There is a word that almost anyone selling professional services does not want to be associated with. Can you guess what it is?
If you answered “salesperson,” give yourself a gold star.
Last week I did a virtual presentation on selling for a group of alternative healthcare practitioners. I asked how many of them disliked selling. Everyone but one person said they didn’t like it, and no one wanted to think of themselves as a salesperson.
This is understandable because of the negative connotations that word has. It immediately conjures up the high-pressure, fast-talking guy delivering his “pitch.“
(As an inside, legendary sales trainer Tom Hopkins had a list of words that salespeople should never use, and “pitch” was one of them. He said professionals don’t “pitch”; they do “presentations.”)
You don’t have to think of yourself as a salesperson, but you need to know how to sell.
Please answer these questions:
- Do you offer a quality service that helps people?
- Do you care about your clients?
- If you’re talking to a qualified prospect, who needs your help, do you believe that you are the one who should help them?
If you answered “yes” to those questions, you have an obligation to close the sale. If you don’t, you’re not only doing yourself, your business, and your family a disservice; you are doing your prospective client a disservice.
You, my friend, have an obligation to close the sale.
Professional selling isn’t about manipulating people into buying something they don’t need or won’t help them. It’s about finding out what people want and helping them get it.
So go out there and help as many people as you can.
Kick butt, make mucho DEEnero!
Dave “Naughty Words” Dee
