of the top copywriters of all time, Gary Halbert, once gave one of the most important lessons on successful copywriting (and sales) in one of the best OG newsletters, The Gary Halbert Letter:

He asked his students, "If you and I both owned a hamburger stand and we were in a contest to see who could sell the most hamburgers, what advantages would you most like to have on your side to help you win?"

His students gave a variety of answers, like:

• Superior meat to craft the high-quality burgers

• Sesame seed buns

• The right location

• The ability to offer the lowest prices

But, they were all wrong.

What was the right answer?

A starving crowd.

By finding the target audience that’s a good fit for your product or service, you’ll be able to generate more sales and waste less time trying to convert poor-fit leads.

The key to doing this is to figure out who you’re after so you can understand what makes them tick.

By gaining insights into your audience, you’ll be able to connect and communicate effectively with them. You’ll be able to understand their values and speak their language to establish a successful product-customer alignment.

Identify Audience Needs

Remember this. It’s one of the most vital sales concepts. You’re not selling a product or service. You’re selling a solution.

Once you understand that your product or service is simply the physical, tangible representation of a solution you’re offering your target audience, you can begin positioning your sales strategy and tactics toward your customer.

Once you have a solution-focused strategy, you then just need to understand what problems your customers are facing so you can better present your solution.

This means taking the time to identify your audience’s needs.

You may have a large customer base, but the majority of the time, your customers aren’t all buying for the same reasons.

For example, if you sell premium dog collars for wiener dogs, your customers might be buying because:

• The materials are of higher quality and don’t irritate your dog’s skin

• They like the compliments from other dog owners (and like to spark conversations)

• It’s a status symbol and makes them feel wealthier and more luxurious

Regardless of what you sell, identifying what your audience needs is crucial to help you sell more. Since your audience can often be broken down into different categories of needs, it’s important you understand each of those needs so you can craft the appropriate sales pitch for each group.

Know Consumer Psychology

Psychology is everything in sales.

If you can understand how humans think, you can understand the triggers and patterns that influence their purchasing decisions.

Sure, there are certain core motivators at the heart of your audience’s decision-making when they’re buying something. 

But, other psychological and emotional factors may help draw them in towards a “yes” when it comes to buying your product or service.

Understanding these biases will help you craft a successful sales strategy:

• Loss Aversion Bias: People fear losing something twice as much as they desire to gain something. Identify ways your solution can help your prospective customers protect what they have to prevent losses.

• Novelty: Our brains release dopamine (the feel-good hormone) when we experience something new. If you can position your product or service as being “new” to your audience (whether it’s a new product, a new version of your flagship product, or a new offer associated with the product), you’ll be more likely to generate sales.

• Confirmation Bias: Our minds like to seek out information that aligns with our beliefs, through confirmation bias – a type of cognitive bias. Find out what people expect from products or services similar to what you offer. For example, if you sell vitamins and supplements, hype up those desires by focusing on what it’s like to live a healthy lifestyle.

• Choice overload: People want to have the freedom to choose. But, they don’t want too many options. Choice overload happens when consumers are presented with too many options. Keep your products, offers, plans, or pricing simple. Offer a few options but stop there or you’ll overwhelm prospects and potentially lose a sale

Why Listen to Me? I currently run a niche website, Hockey Question, that gets over 50,000 visits per month. I’ve also managed two ecommerce email newsletters over the years including one with 100,000 subscribers and one with 30,000.

3 Effective Ways to Sell

Now that you understand the foundational aspects of selling like understanding your audience, identifying their needs, and knowing some basic buying psychology, it’s time to get into some practical tips to sell more effectively:

1. Sell Yourself

Before you sell anyone on how good your product or service is, you need to first sell them on you.

The reality is that people buy from people. If you want to generate more sales, you need to focus on developing key interpersonal skills to make yourself more likable.

This means being:

• Punctual (arrive on time for meetings)

• Presentable (dress well)

• Personable (happy, smiling, confident)

But, that’s not all.

You don’t just need to be an enjoyable person.

You need to be an enjoyable person who knows how to connect with your audience.

That’s where building rapport comes in.

Building rapport is all about connecting with your prospects, gaining common ground, sharing similar interests, and developing a relationship.

The key element to building rapport is that it has to happen before you give your sales pitch.

2. Ask Questions & Listen

The second secret to selling effectively is asking questions.

Most people think sales is all about being a smooth talker.

In reality, the best sales reps are expert listeners.

They achieve this by knowing how to ask the right questions.

By asking the right questions, you’ll be able to pinpoint the pain points of your prospects, understand what they want, and frame your product or service as the solution.

Asking questions is also critical to narrowing down how viable a prospect is as a customer. Asking a few questions is a quick way to determine if someone is ready to buy now, later, or never.

Make sure you draft up some questions ahead of time around a few key topics:

• Deepening the relationship with them

• The prospect’s needs

• Their readiness to buy

• Potential objections

• Opportunities for upsells or cross-sells

Some of the biggest missed opportunities for salespeople come due to the lack of follow-up questions.

Oftentimes, you don’t get the answer you’re after with a single question. To go deeper with prospects, regularly ask follow-up questions like “Why” and “Tell me more.” You’d be amazed at the gold you’re able to pull out of your prospects by just pressing in a little deeper.

Keep in mind, if you’re selling in a digital framework to a larger audience (rather than one-on-one), there are dozens of tactics to ask your audience questions to get similar results to a one-on-one, face-to-face meeting such as:

• Asking questions in an automated email follow-up

• Conducting surveys

• Asking for feedback

• Audience polls

3. Identify the Core Motivator

Remember earlier when we talked about understanding your audience and identifying their needs?

Let’s dive in a bit more here, as this is a critical piece of the sales puzzle.

Every buyer has a core motivator. In fact, the majority of purchase decisions are made to fulfill one of seven basic wants:

• Safety and security

• Health and wellness

• Social approval

• Better relationships

• Adventure

• Growth and learning

• Purpose and meaning

Some of these core motivators are more obvious for certain business types. 

For example, a home security company can easily lean on the safety and security motivator. A blood pressure tech company can lean on the health and wellness motivator. Travel companies can dive into the adventure appeal.

But, it isn’t always obvious what core motivator you should target. And, most businesses have to lean on a few of them depending on the needs of different segments of their audience.

Remember to research your target market, ask questions, and build close connections with them to better understand their main motivators.

Are you looking to generate more sales? Read how Roland Frasier leverages email in his sales strategy to generate over $6 billion in sales every year.

Crafting the Right Sales Pitch

The pitch: It’s one of the most sought-after sales tips. But, it’s futile trying to master it before you’ve taken the time to narrow down the foundational elements (covered above).

But, once you’ve got the core elements of a successful sales strategy down, it’s time to cover the perfect pitch. Here are a few elements to crafting a successful sales pitch:

1. Listen Before Pitching

Your best pitch is the one that matches your audience’s needs. A beginner salesperson will use the same pitch for everyone. But, skilled sales professionals understand that their pitch will change from person to person.

You need to adjust your pitch based on the needs of your audience. This means you need to first ask questions and practice active listening to help determine the needs of your audience so you know how to convey your product as a viable solution to their problems.

2. Understand & Communicate Your Value Proposition

What does your product or service do? Not the functionality, but the effect it has on your audience? How does your audience benefit from buying it?

Your value proposition is the pure value your product or service offers your customers.

But, your value proposition isn’t just about your product. It’s also about your company, your offer, your customer support, and the overall customer experience.

If you’re unsure what your value proposition is, start with this basic formula:

[Your company name] helps [your target audience] with [specific product or service] so [your target audience] can [benefit].

3. Craft a Powerful Story

Stories aren’t just useful for entertainment purposes. They’re also one of the best tactics you can incorporate into your sales pitch to convert more prospects into buyers. The most popular style of story salespeople use is the before and after story. 

This is any story (whether it’s a made-up example, your own experience, or a real customer’s experience) you use to show how your product or service improved someone’s life.

If you need help coming up with ideas, check out customer reviews or client testimonials as a starting point. Storytelling is one of the most effective ways to both:

1. Keep your audience engaged during the sales pitch and 

2. Prove that your product or service works through social proof.

One of the best ways to incorporate storytelling into your sales strategy is by leveraging email newsletters.

With modern email platforms like beehiiv, you can create automatic drip campaigns to send a series of emails out at set intervals which is a great way to communicate your brand’s story and nurture leads.

4. Finish With a Call to Action

One of the biggest mistakes sales reps make is not communicating a clear call to action (CTA).

Many sales reps spend countless hours crafting their pitches, learning how to make a sale by asking the right questions, identifying core needs, and communicating how their product benefits their prospect’s life.

But, that’s all a waste if you don’t ask for the sale.

You’d be amazed at how many people will buy by simply asking them to! Once you’ve gone through your sales pitch, you need to pull the trigger with a clear call to action. Don’t beat around the bush here. Be direct and ask your audience to make a decision.

If you run into trouble with your pitch, your prospect is losing interest, or they’re relaying objections, then keep reading as we cover how you can overcome sales challenges.

Want some inspiration to help 10x your sales strategy? Learn how Dakota Robertson leverages the beehiiv newsletter platform to generate over $250,000 per month in sales.

Key Components to Overcome Sales Challenges

Every sales professional or business owner faces roadblocks when it comes to selling their products or services.

What often sets average salespeople apart from expert salespeople is how they handle overcoming challenges.

Here are a few key components to overcoming sales challenges:

Key #1: Be an Advisor Before a Salesperson

One of the biggest challenges sales professionals face is generating trust in their audience’s eyes.

One sales methodology you can use to counter this is consultative selling.

This type of selling seeks to ask different questions to figure out the deep pain points of a customer in order to find a solution that’s best suited for the customer. What sets it apart from other methods is that it seeks to find the solution, whether or not it’s your product or service. 

This means offering to be your prospect’s advisor first before a salesperson. In many cases through client discovery, you’ll realize that they’re not the right fit for your product or service, but you can make recommendations to guide them in the right direction.

This is one of the best ways to build trust and expertise with prospects and can fuel referrals, recommendations, and reviews, enabling you to generate more sales in the long run.

From a digital perspective, this can be done by offering expert niche advice and helpful tips to your audience through social media, a newsletter, or a private community.

By focusing primarily on offering valuable information and helpful content related to your niche, when you do ask for a sale, your audience will be much more receptive to your offer.

This is what business thought leader, Gary Vaynerchuk, describes in his famous book, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.” By spending the majority of your time “jabbing” your audience with helpful information, entertainment, and free value, it’ll be much easier to get them on the “right hook” when you do ask for a sale.

Key #2: Get Feedback

Sales is an ongoing learning experience. People who continuously struggle to sell usually aren’t spending enough time learning from their audience.

The way you sell to one audience will be different from another. If you want to improve your sales this year, you need to ensure selling is a two-way conversation.

This means collecting feedback from your audience to figure out what’s working (and what’s not).

Here are a few ways you can collect audience feedback:

• Surveys

• One-on-one conversations

• Polls

• Reviews

• Web forms

• Email replies and social media DMs

The best educator in the sales world is your customer. While it may seem scary to ask your customers to give you feedback, they’re often much more willing to help than you’d think.

Plus, asking your customers for feedback is a great way to practice asking for a sale!

Key #3: Keep Reaching Out

Sales is a test of perseverance more than anything else.

It’s a line of work not meant for the faint of heart.

Whether you’re a real estate agent, an Etsy store owner, or you run your own niche site, the reality is that the majority of potential customers you try to sell to just won’t buy.

That means you need to understand how to handle rejection and keep going without losing faith.

Guess how many times the average customer needs before they finally purchase?

Eight times.

If you don’t get a sale after your second, third, or fourth attempt, don’t give up.

Keep reaching out.

Stay in touch. Ask to meet again. Ask for the sale. 

One of the best ways to check off those eight touchpoints is by regularly sending your prospects an email newsletter.

Not only is a newsletter a great way to capture your prospect’s contact information to keep that connection alive, but it’s also a simple way to establish regular touchpoints with your audience without seeming intrusive or pushy.

And, with an average open rate of 38.7% across all industries, you can be assured that your efforts to communicate and establish touchpoints through email won’t go to waste.

How beehiiv can multiply your sales this year

Selling isn’t a one-and-done activity of your business operations. It’s an ongoing process and the shifting digital world has made it an increasingly competitive landscape.

Consumers expect marketers and sales professionals to understand them better, reach them more effectively, and offer more relevant, targeted messaging.

If you’re looking to double down on your sales strategy this year, then one of the best tools in your arsenal is an email newsletter.

How impactful can a newsletter be in your sales strategy?

Email marketing provides an average return on investment of 3,600%. That means for every $1,000 you invest in email marketing, you get an average return of $36,000.

Newsletters give you a dedicated channel you can use to reach prospects on a consistent basis, gain new insights into the needs and wants of your audience, and generate recurring sales.

If you’re ready to start streamlining your sales strategy, then beehiiv is one of the best tools available.

Whether you’re looking to increase your reach, multiply your leads, or convert more prospects into buyers, the intuitive platform is designed to help business owners and sales professionals grow their audience and revenue.

beehiiv is the newsletter platform built for growth. Sign up today for free (no credit card required).