Why do we hate to sell? Fear of rejection? Makes us feel pushy? We don’t like to be aggressive or bother people? Okay – but why then do we love to recommend? We love to recommend new restaurants to our friends, recommend movies, suggest our friends try our doctor or favorite babysitter. Why do we like to do recommend but we hate to sell?
We love to recommend because we want people to have the same great experience we had, and we are not vested in whether they act on our recommendation or not. We just want to share the information.
You know it is funny, if I had a dime for how many people tell me they are not in sales, hate to sell or have no interest in being a sales person, I believe I could come close to paying off our national debt. It is almost human nature to hate sales, yet it is one of the most natural parts of life. Whether we know it or not, we sell everyday. If you have a job, a family, or you volunteer in your community, you are a sales person.
Selling is nothing more than getting others to buy into whatever it is your are offering. Have you ever gotten your co-workers to try a new restaurant? Your boss to spring for gym memberships? Your child to eat broccoli? or Your spouse to try yoga? Ever raise money for your church or convince a fellow church member to chair a committee with you? If you have ever done any of those things, then you are a sales person, and I would guess a master one at that.
Well if selling is so natural, why do we hate it so much? Because somewhere along the way the sales profession went wrong – books, programs and techniques began to emerge that made selling more about helping yourself and your company rather than helping your customer. New buzz terms such as cold-calling, up-selling, cross selling began to emerge that shifted the focus from customer-centric selling to me-centric selling.
No wonder we started to dislike selling, this new style pushed us too far out of our comfort zone and left us empty. How we were being trained to sell missed one of the most important elements of the process, the emotional high we get when we have helped someone. We all know buying is emotional, well my friends – so is selling. If you are going to do something long term then it has to feel good.
The techniques we use when we are trained to sell are different from the techniques we use when we naturally sell. The techniques we use in our everyday lives are rooted in a deep desire to help people and to share information, we want to improve our friends and our families, experiences, situations and lives.
If you shift your paradigm from selling to helping, shift your paradigm from selling to recommending you’ll stay focused on your client. You’ll listen more intently, you’ll enjoy sales calls, you’ll find more opportunities, and you’ll get more turns at bat. When your sales energy conveys helping rather than selling, when it conveys more share rather than push, more prospects will seek you out, making sales more fun, easy and effective.
If you want to learn to love to sell then you need to shift your paradigm. You need to approach sales as an opportunity to share and recommend great ideas, solutions and opportunities with other people. Make this one shift and you will go from hating sales to loving sales.
