Tessa Stowe, How Do You Define Selling?

Your Definition Of Selling Will Determine Sales Success.

Submitted By Tessa Stowe

The way that you define selling will impact your sales results and successes.

Suppose that you think selling is all about persuading and convincing people to buy your product.

If you have this definition of selling, chances are high that you will resist selling, and you will experience significant sales resistance from your prospects.

You will resist selling for two reasons. First, you don’t want people to think you are trying to persuade or convince them. Second, you will resist selling as you don’t like the idea of having to persuade or convince people. All in all, if you have this persuading/convincing definition of selling, you will resist having sales conversations, and the fewer sales conversations you have, the fewer sales will result. There is a direct correlation.

If you have this persuading/convincing definition of selling, not only will you resist having sales conversations, but when you do have sales conversations, you will experience significant sales resistance from your prospects. Your prospects will pick up that you are trying to persuade and convince them, and the moment they do, their sales resistance barrier will come up. They will put this sales resistance barrier up to protect themselves from sold to. No one likes to be sold to.

Define Sell

Also if you define “to sell” or the sales in this way, then the sales process you use will be one that is based on persuading and convincing. The most common persuading/convincing sales process is telling all about your product and then going for the close. When you use this “Tell/Close” sales process, you will experience even more sales resistance from your prospect, because in their eyes you are now acting like a stereotypical salesperson. As soon as you act like this, your prospects will start associating all their stereotypical beliefs about salespeople with you – even if they are not true. Their sales resistance barrier will also go up to protect themselves from being sold to. The way you are selling is giving them evidence that you are a stereotypical salesperson!

So if you think selling is all about persuading and convincing, then you will create sales resistance. The more sales resistance there is, the fewer sales will result. So this persuading/convincing definition of selling does not help you sell!

Re-Define Selling

Now let’s assume that you define selling or are able to re-define selling as being all about helping people to get what they want – whether it is your product or not.

If you have this definition of selling, how do you now feel about having conversations with people to see if you can help them? Your resistance will most likely go down and you will achieve more sales success.

Also if you are now trying to help someone to get what they want, how do you think someone is going to react to you? People are keen to have conversations with others who genuinely want to help them. People open up to others who genuinely want to help them. There is little if any resistance.

If you think selling is about helping people to get what they want, then instead of telling them all about your product, you are going to be asking lots of questions to find out if and how you can help them. Only if you find out through your questions that you can help them – and they want to be helped – then and only then does it make sense to talk about your product. So your sales process is very different from the “Tell/Close” sales process. The more you ask questions, and if you are sincere in your asking and listening, the more your prospect will open up to you and the less resistance there will be.

So just by changing your definition of selling, your own resistance to having sales conversations will decrease, and the resistance you get from your prospects will decrease. If you also practice a sales process which aligns with this definition of selling, this will further decrease any sales resistance.

When you think selling is all about helping people to get what they want, then there will be very little sales resistance. The less sales resistance there is, the more sales will result. So this definition of selling to help people get what they want does help you sell!

So I strongly recommend that beginning today, re-define your definition of selling so that  you genuinely believe that selling is about helping people to get what they want. Then as soon as you can, find and learn a sales process that aligns with this definition. Do that and your sales cannot help but increase. It is inevitable.

Tessa Stowe, Defines Selling In Sales Conversations

Australian based coach, Tessa Stowe teaches sales consultants how to turn conversations into clients without being sales-y or pushy. Beginning her sales career with the yellow pages, Tessa has over 20+ years of successful experience in selling with sales ranging from a few hundred dollars to over US$10 million.