The Selling with Dignity Mindset
Think of the last experience you had with a pushy salesperson. Makes you feel a little sick to your stomach, doesn’t it?
Now replace the thought of the pushy salesperson with a server at a fine dining restaurant. What a difference right? The server is polite, friendly, and pays attention to your needs. Isn’t that the way you are with your clients?
Selling from this mindset is much easier on the prospect and it takes the pressure off. You see? Selling can be a wonderful experience of service to another person. Just as you love the service at the fine dining restaurant, you can learn to sell and serve as the server does. Serving and asking for the order for them is very natural. The same can be true with us.
Selling in this manner of serving will create a much better experience for your clients and they in turn will rather work with you over your pushy competitors. This is how you can create clients for life and raving fans willing to tell others about how amazing you are!
The Background of Selling With Dignity
Sales for many is an ugly word. It is a dilemma for some too. They know they need to be better at sales but get sick over the idea of having to act like a salesperson. Some have said they aren’t cut out for sales. Others are “too nice” for sales.
Does selling need to be so difficult?
I can relate. I was told that I was “too nice for sales. It was a tough business.”
My first experience with a sales bullpen (think Boiler Room, Pursuit of Happyness, The Wolf of Wall Street) I was shoulder to shoulder in a tiny cubicle without dividers. I was committed but I knew this environment was going to be a big challenge. I was the proverbial fish out of water… actually a missionary in a sales bullpen may be more uncomfortable than the water-less fish.
If I was going to succeed, SERVING would be the ticket to my success.
As a former missionary, I thought I could help others in business. What I needed to learn was to actually sell myself and my product. I knew that my secret power was in the serving. I didn’t have a lot of business acumen at the time nor was I a strong closer. I was actually more like the anti-salesperson than a salesperson per se. If I was going to succeed, SERVING would be the ticket to my success.
From this background, I took what I learned in the mission field about serving, putting others first, being a Giver, listening with empathy, being persistent, staying positive, being patient and kind, having a solid work ethic with good follow through. I brought these traits and others into the business community. Then I became adept at story telling too and continued to learn to master the craft of sales. Eventually the success led to leading sales teams and helping people to be better at the craft of selling and thus growing the business.
I figured there were others like me. People who were not the highly competitive Type A personalities but were more chill but still want to succeed. We are not the ones that need to sing our own praises and to be the hero of every story. In fact, we prefer to put others in the limelight and smile at their success. For us, the client is easily the hero of the story. These people frequently think they may be too nice for sales. They are told or believe they just aren’t aggressive or pushy enough. I think differently. I think most buyers would rather work with someone like us more than the aggressive, strong closing types.
So now what? Think of the skills you already have acquired. Sales skills can be acquired too. We don’t typically succeed at something by accident, work is involved. I have read countless books over the years and spent thousands on training to be better and to get the shortcuts to help me succeed quicker. This knowledge and wisdom gained is to be shared. Serving others so they too can have a successful business and provide well for their families and hopefully be a good citizen for their community, is my mission.
Thomas Watson a President of IBM once said, “Nothing happens until a sale is made”. Sales ultimately drives the economic engine. Without sales, how will your business grow after all? The website may be beautiful. The office decor can be plush. The strategy can be solid. But unless we have sales, the other stuff will disappear.
Yes, it all starts with a sale.
