03/08/2021
KNOW, LIKE, TRUST in Sales - has NOTHING to do with PRETEND.
Traditional sales training needs to go. We are taught that to sell we have to be known, liked and trusted. YES! 100%!!
Except, we are also taught to hide the parts of ourselves that we don’t particularly like or that others won’t like. So we have a dilemma in business, don’t we??
So we invent the target audience, describe the people you want to sell to and then tell them things they want to hear to sell. 🤮.
This is all so icky and manipulative. This has zero honour and integrity for ourselves or our fellow humans.
How bout we teach selling with courage, selling with integrity, selling with heart?
As in, be honest if you wouldn’t buy the product and tell your employer that and get a new job. If you think the product is amazing say that, if you think others are better at what you sell, say that too.
As crazy as it sounds, telling the truth appears to be a radical idea and yet what I am inviting you to consider is that honesty will bring you more customers than you could imagine… people will know who you really are (not whom you pretend to be), will like you (or not) and trust you because you are telling the truth.
Traditional sales training appears to be training you to pretend to be someone who can be liked, pretend things that are not you (to be known the way you want them to know you) and pretend to be trusted.
What if you were just the way you are - hiding nothing - telling the truth - not even “trying to sell”… just talking to another human about your stuff and what opportunity and value there is in it?
I assert that the bad reputation that traditional sales has isn’t because of anything but the pretences. The pressure to buy an idea or product you feel you don’t even need, can't see the value in but in some cases, consumers just go along with it and then get "buyers remorse". This is not ok.
Have the courage to be where you are as a business owner. If you are just starting out. Say that. In the beginning, I told people that other business courses were probably better but I was about training business leadership skills in humanity and humility and people signed up on my honesty. Not me pretending to be the best and telling them what they wanted to hear.
I am out to see all people be unapologetic of exactly where they are in business… and I think THAT is the most effective and ironic strategy for a thriving business. When people KNOW who you really are, they LIKE you for who you are or not (let the non-likers leave), and then you build TRUST on your true self, not your pretend one.
COMMENT HOW YOU BRING HONESTY TO YOUR SALES PROCESS?
