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I am an advocate of being aggressive in your marketing – relentless.
I am also a champion of being sincere, selling with your values, following your heart.
For most people the words “selling” and “sincerity” are not ones they associate readily.
This is the fault of society, TV, your family and friends who have talked to you from both sides of the mouth your whole life.
If you listen to what a lot of people say about sales and salespeople and marketer you might think we are nothing but liars and thieves.
…and it is true that we’ve all been burned by salespeople who were not straight-up with us – and that can contribute greatly to the notion that salespeople are unethical shysters.
However – carrying such attitudes with you will do more to prevent your happiness, acquisition of wealth, and success in your own business than any other factor.
Yes, the mind can be a terrible things – especially when it is running on a program that is telling us everyday that we are doing something bad. Like trying to sell stuff to make money.
Wait!
That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
After all, we all need to make money to pay our way through life, and if we make more than we need we can share it with others.
If you step back and look at it differently having more money than you need gives you the ability to bring more joy and happiness into the lives of others.
Not such a bad thing after all.
And when you think about it you realize that we all have to sell the advantages of ourselves to others… all the time. We work to impress others to get dates, put our best foot forward in social situations, and certainly a job interview is a time when you MUST sell yourself.
So selling is just part of life. It’s part of the social structure we live in.
The origin of the word “sell” has to do with “helping” or “serving” – so the ancients saw things with a little more clarity than we have today.
We all like to buy things…. yet we hate to be sold.
And we resent the people who do the selling for a living – even while we may envy the wealth
and confidence of successful salespeople somehow most of us carry around the mental refrain, endlessly cycling through your brain “I’m just no good at sales”
Believe me, friend, you need to break that pattern once and for all if you want to get ahead in the new economy.
To help you do it I am going to share some insights with you here.
I call it “Selling With Values”
To my way of thinking you really need to get straight on why it it you want to be in business for yourself.
Time freedom?
More money?
Work from home?
More time with family?
There are a lot of reasons. Some people just want to get rich and they don’t care who they hurt to get to that point. I hope you aren’t one of those people because it really isn’t necessary to lie or cheat to get ahead in sales.
In fact the liars and cheats usually suffer ultimately. It’s not good for business because word will get around you aren’t to be trusted.
It’s usually better to be on the up-and-up, admit the flaws of your product, and sell to people with contained enthusiasm but also an attitude of respect.
When you start to look at sales through a softer lens you can see it as a natural part of the human experience, and one which you can reap great rewards from yourself.
Loren Woirhaye prefers to play gypsy music on guitar or accordion – but when he isn’t doing that he writes direct-response copy, consults with clients to help them make money with their websites, coaches people who want to fire their employers and blogs about success, life, his personal foibles, and online marketing at http://malibumentor.com
The post author, Loren Woirhaye writes sales copy and creates marketing systems for business clients who want to slash customer acquisition costs and position their businesses For 20%-30% sales growth in the next 12-18 months. He writes regularly about marketing and life at his Entrepreneur Blog.
