I went to an amazing seminar this weekend. The focus was on sales–and I just saw you wrinkle your nose. That’s ok. That was my reaction, too, when I first thought about it. I see it differently now.
Two years ago I began to realize that I was resisting sales. When I was a computer-aided design consultant, I did almost no sales. I was a celebrity, and $10,000 keynote speeches, $25,000 consulting engagements, and more, just flowed to me, because I was THE star.
When I became a coach, and decided to focus on helping people produce books, and income from follow-on products, all that changed. Nobody knew me. So I knew I had to learn about marketing and sales.
Marketing–letting my market know who I am and what I can do–has come fairly easily to me. But sales? No.
I realized I resisted sales as a yukky activity, as a sleazy kind of coercion, as a way to get people to do things they don’t want to do, for my own benefit. I knew that wasn’t right, so I adopted a motto: “Selling is an act of love.”
You see, I know I have something nobody else has: A way to help people express themselves by producing a good book, quickly and easily. And then taking the work they put into producing the book and leveraging it into an entire business. It can be a life-changing experience, as it already has for several of my clients. I want people to know about it.
But I was stuck with these bad–and incorrect–beliefs about selling. And one more, even more deadly to the sales process, that I just discovered this weekend.
What I discovered was that the overriding program in my communication process was that I want to be liked. I so wanted to be liked that I’d gladly forgo a sale to ensure that the person I spoke with would leave the conversation liking me.
Thus I sabotaged myself–and them.
Sometimes, just shining the light of truth on a situation is enough to change things. I believe that’s the case here. I learned to lead my prospect through a series of transactions that result in us both being able to make an informed decision about the question: Are we right for each other? Is there a match between their wants and needs and what I offer?
To help my prospect reach that point, I have to take control of the conversation–gently, but definitely. When the prospect asks, “Never mind all that, how much will it cost me?” I must civilly get their permission to bring them to the point where I can give them an answer that will make sense. “Of course you want to know how much it will cost. Would it be ok if I ask you just a couple more questions so that I can give you an accurate and meaningful answer?”
It’s a dance, and I must lead skillfully, so that my dancing partner enjoys and profits from the dance–even if we never see each other again.
Think about this when you write your book. Communication is a dance.
