Category: lifelong learner

As a business person or salesperson, is your product or service one in which you believe? If not, keep researching and learning until you can say unequivocally that you believe in what you are presenting. If you can’t believe in it, you need to change to another line of work, product, or service.

 Life is too short to try to be selling something in which you don’t believe.

In addition to preparing you to properly serve the community, believing can be contagious. Believing and being enthusiastic about your product or service is vital, and it will help you to know how the product or service will help people reach their desired outcomes. How can you can help people to realize their goal? If we use an automobile as an example, a buyer may have a primary motive to provide safety for their family. Or they may be looking for the most inexpensive way to get to and from work. Another buyer might want to create the most economical decision that will last several years. The motive of every buyer is different.

To know your product or service well, enables you to find a solution where the buyer is more aligned with the goal they have set. Knowing about the engineering safety ratings for a family car; or miles per gallon of gas; or total lifetime routine maintenance and operating costs. All of these different goals could be part of an unsatisfied desire. As a person who knows his product or service, you can assist the buyer to find a solution. So, knowing what the product can do is important, as well as knowing what it can’t do. Always be learning more about your industry, your product or service, and your competition!

Buy your copy of The Franchising Fast Lane today.

You want to start your own business, so let me ask you a question, “What picture comes to mind when you think of a salesman?” Do you think of a salesman as a fast-talking, deceptive, manipulative person? Maybe there is some of those out there, but the best salespeople are trusted consultants and they won’t help you buy if it isn’t the right product or service for the customer.

When I started learning about sales it was through listening to cassette tapes (yes, that long ago!) of professional salespeople speaking about keeping a positive attitude, and helping other people get what they want. This was a new world opening for me. I was introduced to the idea that the highest-paid people in the world are salespeople, and many times they make more money than their managers! What an eye opening revelation. But is selling a skill that can be learned? The answer is yes. If you have desire and are willing to be teachable, you too can learn how to sell. If you want to grow a business of your own and you don’t want to sell, it is still possible. To do so you’ll need to hire a good salesperson to work for you. A good salesperson will need to be paid well for their craft, but in return they will help you build your business faster and more completely than you could grow without them.

Before giving up on yourself and your own selling abilities, consider whether you may already be successful at selling. Have you ever applied for a job? or volunteered for a role in your local church? or convinced someone to go on a date? or to share time with you? If you have done any of these things then you have sold an idea! When it comes to selling a good or service, the key is partly the skills, but first things first. The first thing is to find out why would someone want to buy into an idea that you are proposing? What is their want or need that you will help them satisfy?

Buy your copy of The Franchising Fast Lane today.