Do you think you suck at sales or selling in your business?

If you think you do, you need to read on…

I can relate. While I’m great at marketing – I reaaallly struggle to sell my own products and services.

But I recently had a complete mindset shift about being bad at sales with something, Michelle Vroom said in her FB group, “Market Like a Boss: Female Entrepreneurs Growing to 6-Figures”.

Her take on this is that maybe we “suck at sales” because the way we define sales in our minds is out of alignment with who we are.

Mind blown!

Because when I picture someone who’s good at sales it’s the “Wolf of Wall Street”, or “Glengarry Glen Ross “or “Inventing Anna” type persona.

And the words that immediately come to my mind when I think of sales are:

  • Pushy
  • Manipulative
  • False promises
  • Overselling and underdelivering
  • Slick and slimy and “salesy”

Ugh! No wonder I suck at selling! I don’t want to be manipulative or pushy or “salesy”. That’s just not who I am. And I’m sure that’s not who you are either (especially if you’ve read this far).

So, if what you think selling is, is out of alignment with your values, then of course you’re going to resist selling or be bad at it!

So how do we fix this?  

We need to redefine what selling is in our own minds, so we can figure out a way to sell that fits our values and personalities.

To figure this out for myself I took a deep dive into the sometimes-murky world of sales techniques. From reading ‘To Sell is Human’ by Daniel H Pink (highly recommend) to reading endless articles and blog posts to try and redefine what sales and selling is to me.

Let me share what I figured out for myself so that I can hopefully help you redefine the concept of sales for you.

I believe it starts with defining what your values are and how you like to be sold to.

Zig Ziglar famously said, “If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

And that’s what’s at the top of my list of values  – I want to trust the person I’m buying from and for people to trust me.

Here’s the list of values that I want to use to redefine sales for me:

  • Trustworthy
  • Honest
  • Reliable
  • Delivers on promises
  • Provides value

So, that’s what I want selling to be. No tricks or manipulation. I want to be able to say – here’s how I can make your life better, and this is what it costs to work with me – then deliver what I promised.

And sure, selling this way may mean that I don’t make any quick sales because I need to build that trust first, but that feels so much better to me. Because this is who I am, so I don’t need to pretend to be anything else in order to make a sale.

I love how Denise Duffield Thomas, explains how she built her multi-million dollar business in her book, ‘Chill and Prosper’ (also highly recommended). She says that all she does is “Share what I know and make offers”. That’s it.

So, do you still think you suck at sales? If you do, maybe it’s time you redefine what selling is to you.

Now… if we could only get the movie industry on board with movies that portray salespeople as trustworthy, honest and reliable people…