Sales Is Life

[Sales for those who hate the idea of selling]

For those who feel like selling is a skill, we might never have.

Or it’s the domain of experts who dedicate their lives to closing large deals.

Consider this.

You transact every time you connect with someone and solve a problem for them.

• You need to persuade them to trust you and give you time.
• You need to have them believe in your solution and try it.
• You take “payment” in terms of kudos, thanks, praise, recommendations to others, favours in return, or simply respect.

Every day we are selling.

• We sell when we persuade our family to eat pizza instead of pasta.
• We sell when we convince our friends to come to a party instead of going home.
• We sell when we recommend a new Netflix series to our colleagues.

Selling is part of everyday life.

• We boost the perception of our popularity and personal brand by sharing Instagram photos of our holidays and adventures.
• We stoke the emotions of people we date or work with by how we dress, behave socially, or predict or promise project outcomes.
• We introduce new ideas, persuade, negotiate, handle objections and influence parents, siblings, and friends daily.

When we get into a business context, we overcomplicate the selling process.

• We speak in technical terms about our service, getting super granular and specific about methods rather than telling the bigger story and connecting with emotions and experiences.
• Or we get super shy about selling, feeling our audience needs to be more sophisticated to be pitched.
• When we get process-oriented, we ignore the important headlines of the cost of problems, the value of results, and the breakthroughs along the way.?
• We fall into the cardinal sin of talking about ourselves instead of our prospects, their situation and challenge, and their desired outcome.

We must remember to connect with our prospects to build desire by talking about their challenge and building trust while pointing to evidence of outcomes.

We might find our work easier if we remember how we sell every day and bring these principles into business sales.