Totally Embarrassed
Dr. Justin Cohen
Unleashing Human Potential | Bestselling Author | Global Speaker | Inspiration & Transformation
When I finally managed to get hold of the publisher to sell them on my book I was a little nervous. Okay I was VERY nervous. Sweaty palms, dry mouth, heart racing. Stumbling my way through I heard a click.
She’d put the phone down in my ear. I was mortified. I felt like such an idiot.
If back then you told me that in just a few years I would be considered one of the world’s leading experts on pitching for business I would have said you were smoking something.
Forget selling my book to a publisher, I couldn’t pitch half price crack to a crack addict – which is good because that would have got us both arrested. You get my point.
When I thought sales I thought of some obnoxious dude pushing something that no one wanted.
Then I discovered something that totally transformed my view of selling.
It was when my friend Bob Burg shared with me what the word “sell” really means.
I love etymology – the origins of words. If you really want to understand a word, go to it’s origins.
The word sell come from the Old English, “Sellan.” Want to know what “sellan” meant? Drum roll please! Sellan meant “to push something on someone that they really don’t want.”
Just kidding, but the way some people sell, you’d think that is what it meant.
In fact the word “Sellan” meant “to give.”
That was my light bulb moment.
I had been confusing selling with taking. If you don’t like the idea of selling it’s probably because you do too. If you’re a good person, you don’t want to be a taker.
As long as I thought of selling as taking I just couldn’t sell.
When I approached selling as giving my results exploded.
Flipping my internal script from taker to giver flipped my results into the stratosphere.
I’ll show you a simple way to do that next time. Until then…
The only way to Pitch to win is when they win!
“Thanks to you we floored our competitor ten – nil! Before we started the Pitch to Win process we had 40 members, in less than two weeks we now have 200. Your touch on our company has been priceless.” – Shiru Githiomi, CEO, Bimanet
P.S. If you didn’t make it on to the Pitch to Win Master Academy, to secure you place on the next one, email [email protected]
P.P.S For more information go to Pitch to Win
Justin Cohen
Bestselling author
Speaker Hall of Fame Inductee
CNBC Africa Talk Show Host