There are plenty of books & blogs & websites & white papers out there that will attempt to tell you what selling is – & how to do it. Selling is solving. Selling is asking. Selling is listening. Selling is service. We get it, selling is a lot of things.
We understand that selling is not a lot of things, too. Here’s a pretty comprehensive list of things that selling is not. Contrary to what far too many people (& some salespeople) believe:
Selling is not:
- Telling (Shhh…)
- Convincing (You can’t convince anyone of anything – people do things like buying for their reasons)
- Talking (Shhhh again)
- Schmoozing (It’s not Mad Men in the ‘60s. It’s not the ‘70s or ‘80s for that matter either)
- Entertaining (Doesn’t hurt but there is so much more to it)
- Showing (Along with telling . . . if that’s all it was anyone could do it)
- Demonstrating (There must be a good reason to demonstrate & clearly define what a successful demo looks like)
- Presenting (The best presenters are NOT the best Salespeople)
- A numbers game (If one more person says that . . .)
- A dead-end career (We all know dozens of successful ones that make a great living)
- Sleazy (Problem is . . . some Salespeople are & they look sleazy when they do it – ruins it for the rest of us)
- Over-promising (That ended the first time a Salesperson over-delivered)
- Under-delivering (See Over-promising above)
- Dialing for dollars (Some industries get a bad reputation for that . . . )
- Handling objections (Again, so much more than that)
- All about “closing” (Want to get great at selling? Worry about your “opening”)
- Low-balling (Won’t work forever – ask K-Mart)
- Gouging (Some salespeople try to – usually comes back to bite ‘em)
- Only for extroverts (Some of our most successful clients are introverts)
- Manipulating (Not even close! Who likes to be manipulated?)
- “Us” vs. “Them” (Feels like that at times. When it turns into a partnership you’ve done it right)
Have you ever thought about the thousands & thousands of Salespeople that preceded us & how they screwed it up for us – by doing it wrong? The 21 items on this list rolled off the tip of this author’s tongue pretty quickly. There is a stereotype out there about Salespeople & it’s not pretty. Let’s do our part to start changing the narrative & build a more positive list – a list we can all be proud of.
