I have never considered myself to be a great salesperson, but more of a problem solver, a solution provider, and passionate about helping others. Nevertheless, on my journey, I have ‘sold’ products/concepts/change/opportunities and ‘myself’.
As a small business owner myself in my world ‘a sale is so much more than the final transaction’ if we get all the right pieces of the puzzle together it’s going to lead us to the final transaction or not as the case may be. The challenge is getting the right pieces of the puzzle.
In fact, if you were a potential client/buyer what would your definition of a great salesperson be? As one of the biggest areas of lost business sits in the follow up and ‘get back to you stage’ it could be argued that this would be high on their important list.
It is true though, in my opinion, that quite simply some of us enjoy ‘selling’ more than others, but for those who don’t love it, is it because you just haven’t found the way that you are most comfortable with yet that feels right for you and your brand?
I believe it’s a bit like exercise/keeping fit there are different activities that work for some of us as individuals, but not any one thing that works for us all, in other words, the route can be very different but the results can be just as good.
It’s a regular thing for me to hear ‘I can’t sell, and I don’t want to be considered as a salesperson’. Selling your products and being salesy is not the same thing – do you agree? But of course, we have to sell our products to stay in business.
There can be a whole host of reasons behind why people feel this way ranging from not wanting to be ‘pushy’ the fear of rejection, not clear on what their pieces of the sales puzzle are and everything in between.
Thankfully it’s not very often the lack of belief in our products/services that stops us, after all if we have started our own business we have done it with the belief and passion that we have something that we want to share with others.
Ultimately if we switched selling to helping things start to feel very different – it’s no coincidence that we see the word ‘helping’ appearing more and more in peoples messaging, it’s a great way for our audience to see if we are the right person to help them.
What sales is about though is building rapport, trust and relationships and to do that effectively we need to have regular actions and processes in place, which includes ‘talking’ to the people we can help – far better to ‘speak’ to 10 people we can help than a 100 that we can’t.
A quick exercise if you need some help finding out what you are missing in your sales puzzle is my free Sales Checklist.
If you need help putting the pieces of your sales puzzle together my programme will help you do just that http://2summitup.funkyvibes.co.uk/ten-actions/