Many businesses use marketing to drive leads to their websites or to their phone lines. Even in these cases, it is often still human contact that turns the lead into a sale, especially for the key customers and the larger clients—the ones that matter the most.
Sell with a Personal Touch
There is nothing more powerful than a personal sales presentation over the phone—or even better, in person—to make sales happen, solidify your relationships with important customers, and grow your business.
You may be thinking that, as much as you want to get your own business started, you really do not want to do selling. Or you “just know” that you can’t possibly be good at it, or even that you might not be able to sell at all.
Well, from my stumbling, stuttering starts in selling, I can assure you that no matter how weak you feel in selling now, you can get better, you will get better, and you are going to succeed.
Do Not Let a Fear of Selling Prevent You from Starting a Business
Do not let it stop you from going out and making sales pitches! I cannot begin to tell you how scared I was to make my first sales pitches. However much I did not want to make sales calls, I was even more determined to start my own newspaper business. If selling advertising—or anything else—was required, I was going to do it!
So at the ripe age of 19, with no sales experience whatsoever, I marched to the local downtown and starting selling advertising for my soon-to-be-launched newspaper. I was scared; I was fearful; I was nervous. But I did it! If I can, you can!
Is There Such a Thing as a “Natural-Born Salesperson”?
I have come to meet some very talented salespeople, folks who might even be called natural-born salespeople. But when I’ve gotten to know some of these people really well, they’ve told me that they weren’t born good at selling; it took them a long time to get comfortable with it. And some of the so-called natural-born salespeople confided in me that even after years and years of selling, they still got nervous, really nervous, before major presentations—even to the point of not being able to sleep the night before or not being able to eat!
Why Is Selling So Hard?
Selling is hard because we humans don’t like rejection. We don’t like to make presentations to people who aren’t necessarily receptive to hearing what we want to say. We are scared we won’t succeed. We are scared the customer might even laugh at us and we might look like a fool.
Well, once you accept that you are human, that you aren’t a walking, talking sales machine, and that the world won’t totally end if your sales presentation does not go well, then you are that much more ready to get out there. Prepare as carefully as you can, and practice what you want to say—but just give it a shot.
There is only one bad way to lose a sale, and that’s by not getting out there and making the presentation in the first place!
Takeaways You Can Use
- Don’t let a fear of sales stop you from starting a business.
- Great salespeople are made, not born.
- It is perfectly normal to fear rejection. Accept that you’re human, and give it your best shot.
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