Seeing as I've struggled for years with low self-worth, it didn't come as any surprise to me that I had issues with selling myself and my services.
The idea of 'selling' felt dirty so I set out to find an ebook that could shift my perspective on this subject. It wasn't long before I stumbled onto one titled The Spirit Of Selling by Rhonda M. Petit.
I also wasn't far into that book (first or second chapter) when I had my breakthrough! The author challenged me to think back through all my experiences of dealing with good and bad sales people. It became clear very quickly that I feared selling because I didn't want to be perceived as a 'dirty' salesman.
And in that moment I received a flash of insight as to how to change my perspective on selling and it reminded me of a Zig Ziglar quote...
ZIG ZIGLAR
Selling is not something you do TO someone, it’s something you do FOR someone.
How I overcame my Perception of selling
If you feel dirty about selling, then I recommend working through the following steps one at a time and not reading ahead.
- Draw a line down the centre of a page.
- Down the left side list all the horrible sales experiences you've had for as far back as you can remember. Recall all the so called 'sales people' who were pushy, manipulative, arrogant, sleezy, lying, impatient, offensive etc
- Down the right side list all the people who you cheerfully bought from, and think about what made that experience so i.e. Honest, patient, flexible, caring etc
- Now on top of the right column write in big letters "SALES PEOPLE".
- On top of the left column write in big letters "CON ARTISTS".
- Now mentally re-categorise every horrible sales experience in the left column to be that of a "Con Artist" experience.
A Con Artist's goal is to take your money. They do sales TO you, not FOR you. They have zero intention of helping you. They just want to help you out of your money.
A true sales person helps you to make a buying decision that will better your life. Their intention is to help you so they sell FOR you. When a sales person really believes in their product or service, they want their clients to benefit from what they have.
Moving forward...
Now you have two categories to pigeon hole people into and you can choose what type of sales person you want to be. I hope this perception of selling will help you to reframe and feel good about selling your products and services from now on.