Are You a Natural Sales Person?

How many of us don’t regard ourselves as a good sales person? Probably more than half of us. Yet as business owners or senior directors/partners, our business’s success usually depends on it. For those who haven’t risen through the ranks via a sales career, the prospect of selling can be daunting, particularly if our background is more of a technical one.

There can be a danger that we avoid selling and employ others to do our selling for us. Here, I am not advocating having no sales department or structure, simply not removing yourself from sales. Finding outstanding sales people is difficult and, with long lead times to win business, it can often take an extended period of time to know if you have a problem or not.

For those of you who think you’re not a sales person, I want to encourage you to think again. “But I’m not a natural, I don’t have the right personality, I haven’t been trained” you say. The latter is easily addressed, as there are plenty of good sales training organisations – if anyone would like some recommendations, please send me an e-mail. For those of us who don’t think we have the right personality to sell, take a moment to think about all the bad sales people who have tried selling to you in the past. Oozing with confidence and having the gift of the gab? Maybe. But, probably also a combination of too pushy, too smooth, too arrogant or a little “wide”. Now aren’t you glad you don’t have the “right” personality?

One of the most important skills you need to be good at sales is good listening skills and then to come across as honest and dependable – not difficult if you are! It has been said that sales is the transfer of enthusiasm from one person to another – if it’s your business you should have that in abundance.

Celebrate the fact that you’re not a typical sales person and commit to being an outstanding sales person.

I shall leave this subject for now with a short extract from, “The Greatest Salesman in the World”, by Og Mandino.

“None can duplicate my brush strokes, none can make my chisel marks, none can duplicate my handwriting, none can produce my child and in truth none has the ability to sell exactly as I.

Henceforth I will capitalise on this difference, for it is an asset to be promoted to the fullest.

Vain attempts to imitate others no longer will I make. Instead will I place my uniqueness on display in the market place. I will proclaim it, yea, I will sell it. I will begin to accent my differences, hide my similarities. So too will I apply this principle to the goods I sell. Salesman and goods, different from all others and proud of the difference.”