It's not a dirty word!

We all have words that make us cringe, hide, or run screaming from the room.  The “S” word causes this to happen for many business people, particularly women.  Which “S” word?  Sales.  Yes…that little word that everyone tells us we need to excel at in order to succeed in business. 

We’ve heard business owners tell us that they don’t have to do any selling themselves because they are hiring the services of a sales rep or adding a salesperson to their team.  Or they tell us that their product sells itself because everyone needs it.  They are going to stay in the office making or creating the product or managing the services and someone else is going to go out and talk about those things or they are going to put a picture on a website.  However, usually after a short time, they look at their sales records or financial statements and realize that perhaps this isn’t working quite as well as they thought it would.  Why not?

Who can sell our products and services better than anyone else? 

·         Someone with passion for them. 

·         Someone who really knows the benefits of them. 

·         Someone who goes to bed every night thinking about how great those products or services are. 

·         Someone who really believes in those products and services so much that they are trying to create a business and make a living by selling them.

Who is that?  YOU!

Women are often raised to be modest.  We’re taught not to say nice things about ourselves because we might come across as a braggart or brash...people might not like us.  As soon as it comes time to praise (aka: sell) our own products or services, we listen to that little voice in our heads that whispers, “Who are you to say you are the best at that or your product is the best on the market?” or “What gives you the right to tell people how great your services are?”

If you really believe that your products or services are good - if you really believe that you can help people in some way with these products or services - then who are you NOT to talk about them?  What gives you the right NOT to help people by selling them these products or services?  How selfish are you to keep those things to yourself or let someone else who doesn’t know them as well as you, or believe in them as much as you, be the only one to talk about them?

We all like the feeling of helping others. We cannot help everyone with our products or services – not everyone may need or be able to afford what we want to share.  However, if we make this simple change in our way of thinking about sales – if we keep in mind how much we can help someone else with our products and services – it will be easier to start shouting about them from roof tops.  Our excitement will be contagious and people will want to buy from us. 

Stop thinking about selling and start thinking about helping others.