Whenever anyone comes to me for help about their “money problems,” one of my favorite pieces of advice is “Go into business. Sell something!” And predictably, one of the most common responses I get is: “But I hate selling!” That launches me into one of my favorite conversation topics of all — about how everyone is into sales.
That’s right — everyone. No exceptions. Whether you’re rich or poor, young or old, educated or not, working or not, etc. When you know how to “sell” people on your opinions, ideas, beliefs, and preferences – then you can sell for profit, too.
In fact — have you ever persuaded YOURSELF to do something that’s good for you? Maybe it was to exercise when you felt lazy, or to keep your wallet in your pocket when tempted to buy something unnecessary. That internal conversation you had with yourself in your mind – that was selling. Selling is persuasion. And if you can persuade yourself, you can persuade others, too.
But yes — selling has a bad rap. And I’ll make it better in this article, as well as teach you how to make the whole selling process much, much easier.
Step #1: Fall In Love With Your Product
The easiest way to NOT hate selling is to simply NOT sell anything you yourself wouldn’t buy. In the words of Mohnish Pabrai: “Don’t be a used car salesman.”
It’s so much easier to sell a product or service that you yourself love. But at the same time, don’t fall TOO MUCH in love with the product. You’ll need to be MORE in love with something more important…
Step #2: Fall In Love With Your Ideal Customer
Your “ideal customer” is someone who has the problem that your product/service solves, and is willing to pay money to solve it. Make an irresistible offer to this person, and you’ve guaranteed yourself a sale. It’s that simple.
Between loving your product and loving your customer, you’ll want to love your customer more. This is simply because your product needs to change over time, otherwise, your competition will beat you. If you’ve ever owned a Sony Walkman, you’ll know that it was around for 20 years… but it won’t last a year today because the competition is too great.
Oh, and there’s one more thing I recommend you fall in love with:
Step #3: Fall In Love With The Process
Lastly, you’ll want to fall in love with selling itself. Take note: Whenever anyone says they “hate” something, most of the time what they really mean is they FEAR it. And human beings, by nature, fear what they don’t understand.
So if you want to love selling, you’ll need to get rid of the fear, which means you’ll need to get rid of what you don’t understand. And the fastest, most enjoyable way to do that is to simply become a lifelong learner in entrepreneurship. Read books, listen to tapes, attend seminars, and so on.
The more you understand selling, the less scary it becomes, the easier it becomes to love, and the sooner your money problems go away. So again: Learn to love the product, learn to love the customer, and learn to love the process of selling.
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YouTube: Evan Carmichael