Yep, you read that right.
If you want to be successful in your business, you MUST be Salesy.
If that irks you, there’s only one reason – you have a messed up idea of what “Salesy” actually is.
That’s why I get so annoyed when I see people promoting “Sell without being Salesy”. Because they are instantly telling you about their own mindset around sales. Their syntax shows you that they believe that, at its heart, sales is about being evil and manipulative. That there’s something wrong with that. And this from people who claim to be able to teach you how to sell?
The problem is – being evil an manipulative is not what sales is about.
Manipulation is manipulation.
Sales is where love meets self respect. You have to love your clients enough to get past your own fears and call them … you have to love them enough to forgive them if they’re a bit cranky and mean … you have to love them enough to call them on their BS objections. And then you have to respect yourself enough to ask for the sale – you have to demonstrate your self-respect and value by asking for money in return for what you do.
An old mentor of mine used to drill this in to me.
“Syntax is EVERYTHING.”
And while it used to annoy me at the time – he was absolutely right. The words you use to describe the world to yourself, are a large part of the way in which you make meaning from it.
If your internal monologue around sales is negative, you’re screwed from the beginning.
If you hate sales, trying to “fake it ‘til you make it” by acting in the way you think a salesperson is supposed to act, is going to be disastrous. If your perception is that these people are arrogant, manipulative and more or less evil … bullying people for their own financial gain … the persona you create as this “non-salesy” sleazebag is only going to hurt your business – and your reputation.
No matter how much you go on about how you’re a “Boss Sales Person” – if internally you have issues around sales, you’re always to struggle to get where you want to go.
So, given that syntax is everything – and given that “Salesy” is a made-up word – let’s redefine it, shall we?
Salesy (adj.): the act of selling from a place of love and self-respect; a process of finding a person to help, making an offer and helping them to make the right decision for them; a highly regarded undertaking that is the centre of all entrepreneurial activities.
“She was being very salesy when she told the prospect that she felt that, at this point, it would be inappropriate to sell him the high level package because it was a bit more than he needed right now.”
“As a great entrepreneur, he was not only very salesy, he also encouraged salesy-ness is the people around him.”
So much of sales is all about mindset
The actual technical act of selling is pretty straightforward. All you need to do is follow a half-decent script … even if you don’t bother handling objections (which is a HUGE mistake!) you’ll still make SOME sales …
So why do so many people have such a hang up about it?
The real secret to sales is NOT in the techniques. It’s NOT in the scripts and systems. These are all very, VERY important, but they leave out the #1 contributing factor that makes them work – YOU.
THIS!
Does it work for a deaf newbie?
Hi Alexander,
That’s a challenge we don’t have any personal experience in, for sure. But with phone sales out, that doesn’t mean all sales are out. It totally depends on your business and what you’re selling, but online sales might be the way to go. If so, the best thing to do is get really, really good at copywriting, sales pages and social media.
However, saying that, the core of the article remains the same – it’s all about how you view sales, regardless of the method you use to make them.