Selling, everybody’s doing it.
Merriam Webster defines selling as an action of persuading or influencing a course of action or to the acceptance of something.
Selling touches everyone, everyone sells, there is no escape from this fact.
Webster defines persuade as to move by argument to a belief, position, or course of action.
Think about it, whenever you try to get your way, you’re selling. Whenever you try to get someone to do what you want instead of what they want, you’re selling. Whenever you try to get your proposal signed off on, you’re selling. Raising money for your new venture, you’re selling. Getting a key employee to join your company, you’re selling.
Everyday, everyone is selling. You get your child to eat their vegetables, do their homework or go to bed on time, this is selling. Getting your friends or spouse to go see the movie you want, eat at the restaurant you want or getting them to tag along with you on an errand involves selling. Convincing the mechanic to fix your car for less or negotiating a lower price on a home, involves selling.
I would go so far as to say that your success in life depends on your ability to persuade, influence, convince and move others to your course of action, ideas or offers. Your ability to achieve financial security for yourself, your family and your team depend on your ability to sell.
Given that selling , then it stands to reason that we had better understand a little bit more about this thing called selling.
To cover all the basics of selling here wouldn’t really make sense, as this is not the place for such an exhaustive discussion; however there is one aspect that I’d like to cover and one that is most important to selling.
The most important sale.
From Grant Cardone’s Sell or Be Sold, “Only to the degree you are sold can you sell. This is a critical and unavoidable fact that cannot be missed if you’re to become great at what you do…The bottom line is, if you’re not selling to some degree, you’re not sold…In order to become a great salesperson, you have to sell yourself on what you’re selling.”
And that is the most important sale of all, selling yourself! You have to have an unwavering certainty that your product, your service, your company or your ideas are superior to all others. This level of conviction is required to achieve a high degree of success and it can also be used as a monitoring factor in your career – if you’re sold, your selling, you’re moving product, signing contracts. If you’re not sold, your conviction is down to a greater or lesser degree, sales are not occurring, and contracts are not getting signed.
Let’s say you’re in front of a prospective client and they’re telling you that they can get your company’s services down the street for less. What do you think your response would be if you had complete conviction, you’re totally sold on the fact that your company’s services are the only option for them: “I completely agree, you could easily go down the street and get it for a lower price, but let me cover the key reasons why my company is the option that is best for you.”
On the other hand, If you’re not completely sold with unwavering conviction on the fact that your company is the best option for your client, it would probably go something like this: “I see, well once you hear what they have to offer, come back to me and we will do what we can to earn your business.”
Not only would this apply to a product or service but I believe it has sweeping implications across many areas. Any great performer, whether musician, artist or athlete would probably agree that they must hold the conviction that what they do is the absolute best when compared to all others. There is an insatiable drive to be the best they can be and must convince themselves that this is the case, and if they fall short of that conviction, then they must do whatever it takes in the form of training, practice, drilling or rehearsal to achieve absolute conviction.
There is a simple exercise that can be done to help you work out that conviction. To help you to become completely sold on yourself, your company and your product or idea.
Take out a sheet of paper and divide it into thirds – at the top you’re going to write “company” and then about a third of the way down, you’re going to write “product” and on the last third of the page, you’re going to write “you”.
So now, what you’re going to do is sell yourself. You’re not going to sell your friends, your spouse or your co-worker. You’re not going to show anyone else this piece of paper. You’re simply going to sell yourself on why you should do business with your company. Then sell yourself on why you should buy your product, and lastly, sell yourself on why “you”. Why should you do business with you?
Set aside the time, write down all the reasons in each section, don’t just think about it. Take the necessary time to write it out, and as you work through the exercise you’ll notice that your conviction is rising.