Development Solutions Consultancy

Often when people hear the word "sales", they immediately think of the pushy sales person who is trying to pressure and convince them into buying a product or a service. Many people have certainly bought things unintentionally from such pressures only to regret on the expense later. However, the fact of the matter is that, people like to be sold but they don't like to be pressured. People enjoy getting value for their time and money and therefore, having the right sales people is quite important. From this premise, I would like to argue that we are all in sales. Whether we know it or not we are always selling something; a product, a service, a story, an idea, a principle or even ourselves just to name a few things.

Do you know that in any conversation one is selling and another is buying something? This makes the ability to sell a very important skill because without it, virtually nothing will get done. One of the best definitions of selling I have ever come across came from a gentleman called Dan Sullivan. Dan is the founder of a very successful coaching company for entrepreneurs called Strategic Coach and he defines selling as, "The process of intellectually engaging someone in a future result that's good for them and then getting them to emotionally commit to take action towards that result". The key phrase from the definition is, "good for them". In other words for good and ethical sales to happen, it is imperative to sell something that adds a lot of value to the buyer.

Below are a few scenarios that illustrate the importance of selling:

• When you go for an interview, your goal is to intellectually engage the interview panel through a conversation that hiring you will be in their best interest. You then get them to emotionally commit towards carrying forward that decision by showing them that you are the right candidate with the right competencies.
• When you are selling a product or a service, your goal is to intellectually engage your target audience that using your product or service will be very valuable for them. You then get them to emotionally commit to take action towards buying your product or service by painting a strong picture of how their life will change as a result of using your product or service.
• If you are a manager, one of your goals is to intellectually engage your subordinates through effective communication that good performance is in their own best interest. You then get them to emotionally buy into that idea by clearly communicating “WHY” the idea is important to them and along the way properly engaging in the core functions of a manager which are planning, leading, directing and controlling.

From a larger scale, Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Teresa, Barack Obama and many great leaders and icons were and are great sales people because they got their audience to intellectually engage in future result that was good for them. As you can see selling is an art and we can all certainly set ourselves up to maximize our opportunities when we learn the art of effective selling. So since we are all in sales, here is a small exercise for you depending on your line of work or your current position in life:

1. How can you intellectually engage your target audience in a future result that's good for them?
2. How can you get them to emotionally commit to take action towards that result?