How to Overcome Your Aversion to Sales
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How does the idea of selling make you feel? For many of us EventPreneurs, it’s not a great feeling. Unfortunately, the image many of us have of selling is not a positive one, but the ability to sell is essential if we want to run a profitable business.
If you suffer from an aversion to selling (and you are definitely not alone), this will have to become an area of focus. Regardless of your stage of business, it just takes a slight change of mindset to overcome this aversion to sales.
Here are 4 reminders when it comes to sales :
1. Selling Is Helping People
One major reason many of us hate selling is that we see it as something manipulative. You’re trying to convince someone to buy something against their will and using dirty tricks to do it. But if you’re offering a product that’s actually helpful for the prospect, there’s no manipulation involved. You’re “serving” them, not “selling” to them.
For example, let’s imagine that you’re selling event design sessions to help clients create the event they envision. Rather than convincing the person to sign up by emphasizing your skills and credentials, you could offer a free session where you teach a few crucial things they can apply today to get results. Once they try what you taught them, they’ll realize the value of what you offer. Consider it a win-win situation!
2. Listen to Your Prospect
Another reason we hate selling is that it seems pushy and annoying. The typical image of the salesperson is someone who’s talking a mile a minute and overwhelming a prospect until they are helpless and ready to buy.
Actually, in order to sell well, it is important to be a good listener. Focus on understanding your prospect well and their needs. After offering your service, follow up with them to see what they liked and what they’d like to see improved or changed.
3. A Personal Process
We often see sales as impersonal. People are just numbers. You go for quantity over quality, hitting as many prospects as possible until one buys because it’s a numbers game. But good salespeople connect personally with their prospects. How many times have you heard selling is about relationship building? First, you make a personal connection. Then, with respect for your prospect, you work together to find solutions to their problems.
4. Build Your Confidence Muscle
Many of us hate selling on a much more gut level. One of the biggest reasons we fear making sales is the fear of hearing: NO. To put it simply, rejection hurts. Even when you know it’s not a personal rejection, it can still sting when you go to great effort to explain your product and the prospect, in the end, says ‘No’.
There are many things we can do to build up our confidence muscle. Confidence grows naturally through experience. The more you face rejection, the tougher you get to it. But you can also gain confidence by understanding your product well and how it genuinely helps people. If you know the strengths of your product, you can better communicate this to prospects.
Ready to remove the blocks that keep you from effective selling, join our FREE 5-day challenge. The challenge teaches you step-by-step how to turn prospects into purchasers, including how to overcome negative feelings you have about selling.
