Selling

You may never have imagined yourself as a sales person. Your image of sales people may be one of some one who is witty, fast on their feet, and out to trick you into buying something. The truth is that you already spend a large part of your life selling.

You talk the kids into watching one movie instead of another. You talk the garbage man into taking extra garbage. You talk your husband into new living room furniture or the wife into a new SUV. You talk the credit card company into not charging you late fees. You talk your workers at the office into doing what they should so that you and they can keep their jobs. You talk your boss into getting you a new computer so you can be more productive. You convince everyone at the office that they should have the Christmas party at the Marriot instead of the Holiday Inn. You talk everyone into having Thanksgiving at your house. You talk some one into going to the store for a gallon of milk. You talk your kids into getting good grades, going to college, driving safely, picking up their room, helping you with some chores, and not watching bad things on TV. These are all things that people initially may not have wanted to do but, you convinced them, showed them, that it was the thing that they should do for their own good.

This is selling in its purest form. Notice that, in every case, you had a need or you identified a need or desire, and you explained the solution in a way that they saw your point of view and agreed with you. This is what selling is. Selling is helping others do what is best for them. You get paid to help others. Anything else is called scamming. Scammers will talk people into buying things that they can’t afford or they don’t need or want. Scammers will talk people into doing things that hey don’t want to do and shouldn’t be doing. Professional sales people help people do what they should and get things that they need or want. Sales people are proud of what they do and sleep well at night. Don’t confuse sales people with scammers.

If you want to have your own business, you will have to sell.

The secret to selling is not to sell whatever you want the customers to buy. People do not buy a gift basket because they want a gift basket. They buy a gift basket because they want to make some one happy. “This will make them real happy”, is much more effective than, “This gift basket has X, Y, and Z”. Selling happiness will sell many more gift baskets than selling gift baskets will. The same goes with cards. “This card will make them happy”, will sell a lot of cards. “This runs at 2000rpm with a 7.5” blade. There are many different blades available”, will not sell as many saws as, “This will cut make a nice cut through through anything you want to cut. You can change blades if you want to cut steel or plastic”. People buy saws because they want a cut. “This DSL downloads at up to 1Mbps”, will not sell as many DSL lines as, “You will be amazed at how fast your files will download and your web pages will pop up. You'll think you have lightening on your screen”. Even though they often know that 1Mbps is much faster than dial up, you have to say it to reaffirm what they are already thinking. People buy DSL because they want speed.

Notice that, in each case, you have identified what the customer actually wants and helped them get it. You have not cheated, lied, or tricked them. You gave them what they wanted.

This is the secret of selling. You will sleep well.