Can you make yourself fall in Love with Selling?

A Singaporean who came into my sales training recently asked this questions: I don’t really like selling, is there anyway to make me like selling? I am asking this because I know selling is the number 1 skill needed to start any business.

“This is a difficult question”, I told him. It’s like telling me “I don’t love her, can you make me love her?”

There are many possibilities why someone do not like selling. I shall discuss 3.


(1) You are not getting the result you desire or deserve.

Even within this reason, there are many explanations …

The most common is you do not have the skills to succeed in this profession. While motivation and passion are important (assuming you already have them), you need the necessary skill sets before you can get into action.

On the other hand, you may have some of these skills, but lack practice.

Other possibilities includes:
- you do not have a system for success. I discussed this on my posting on 26 Feb 2007.
- you have everything you need, but lacks the discipline to take consistent action,

I will cover these 2 points in the free eCourse on www.AsiaSalesAcadmey.com which I plan to launch within the next 30 days. In the mean time, leave me a note if you need anything.


(2) You are NOT completely sold yourself.

I want to share an analogy that came from my mentor, Tom “Big Al” Schreiter in his book “Super Prospecting” …

If you are like most people, you love to eat.

What if on a Sat night you visited a fine dining restaurant for a buffet dinner. You discovered there are over 200 different dishes and 50 different types of desserts. What’s more interesting was you paid only $9.90, including tax and service charge, and your partner get to dine for free.

On Monday morning, when you get back to the office what you be telling your colleagues? The $9.90 for 2 eat-all-you-want buffer dinner of course!

Compare that to many people in the selling profession.

We procrastinate picking up the phone. We are afraid when we meet our customers. We are worried about telling our relatives what we do for a living? We don’t wish to tell them we are in the profession of selling because we don’t want them to think we want to make money out of them.

Reluctance in selling comes from not being completely sold yourself. If you are not excited and convinced about your product, than you might be selling a wrong product. Look for something else to sell.


(3) You do not understand the real meaning of selling.

Why would anyone buy from you in the first place?

Because you (or your product or service) help them to save money, time or effort. At least they think or perceive so. Otherwise, they would not part with their hard-earn money to exchange for what you are selling.

In other word, when you sell, you are helping your clients. You are providing the solution to their current problem. While many of us are not entirely comfortable about making money from sales, I can confidently say that everyone that I have met till today is willing to help and make a contribution to another person life.

Selling is helping people. It is understanding and BELIEVING this principle that often differentiate great sales from average sales people.



Having said all these, no one can make you love something that you have no feelings over. It’s a chemistry that no one can explain.

teck beng
www.coachme2sell.com

Do you love Cactus?

I love cactus, and I think everyone in business and in the selling professional must keep cactus at home.

Cacti are natural survivals. They can go on for days and weeks and months without water. That’s why they flourish so well in places like desert, where most other living things find it hard to survive.

Cacti have roots that reach further and deeper into the ground, compare to many other plants. Similarly, selling require you to cast a wider net, to really reach out before you have a good catch.

Cacti are the best savers – they save and conserve precious water carefully for “non raining” days. They are always prepared when crisis strike.

Cacti protect themselves well. Thorns help to block part of the sunlight while keeping hostile animals away. A thin layer of wax on the body further reduce the lost of water. Although the environment is cruel, cacti evolve and triumph! Cacti are strong and persistent!

Cacti provide the food and protection to many species in the deserts, including owls, woodpeckers and human. They give back to nature what god has bestowed on them. Likewise, if you want to be successful, give generously to the less fortunate.



I was catching up with a friend yesterday, and he casually mentioned that the selling professional is very brutal – most sales professionals started with little or no basic salary.

I agreed. However, I will like the add: in this profession, the fittest not only survive, but flourish, if they are willing to learn to be cautus.

I train my students to become cacti. Having said that, as part of the follow up mentoring I plan for them, I encourage them to keep cacti at home so that they are reminded of the lessons they learnt.

teck beng
www.coachme2sell.com

Are you Afraid of Failure?

Just had a very fruitful weekend with a group of students in Malaysia. Our objective was to improve the business acumen of these students, so as to prepare them for adulthood.

Of course, one of the sessions was about selling. Students are put into a simulated market place, where some will become buyers and others become sellers.

What amazed me was that there was no fear of rejection in almost all the sellers. They literally went from prospect to prospect to attempt to sell. Lost of “face”, ego and failure were never in their dictionaries.

This reminded me of another important lesson I learnt from martial art – emptiness of mind.

An infant crawling on the ground if missed by a speeding car by a nose will feel nothing but continue crawling normally. A grown up on the other hand will be frozen.

In martial art, if you execute a punch with the fear of being hit by your opponent, you can never do it well.

Similarly, if you sell with the fear of getting a rejection, you will probably not be able to close the sale. Chances are your energy is low and your prospect will “feel” it.

Thus, what applies in martial art also applies in selling.

Follow what the famous Aikido saying: “Prepare for everything but expect nothing”!

teck beng
www.coachme2sell.com

Can't You See my Point?

I was training a group of resellers for a company over the last weekend. During one of the sessions, I instructed everyone to stand up and give a 5-mins presentation of their product to the rest of the class. After that, they took a vote to decide who is the most “convincing and persuasive” presenter.

After the voting was over and the result was announced, a few of the participants shared with me how surprise they were with the outcome. This is because their peers did not support who they thought was the best. In other word, everyone seems to have a different idea of what was the “best”.

Sometimes, I think this is what makes life interesting and confusing.

For example, we may believe that we have presented well, but our prospect may not think so. We may think that we really care for our clients, but our clients cannot “feel” our love. We may be providing the best customer service, but is your best good enough for your customers?

Remember, what your customers, clients and prospects perceive is always the truth. Perception is reality.

It is just not enough that we provide value for our clients. We must also help our clients see that value that we are giving.

How?

Here are a few simple ways that I teach my students in my advanced selling classes:

1) Ensure your entire team understands your unique value proposition for your clients, not just you alone.
2) Ensure this is communicated in all channels of communication, including advertisement, emails, customers’ service officers, front desk receptionist.
3) Keep your communications channels open. Allow feedback to flow back to you in many ways.

The more interactions and contacts you have with your clients, The more opportunities you have to communicate what distinct value you possess.

Till we meet, all the best

teck beng
www.coachme2sell.com