Most of the people I meet in business want to do the right thing. They want to be trusted, to earn respect, to do a great job for their business and their customers. As I travel and work around the world I meet brilliant technicians and professionals who are passionate about their work, who often change the world for the better by what they do. I meet salespeople who are passionate about helping their customers and who enjoy finding the right solution for them.
Intellectually every business person knows that products and services have to be sold, customers have to be found. Selling is really no more than exchanging a product or service for money.
Yet, somehow, when it comes to selling, to winning business many people, including salespeople feel they are doing something that doesn’t quite feel right. Designing a great piece of software that will help a company be hugely more productive is honourable and professional but ‘selling’ that same piece of software is seen as something completely different. It’s not quite a nice thing to do to be ‘selling’; it often causes anxiety and stress. Too many people think that the normal standards of business ethics and integrity don’t apply when it comes to selling, that salespeople can’t afford to have a conscience.
I meet perfectly decent normal human beings who seem to change personality when it’s time to ‘sell’. At a conference in Phoenix, Arizona a couple of years ago a business development executive for an international consultancy business said to me, “You have to sell your soul when it comes to getting people to buy”. She went on to tell me that it’s a tough competitive world out there and you sometimes have to be prepared to put a gloss on things, to make the firm look better than it really is. When I asked if that’s the way she wanted it to be she replied, “Heck no, I hate bending the truth but it’s just the way it is in sales”.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
You can win business and many people do, without it ever feeling uncomfortable for the seller or buyer. You can sell without feeling that there is something a little unsavoury about selling, without exaggerating or putting a gloss on things and definitely without selling your soul. You can be yourself without ever having to put on an act, use sales techniques or trickery of any kind.
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