Almost every day, someone tells me a different reason why they donāt like selling.
āSelling is stressfulā.
āItās frustrating that the process takes so longā.
āI wish I wouldnāt have to always look for new prospectsā.
āItās such a waste of time, to issue proposals and not get the salesā.
And I get it. Building your business, marketing, having sales conversations, writing proposalsā¦ itās work, of the kind that you simply canāt get around – and it’s no fun when you do all the work and you don’t get the sales.
But that doesnāt mean selling has to be a slog.
In fact, for me itās the opposite: I find the whole marketing and sales process a ton of fun.
Why?
For one thing, because itās like a puzzle:
Whoās most likely to buy?
What do they need to hear, or know, or believe, in order to want what Iāve got?
Puzzle, puzzle, puzzle.
Shifting pieces, figuring out what works, seeing a picture emergeā¦ itās endless discovery and learning, and I just love ‘learning people‘.
Selling means you become an explorer, trying to figure out someone else’s world.
And that’s the second reason I like sales so much:
Learning what life is like for that other person. Learning what it’s like to be in their shoes.
Every person is a world, and for that person to buy my work, I need to ‘learn that person’.
What are their fears and frustrationsā¦ which wants and aspirations do they haveā¦?
How committed are they, how can I help them, what can I do to help them get out of repetitive and dysfunctional thinking, and operate and grow their business from the heart?
Whatās the key I need to turn, in order for them to see and deploy their own abilities, leadership, communication and sales skills?
Who, in other words, is this person, who I think ought to buy from me – and in what way do I need to show up and communicate, so that they can relate to me, and want to buy?
And also, what’s the identity-piece that’s at play here?
Meaning: if they decide to buy, what change in identity does that cause for them?
When you turn marketing and sales into the kind of exercise that focusses you on figuring out a person, it becomes a lot of fun.
Because you can see selling as a separate thing – something you just have to do if youāre in business – or you can see it as an integral part of being human.
Where ābeing humanā means you exist in relation to others, and at any moment you have the opportunity to connect with someone, share in an experience, and figure out how you can create resonance with that person, and figure out a way for both of you to move forward on something.
Much like you would with relatives, a partner, or a friend. The only thing that makes sales different from all other human interactions, is that there’s a financial transaction in the mix.
So ‘selling’ then isnāt some terrible task: itās what we do all day long anyway – the only difference that in our day-to-day experience, there’s usually no financial transaction.
And once you internalise that, once you make the shift into selling as a normal, helpful human activity and an act of service, suddenly it becomes fun.
You donāt need to āget over yourselfā or āsuck it upā or ājust accept salesā.
All you need to do is activate and deploy your own innate curiosity for others, and make it your mission to learn people, and figure out what’s going on in their world. It’s fun.