selling | Words For Hire

How to Sing Like a Canary without Being a Blowhard

February 17, 2009 by Karen Swim

Written by Karen D. Swim

This post is the second in a week long series on Learning to Love Self Promotion. You can read the introductory post here.

Self-promotion is integrally entwined with negative emotions for many people. You may have been raised to cloak yourself in humility and view self-promotion as bragging. Or you may have seen the trait in others and found it distasteful or overbearing. To begin to overcome our discomfort and fears let us first define some terms.

Brag – 1 : a pompous or boastful statement 2 : arrogant talk or manner : cockiness (boldly or brashly self-confident)

Self – 1 a: oneself or itself <self-supporting> b: of oneself or itself <self-abasement> c: by oneself or itself <self-propelled> <self-acting>2 a: to, with, for, or toward oneself or itself <self-consistent> <self-addressed> <self-love> b: of or in oneself or itself inherently <self-evident> c: from or by means of oneself or itself <self-fertile

Promotion– : the act of furthering the growth or development of something ; especially : the furtherance of the acceptance and sale of merchandise through advertising, publicity, or discounting

We can therefore define self-promotion as selling yourself. You will note that by pure definition promotion is not inherently “arrogant” or “pompous.”

Self-promotion is necessary to make others aware of your capabilities, or offerings. You may be immensely talented or have a top-notch product or service. However, it is possible to get bypassed for opportunity simply because you did not speak up.

Have you ever watched an “expert” on television and realized that you could have provided the same information? Has someone else held a position that you were entirely capable of performing?

Imagine that someone you love has the voice of an angel. When they open their mouth to sing, the sound is so beautiful that it moves you to tears. Further they love to sing and dream of one day singing on a world stage. One day you and your loved one are at a coffee shop and a well-known music producer walks through the door. As you wait for your order, you overhear him telling the barista of his dilemna. He is putting on a local show and his lead singer has taken ill. Without a replacement, he will have to cancel the show. Do you tell your loved one to make his/her talent known or do you encourage them to keep quiet because self-promotion is an unattractive quality?

I’m going to take a wild guess and assume your answer was “Are you kidding me, I’d tell them to sing their hearts out right there in that coffee shop!”

So, why do you feel okay about self-promotion in this instance but not others? In our example, there was an expressed unmet need (opportunity) and your loved one had a solution. Not only was it okay but there was a benefit for the producer (prospect). It’s hard not to feel good about offering value to another person.

Not every sales situation is this transparent. If it were, self-promotion would be as easy as offering a band-aid to someone with a cut. We have to uncover opportunity and we do that by actively seeking people we can help. We share what we have to offer to others. They may not need what we’re selling today, but when they do, don’t you want to be the first person that comes to mind?

Were you associating self-promotion with a negative connotation? When you remove that emotion does it help remove some of the barrier for you?

Photo Credit: © Brunoil | Dreamstime.com

Embrace Your Obstacles

July 11, 2008 by Karen Swim

Written by Karen D. Swim

“Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats. Yet each struggle, each defeat, sharpens your skills and strengths, your courage and your endurance, your ability and your confidence and thus each obstacle is a comrade-in-arms forcing you to become better…or quit.”—From The Greatest Salesman in the World, Og Mandino

Can you imagine your life without obstacles? Go ahead close your eyes and envision your life completely free of challenges? You may have smiled as you imagined a trouble free zone without stress of any kind. The thought of a challenge free life is appealing until you start to examine the consequences.

If everything was easy, we would never push ourselves to reach higher. Strengths and talents would go undiscovered and we would simply live in complacency. Where’s the fun in that?

As I look back over my own life, those darn obstacles have been my greatest teachers. Obstacles have forced me to overcome fears and try new things. They have moved me from a comfort zone to greater discoveries of my abilities and myself. Obstacles have not blocked my progress instead, they have opened new paths for me to travel and given me just the right tools to navigate the road.

As you consider your own life, I am sure that you have countless examples of the good that came from challenge. I am acutely aware that there is no testimony without a test. We have all benefited from being students of adversity. Yet, with every new obstacle is the potential to forget that it is a “comrade-in-arms.” There are challenges that we believe we simply cannot face down and we get scared and want to quit.

Quitting is always an option, of course but it really is not a solution. You may forego the immediate discomfort, but the lingering impact is far more damaging. You will never build up your endurance to challenge if you simply quit. In the same way that regular workouts make you stronger and faster, obstacles are the weights that build your faith muscles. Each workout makes you stronger, better and more confident.

Embrace your obstacle, it is your partner in success. Use it to make you tougher, smarter and better. You will never regret facing a challenge but it is almost certain you will regret quitting.

How do you deal with your obstacles? Please share your thoughts and insight in the comments box. Remember you don’t have to be a blogger or even have a website to join in the discussion, everyone can comment.

SELL Is Not a Four-Letter Word – Part IV

July 10, 2008 by Karen Swim

Guest Post by Brad Shorr

This is the final post in our 4 part series.

Fear Number Four – Fear of Rejection

This is the Big Daddy, the one everybody talks about and the one that derails countless sales careers before they ever start. Though I am not a psychologist, I’ll venture to say we are all permanently saddled with a fear of rejection. It’s in our bones. It might comfort you to hear that some sales people I know who seem completely impervious to rejection are, in fact, more sensitive to it than the average person. So if we cannot eliminate the fear, what can we do to minimize it and not let it get in the way of our selling?

First, don’t kid yourself into thinking you can avoid feeling rejected when you are rejected. You will. But following this sage sales advice can make all the difference in the world: hope for the best and prepare for the worst. If you are prepared for being rejected, if you know it may be coming, you will feel it less deeply and for less time when it arrives.

Second, the worst is never as bad as we think it will be. Anxiety leads us to build things up in our minds far out of proportion to their actual significance. The more we fear rejection, the more nightmarish our visions of rejection become. A prospect who does not care for our offering is not likely to slice us to pieces with a machete. More likely, the prospect will say, “No thank you,” and everyone simply moves on.

Third, reflect deeply on the advice we have all heard: it’s not personal, it’s business. Even highly successful sales professionals have a hard time remembering that just because someone says “no” to your product, service, program, or idea, they are not saying “no” to you as a human being. And here lies the Catch-22. The more of ourselves we put into our selling, the more successful we become. However, the more of ourselves we put into selling, the more it hurts when we are rejected. There is no getting around it. But I can tell you this much. Having experienced rejection thousands of times, and having performed innumerable autopsies on failed sales efforts, I have learned that in very, very, few cases does the salesperson’s humanity, if you will, cause the failure. As a matter of fact, surprisingly few rejections are caused by weaknesses in the seller’s offering. More often than not, “no sales” occur because of indifference or issues completely unrelated to the salesperson or product.

Fourth, and most important, although we cannot eliminate feelings of rejection, we can learn what customers expect of us, sharpen our skills, and greatly reduce the number of times we experience rejection. Presumably, that is why you are reading this – to gain a fundamental understanding of how to approach prospects, uncover their needs, present your ideas, sell your ideas, and make rejection and all these other fears complete non-issues.

If these brief reflections are starting to put you more comfortable with the idea of being a sales person, you have taken the necessary first step. The most difficult part of sales – for that matter the most difficult part of any endeavor – is forming the proper attitude. And I say this not as a locker room pep talk, but because I’m trying to make a critical business point. The people to whom you will be selling are looking for one thing – value. Customers seek value in your price, value in your product, value in your service, and value in having a relationship with you. Customers see value when they see clarity and confidence.

Have you ever faced the fear of rejection in any professional situation? How did you overcome it? Please share your thoughts, solutions and ideas in the comments.

A big round of applause to Brad for so generously sharing these words of wisdom this week. Brad may include these posts in a book on selling, and you can say you saw it first here!

Brad Shorr Brad is a sales and marketing consultant who lives near Chicago, Illinois. His company, Word Sell, Inc., provides strategic consulting, sales training and coaching, and business blog and other online marketing services. Brad is a prolific reader and writer who is masterful at communicating even complex subjects with warmth and humor.

SELL Is Not a Four-Letter Word- Part III

July 9, 2008 by Karen Swim

Guest post by Brad Shorr

This is Part III in a four part guest series by Brad Shorr. Don’t miss the final post tomorrow.

Eye of Terror

Fear #2 – Fear of Appearing Stupid

Do you enjoy feeling like an idiot? Being caught off guard by a question you haven’t a clue how to answer? Stumbling over your words like a hapless rookie? Few people care to look foolish, yet inevitably we do from time to time when we sell. Unfortunately I don’t have any smart pills, but I can tell you a few things to help you overcome this fear.

First, prospects do not expect you to have all the answers. They only expect you to get all the answers. If you wait to sell until you have mastered all the facts and planned for every contingency, you will never begin. Every sales person in the world is missing some piece of information that might trip them up. You are not alone!

Second, prospects are people. Most all of them want to see you succeed, not fail. What happens when you are listening to a speaker who is struggling and completely off his game? If you are like me, you feel his pain and root for him to recover. That is how prospects will feel about you when you stumble.

Third, any prospect who doesn’t feel your pain, who roots for you to fail instead of succeed, is not a prospect in any meaningful sense of the word. You cannot build sales relationships with people who do not value them.

Fear #3– Fear of Disagreement

Some people thrive on controversy – if you do not believe me, spend a few hours watching cable news programs or reality shows and you will quickly be convinced. However, for us non-sellers, disagreement is disagreeable. I think because of that, we tend to be poor polemicists and go to extremes to avoid arguments. However, when we begin selling, we begin a dialog, and sometimes that dialog escalates into an argument. Now, when I find myself in an argument, my natural reaction is to do one of three things – back off, become overly hostile, or stammer incoherently. Since none of these reactions is conducive to effective selling, I’ve had to learn how to overcome my normal tendencies. If you are like me, these thoughts may help you handle being thrust into an argument.

First – and this holds true for every aspect of selling – put yourself in the prospect’s shoes. Even if what you are hearing sounds irrelevant or irrational, bear in mind what lies behind the prospect’s words are more than likely perfectly relevant and rational concerns. By focusing on the concerns rather than the words, your conversation will reduce tension rather than heighten it.

Second, spirited conversation around your offering is not all bad. They say the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. When I sold packaging materials I learned just how true that saying is. Brown boxes, by nature, were not very inspiring to sell – or buy. Most prospects could not have cared less about my brown boxes. So, when a buyer started arguing with me about my price or my quality or whatever – I got excited. Finally, I thought, someone who cares! Argument can be a sign of interest.

Third, listen! Diligent listening is arguably the most important skill a seller can possess. Often, the prospect or customer is more interested in blowing off steam or asserting authority than in actually engaging in debate. In such cases, the most constructive action you can take is to be quiet. Many an argument can be avoided entirely simply by resisting the temptation to respond.

Have you ever been tongue tied by the fear of looking stupid to a prospect? Has the fear of disagreement kept you from selling success? Don’t let fear keep you from commenting. 🙂

SELL is Not a Four-Letter Word

July 7, 2008 by Karen Swim

Guest post and cartoon by Brad Shorr

I am thrilled to have sufficiently charmed Brad Shorr into guest posting this week. As a follow up to my post last week on Sales, I thought it was only appropriate to have an expert share his expertise on the subject. Brad has been gracious enough to share a four part series on Sales. Without further ado, here is part I!–Karen D. Swim

People who haven’t sold, or who have had bad experiences being sold, hear the word “sales” and cringe. They think of the stereotypical used car salesman: the shifty, manipulative fast talker who strong arms people into purchasing things they don’t need. This is not a model we care to emulate; so, when we are faced with a situation in which we must sell something – a product, a service, a program, or an idea – we feel reluctant, embarrassed, and possibly even, well, dirty.

So let’s begin with some good news. The real world of selling bears no resemblance to that of the moustache-twirling car salesmen. Quite the contrary: in the real world, selling is a natural and necessary aspect of everything we do. A mother who persuades her two year-old son to eat his waxed beans is selling. A volunteer who persuades parishioners to sign up for a church ministry is selling. A customer service manager who persuades her boss to hire two additional reps to handle an overloaded switchboard is selling. An entrepreneur who persuades a bank to loan her money for a new piece of capital equipment is selling. So, here is a second piece of good news. If you think you have no sales experience, you are wrong! Chances are you have been selling for most of your life and are much better at it than you think.

So what exactly is sales, anyway? Certainly, it involves persuasion, but sales is much, much more than that. However, since the persuasive element of sales is what conjures up images of manipulation and dishonesty and makes people reluctant to assume the sales role, let’s deal with it right away. To overcome any aversion to persuasion, think of sales as a two-part process:

Sales is helping customers determine whether or not your product, service, program, or idea has value to them; and,
If it does, persuading them to take action now.

Persuasion, you see, should only take place after a customer sees value in what you are selling. And as you will see, I believe the process of establishing value has almost nothing to do with persuasion and almost everything to do with listening, discovering, clarifying, informing, and collaborating. As you begin to see yourself as a listener, an explorer, an educator, and a collaborator, and the used car salesman images will disappear. You will be on your way to putting your valuable products, services, programs, and ideas into action. And that is what it is all about, is it not? Selling is how we get things done. Selling is what turns theoretical value into real value. And by the way – sales is not charity. There is something in it for you. Yes, financial rewards top the list. But even if you are selling to internal customers or in other situations where financial gain is not a factor, sales offers you, the seller, enormous value:

- The satisfaction of seeing your ideas put into action and making a positive impact in your company, your organization, or your family.
- The respect you earn from being an influencer and a doer.
- The appreciation you receive from customers who enjoy better lives because of your efforts.

Another common (and from your point of view only slightly less distasteful) sales stereotype is the extroverted, glad-handing charmer with the gift of gab. It is true that many successful salespeople fit this description, and you may be thinking, “I’m not that person.” Don’t worry – you don’t have to be. How do I know? Because I don’t fit the stereotype in the least, and yet have sold tens of millions of dollars of industrial packaging products to businesses of all shapes and sizes.

In Part II Brad will cover: Four Fears of Selling – Fear Number One.

Please join in this discussion by adding your comments, insights and questions right there in the comments box. If you gain value from these posts, please hit the Share/Save/Bookmark at the bottom of the post and spread the word. 🙂

Brad Shorr Brad is a sales and marketing consultant who lives near Chicago, Illinois. His company, Straight North provides strategic consulting, sales training and coaching, and business blog and other online marketing services. Brad is a prolific reader and writer who is masterful at communicating even complex subjects with warmth and humor.