“Selling is the second oldest profession, often confused with the first”. from Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play by Mahan Khalsa.

That quote makes me laugh and yet there is so much truth in it as to how people feel about “SELLING”. Visions of shadey car salesmen, TV pitchmen, and telemarketers come to mind. All sales people care about is getting your credit card in their greedy, sweaty, little hands and then…. “See ya!” As a matter of fact, I went through a “sales training” program for health club managers back in the early ’80’s that was exactly that. I was told that the goal was to get people to join and then hope they wouldn’t come. Sell, sell, oversell, sell them services we don’t even have. I quit shortly thereafter and hated anything to do with sales for almost two decades. But that was then and this is now. I came from that vile, hard sell experience to what I now feel as the joy of selling. It has become one of my missions, to teach others a natural, caring way to sell.

I think to understand my view we need to discuss what selling really is.

My epiphany came in a realization that selling is really about helping other people get what they want and/or need and not about “getting their money”. Do we make money from selling? Yes, but making sales/money does not mean that you are not enhancing the lives of your clients. In fact, the more you:

1) Really listen to their wants/needs

2) Clarify history, details, situations as needed so that you really understand where they’re coming from

3) Make an honest recommendation to them as to a course of action that will best solve their problem and why

the more sales/money you will make. The difference is that we do what we do because we want to help people. We are their advocates. We ARE the good guys. Making sales/money is simply a reflection of how much opportunity we have to help them.

So enjoy the sales process. It’s how you help others.

(Now, if we can leave them with a “Wow”, we will feel even better about our experience together, but that’s another post.)