How to Make Sales Feel Natural (Not Like a Performance)
How to Make Sales Feel Natural (Not Like a Performance)
If sales feels like a performance, you’re not doing it wrong — you’re just doing it the way most people were taught. The good news? When you learn how to make sales feel natural, conversations become easier, trust builds faster, and selling stops feeling fake or forced.
Why Sales Feels Like a Performance in the First Place
Most people don’t want to be salesy.
They don’t want to sound pushy, scripted, or inauthentic — yet that’s exactly what sales often turns into. Even in rooms full of thoughtful, values-driven business owners, “salesperson” still gets described as fake, aggressive, or performative .
The problem isn’t you.
The problem is the mental model of sales we’ve all inherited.
When sales becomes about what you’re going to say, it automatically turns into a performance. You’re thinking about:
- How to sound confident
- How to explain your offer
- How to “build value”
- How to not mess it up
That pressure pulls you out of the moment — and people feel it immediately.
If You Want to Make Sales Feel Natural, Make It a Conversation
Here’s the reframe that changes everything:
Sales isn’t a presentation. It’s a conversation.
And conversations don’t require scripts or performances — they require curiosity.
One of the fastest ways to make sales feel natural is to stop centering yourself in the conversation. That’s where the 70/30 rule comes in.
The 70/30 Rule That Makes Sales Feel Human
In a healthy sales conversation:
- You talk 30% of the time
- Your potential client talks 70% of the time
This isn’t accidental. It’s intentional.
When you focus less on what you’re going to say and more on how well you’re listening, sales stops feeling like something you’re doing to someone and starts feeling like something you’re doing with them.
To do this well, your job becomes very simple:
- Ask thoughtful questions
- Listen without rushing
- Validate what they’re sharing
- Explore instead of explain
It’s actually very hard to sound salesy when all you’re saying is,
“Tell me more about that.”
Why Listening Builds Trust Faster Than Any Pitch
Only a small percentage of people say they trust sales professionals — and the reason is simple: people assume you’re trying to get something from them.
The fastest way to break that assumption is to prove the opposite.
When someone feels genuinely heard, trust builds quickly. Asking questions and truly listening shows that you care about their situation, not just your solution .
And here’s the key:
You don’t need to manufacture interest.
You can’t fake genuine curiosity — and when people try, it’s obvious. But when your interest is real, the conversation relaxes. The pressure disappears. Sales feels natural because it is natural.
Skip the Pitch (Especially in Service-Based Sales)
One of the biggest reasons sales turns into a performance is the pitch.
Long explanations. Slide decks. Ten-minute monologues about features and frameworks.
Here’s the truth:
If you’ve listened well, you don’t need a pitch.
When someone has spent most of the conversation explaining their challenges, motivations, and constraints, your response doesn’t need to be long. It needs to be relevant.
Instead of explaining everything you do, you simply connect what you offer to what they already told you matters.
That’s not pitching.
That’s responding.
And when you do need a proposal or presentation later, it’s stronger — because it’s tailored directly to the conversation that already happened.
The Moment Sales Usually Starts to Feel Awkward
Many people say,
“We had such a great conversation… and then it got weird.”
That usually happens when pricing or next steps come up.
But those moments only feel awkward if you suddenly change how you’re showing up.
When sales feels natural, you don’t switch modes. You keep the same tone, the same curiosity, and the same respect you started with. You’re still having the same conversation — just moving it forward.
You Don’t Need to Perform to Sell Well
If you’re trying to make sales feel natural, here’s what actually works:
- Be more interested than interesting
- Ask better questions instead of better pitches
- Talk less, listen more
- Respond to what’s real, not what’s rehearsed
Sales stops feeling like a performance when you stop trying to convince — and start trying to understand.
Call to Action: Want to Know How You’re Showing Up in Sales Conversations?
If you want to make sales feel natural but aren’t sure where things are breaking down, start with clarity.
Brooke’s Sales Conversation Assessment helps you understand:
- How you’re actually showing up in sales conversations
- Where trust may be leaking
- What small shifts will make your sales feel easier and more effective
👉 Take the free assessment here:
https://buildingmomentum.info/assessment
How to Make Sales Feel Natural, Not Like a Performance | Show Notes
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Episode Summary
Feel like you have to “turn it on” every time you talk about your offer? You’re not alone—and good news: it doesn’t have to be that way. In this episode of Sippin’ Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales, Brooke and Scott unpack one of the most common (and exhausting) sales myths: that you need to perform to be effective. From awkward pitch decks to monologue-style meetings, they explain why less talking and more listening builds trust—and leads to better results. Whether you’re new to sales or just tired of feeling like you’re putting on a show, this one’s packed with practical shifts that will help you sound more like you (and still make the sale).
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What You’ll Learn
- Why focusing on “what to say” is hurting your sales conversations
- The magic of the 70/30 rule (and how it changes everything)
- Why your best pitch isn’t a pitch at all—it’s a tailored response
- How to skip the salesy script and actually connect with your prospect
- Why trust gets built through listening, not talking
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Resources Mentioned
The Good Humans Growth Network – Hosts of the Sell Well Conference Brooke recently spoke at.
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️ Join the Conversation
Have a sales situation where you feel like you’re “on stage” every time? We want to hear about it. Submit your anonymous question at buildingmomentum.info/matcha and it might be featured in a future episode.
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Connect with Brooke on LinkedIn
Want more practical, non-sleazy sales advice from Brooke? She’s always sharing tips and encouragement for service-based business owners. Connect at: linkedin.com/in/brooke-greening
Take Brooke’s Sales Conversation Assessment – A quick, free tool to find the bottlenecks in your sales chats •
How to Make Sales Feel Natural, Not Like a Performance
Scott Greening: I see from across the room, like the.
They ask the, so what do you do question? And you’re like, I am a sales. And then like their face is like, oh, I, I thought I liked you.
Brooke Greening: We talk about how in our Sales Accelerator you need to be able to do the 70/30 rule, which means you are talking 30% of the time and your potential client is talking 70% of the time.
We need to stop being so focused on what we’re going to say and instead of start thinking, how can I listen better?
Scott Greening: so the number one way that you can build trust quickly is to show that you are interested and care about the other person.
Brooke Greening: And the only way we get to that is by asking questions and listening.
Scott Greening: So to put a bow on it, to review in that, if you don’t want sales to be a performance mm-hmm.
Brooke Greening: Have it be more of a conversation. You can’t fake genuine interest. Let me rephrase that. You can, but it’s completely obvious and everybody knows what’s going on.
Scott Greening: Welcome back to another episode of Sippin’ and Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales, where we take anonymous sales questions and give you some great advice that will move your business forward. We’d love to hear from you and hear your question. You can share that at buildingmomentum.info/matcha, and then Brooke and I will talk about it on a future episode.
Let’s bring Brooke in and check on the matcha situation today. What? What? Oh boy. Brooke has a rather large matcha cup and by large, I mean like the size of her head matcha cup that she’s sipping from today. You doing all right Brooke?
Brooke Greening: I am so, just so everyone knows, this is not going to be that it’s a super long question, so I need a big matcha.
I just, we’re gonna be recording a few sessions and so we just thought let’s get a big one and then ultimately when I’m stressed, you always make me a matcha and I greatly appreciate that. And so today.
Scott Greening: Sweet. We, we may or may not have needed to pull out the extra, extra large, so,
Brooke Greening: all right, here we go.
Scott Greening: So the question that we’re dealing with right now is this, how do I not make sales a performance? Lots of people have in their mind what they think a salesperson is, and they’re pretty sure they don’t want to do that, So then how do you not make it a performance? How do you not be that person? How do you not be someone that you aren’t?
Brooke Greening: Yeah, so I thought this was a funny question. Not a funny question, but it just in regards to the timing, I was just at the Sell Well Conference in Houston, Texas, and it’s promoted by the Good Humans Growth N etwork. And so everybody in that room is trying to be able to do sales, marketing, growing their business well from a good human perspective. And we had to do this exercise where we would say what we felt a salesperson was like. Even in that room, the majority were pushy, fake, inauthentic. All of these words where you’re like, man, even in the environment where you try it to be the most authentic as possible, that’s still what people think sales is about.
They still feel like it’s this performance and I would encourage it does not have to be, and if you actually do have it be more of that performance type of mindset, it’s going to hurt you. Instead of help you.
Scott Greening: Yeah. I think that’s kind of a surprise that people always getin non-work related situations, when we’re out with people and meeting people for the first time and you’re talking with them and then I see from across the room, like the.
They ask the, so what do you do question? And you’re like, I am a sales. And then like their face is like, oh, I, I thought I liked you. Um, and that, but so it shouldn’t be that way. It doesn’t have to be that way. And then, you say it, it’s probably actually hurting you if it is this. Mm-hmm. This big performance.
Yeah. I know you ran into this a lot when you did sales at Sunrise. Tell me a little bit about that situation.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, so at Sunrise when we were there, it was for senior living. And so people were choosing to find a place a community, a home for their loved ones. And this was going to be usually a long-term type of commitment.
It was very emotional. A lot of, guilt and frustration, a lot of different emotions going on. And it was a really big investment as well. ’cause it ranged between like eight to 12,000. It’s even more now a month. And so this was not a simple decision to make
All that to say if you were fake. If you had this like performance type of mentality, or you were trying to just get them to sign the dotted line, the contract, they knew it and they could pick up on it really, really, really quickly. And there were things that were going on. So if you could afford to go to Sunrise, you could pretty much afford to go to any other community that you wanted to.
We were usually in regards to the higher investments that families would make. So if you could truly afford Sunrise, you had plenty of options that you wanted to, and so if you didn’t truly feel like you are here for my mother’s or my father’s best interest, I can trust you, then they would just leave.
They weren’t even gonna tolerate it. They didn’t have to ’cause they had plenty of options and they also didn’t have to because you can take a lot of like salesy. Per se, if you’re just trying to figure something out, sometimes we give car dealerships bad reps. There, great, great car dealership professionals out there.
There’s also some doozies and so that is one of the things that we think of like, alright, I’m just gonna like barrel through it and get it done and be on my way. When you’re talking about wanting to find the best place for your loved one, you don’t deal with anything. You don’t put up with anything. So if it’s fake, if it’s scripted, if it feels like it’s a performance.
They’ll just go somewhere else because they’re not going to do that. If you can’t authentically show we truly care for your loved one and this is how we’re gonna be able to help them. They’re gone.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And I know so when we first started dating it was in deer season in Iowa and so I may or may not have hit multiple deer at the start of our relationship. I was so bound to be with you that even deer could not stop me. and then on the day that we got engaged, we,totaled. My car because that’s a whole nother story anyway. Yeah. On our way
Brooke Greening: to tell our parents right, that we were engaged on the way to dinner, we totaled the car.
Scott Greening: Right. All that to say was then it was time to buy a car. And I have a cousin that is married to a family that owns a car dealership. And so I drove two and a half, three hours because I knew Jason Lauterbach go visit Lauterbach car dealership in Newton, Iowa if you’re in that part of the world and need a car Yeah.
Um, would treat me right. And so mm-hmm. Because it’s exactly that. I didn’t want to. Go down the street to the car dealership where I didn’t know anyone and I’d have to deal with who knows what I was gonna drive and go see Jason and get a car. So how do you be a Brooke? How do you be a Jason and not be the salesy performance?
Like, have I got a deal for you? Yeah. Type of, of person.
Brooke Greening: The very first thing is so many people are always worried about, what am I going to say? How is this going to come across? How do I tell them, how do I build value? How do I help them to see like that my product services is the best option for them?
And I would encourage you, that is not the goal of a sales conversation. We talk about how in our Sales Accelerator you need to be able to do the 70/30 rule, which means you are talking 30% of the time and your potential client is talking 70% of the time. We need to stop being so focused on what we’re going to say and instead of start thinking, how can I listen better?
How can I perhaps ask better questions? Because that is the thing that we’re needing to do. We need to be validating what they’re telling us. That is the biggest piece. Instead of focusing so much on, well, how can I talk about my product and service? How can I be able to help them to see the value in it?
That is not the point. The point is to be able to listen to what they’re saying and be able to have some good questions to ask them. So we always talk about how you wanna be able to encourage them with the answers they’re giving you and explore, meaning, understanding what they’re talking about, even more asking more clarifying questions.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I think that it’s really hard to be super performance based when. All you’re doing is asking a question and saying, yeah. Oh, tell me more about that. Or, you said this, can you help me understand what that means a little bit more? And then actually being quiet and listening. Mm-hmm.
Brooke Greening: A hundred percent.
Scott Greening: So we went to 70. Now do you really mean 70/30%?
Brooke Greening: I do. Yeah. So cause we’ve created the whole service framework and that’s based on all of the counseling. That I’ve studied and, ’cause I have a master’s in counseling. So we created this whole framework called the service framework, and it is built so that it’s that 70/30 percentage rate.
So we set the expectations where we have a few questions, but literally it’s helping them to feel confident and be able to trust you enough to be able to explain their stories, what’s going on in their life, what’s happening in their business. And if all we’re doing is encouraging what they’re saying and exploring more and into what they’re talking about. Then when it comes to us being able to explain it, which goes to the next point we’re going talk about. We don’t have to spend 15 minutes doing that. So I would say the other piece is skip the pitch.
Scott Greening: Yeah, let’s we’ll dive into that in just a second. I think I was working with a group this weekend.
We were talking about some leadership things and that type of thing. and p art of the reason why people don’t trust salespeople and only like 3% of the population trust salespeople. Yeah. But part of the reason is because that they think that they’re out to get ’em and all of that.
And so the number one way that you can build trust quickly is to show that you are interested and care about the other person. And so when you do this and when you focus on asking questions and listening in sales, you’re building a whole bank of trust really quickly with people, because yeah, you’re showing you’re genuinely interested in them. So you really do mean the 70/30. And then you said the next idea is skip the pitch. So what do, what do you mean by that?
Brooke Greening: Okay, so. Especially when we’re talking about service-based industries. So many times we might try to ask a few questions and then it’s like our turn and we feel like we have to explain everything that’s going on, and we have a whole kind of pitch deck established and ready to go.
I would strongly encourage that we don’t have to do that if we truly understood where their pain points are, what’s driving them, what’s motivating them. And the only way we get to that is by asking questions and listening. Then when it becomes our turn to be able to share what we can do. We are tailoring what we can offer our services, how we have it set up all of that specifically to the problems that they just shared with us.
And so it doesn’t have to be a whole pitch deck. I know sometimes you have to do that. I know sometimes we’re going to the board. I’m not saying that we don’t ever do that, but I am strongly encouraging if we are having a one-to-one conversation and we’re in the service-based industry and trying to figure out, okay, how can we be able to help you?
And this is how we can, we don’t have to bring a whole pitch slide deck out. We can talk to them and be able to show how we can be able to help them based on the problems they’ve just shared with us.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I know that we’ve had a couple of instances in our business where we’ve done that, and then the person that we’re talking with is like, okay, I’ve gotta go take this to my board or my group of people. Yeah. And but what it allows you to do is then when you’re crafting the proposal or when you’re crafting that pitch deck for that conversation, you can completely tailor it to the things that, that they’ve talked about. Yes. And so then even in that situation where there’s a secondary, like other stakeholders involved, and you gotta do the pitch you can do that.
And I know because you’ve helped me. I’ve had multiple people like come back and say thank you. Your proposal was completely representative of what we talked about and our needs, and it really made a difference.
Brooke Greening: Yeah, and let me rephrase that. I’m not saying by all means we don’t need to do proposals, but I am saying when we’re having that conversation, we should not be speaking 10 to 15 minutes without a break.
That’s what I’m trying to say.
Scott Greening: There you go. That’s, that’s a, that’s a good thing to say. And it’s probably pretty hard to maintain your 70/30 rule if you’ve got Right. Long monologues.
Brooke Greening: Yes.
Scott Greening: So to put a bow on it, to review in that, if you don’t want sales to be a performance mm-hmm.
Have it be more of a conversation. That is asking questions and listening, actually listening to the answers, not using the answers as an excuse to, to launch into your pitch. And then responding to what people have said with the relevance of your product or service.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm.
Scott Greening: Did I get it?
And it doesn’t,
Brooke Greening: it doesn’t, you did, it doesn’t feel perf, it doesn’t feel like a performance at all, and you can’t fake that. You can’t fake genuine interest. Let me rephrase that. You can, but it’s completely obvious and everybody knows what’s going on. So when you truly are interested, and that’s what the people we’re talking to, like we’re talking to people who wanna do a good job in sales and don’t wanna be salesy and scammy and all of that.
And so it’s completely possible to be genuinely interested in what they’re doing. And it is a great conversation as well. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. That’s the other thing I would just encourage. Sometimes people feel like we’ve had a great conversation and then when it goes into, like now I have to tell them what it is, now I have to go into the pricing.
Then they start feeling like that is a performance. Mm-hmm. Like that’s the pitch and that’s why I wanna share with you. It doesn’t have to, we just keep going in the same direction. We started the conversation in.
Scott Greening: All right. If you were encouraged by this episode, if you found value in it, we’d love to hear from you.
So if you can like, comment, subscribe, share, do all the things, we would appreciate it. Thank you so much for that, and we’ll be back again soon with another episode of Sipping Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales, I think. I think it’s Brooke, maybe more like Slurping, Matcha, slurp. Brooke may be cramping up after holding the big, the big cup.
Brooke Greening: Bye guys.
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