#servantselling #sellingoneself #increasingconfidence
Do you ever think of salespeople as servants?
Perhaps you are more likely to think of them as self-servants.
Rory Vaden, cofounder of Southwest Consulting and a self-discipline strategist, discussed the concept in a column published May 17, 2015, in The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.
Vaden sees servant selling as, rather than trying to persuade a stranger to buy something, helping a friend get the confidence to make the decision to buy.
Usually, good salespeople are confident. Buyers can tend to be skeptical. It’s OK to be skeptical. Servant sellers, Vaden says, don’t answer objections, as in, doing something TO someone. They increase confidence, as in, doing something FOR someone.
We all, at some time, have to sell something. If not a product, ourselves. We sell ourselves to a potential employer, date, friend, mentor etc. We sell ourselves at work, trying to do the best job we can while making sure the right people notice.
When we sell ourselves, do we help “buyers” by increasing their confidence to buy us?
To turn it around, are we confident enough in ourselves to help others have confidence enough to buy us?
Many of us hate to be sold to, but love to buy. When someone is trying to sell something to you, perhaps themselves, are you confident enough to decide to buy? How much are they helping you be that confident?
It’s OK to have confidence to buy something. Not everyone is out to “sell” to you. A good salesperson WANTS you to like what they have, at the same time understands if you don’t.
He or she will help you have confidence not just to see what is being sold, but also to see how it can help you solve a problem, complete a task or be a better person.
Some of us hate to sell. If you are one of those, do you like to SHOW to people? Do you like to tell a friend, or even a stranger, about a good book, movie, TV show or restaurant you’ve had the pleasure to witness? Would that person have the confidence to read, see or eat at what you’re bragging about?
If you like to show, rather than sell, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. See the stories of how people learned to show something they like, and help others have the confidence not only to try it, but to increase others’ confidence to do the same. You might even see true servant selling.
Think of it this way: if what you have is good, and you know it, it’s others’ loss if they don’t see it, too. The word “no” usually comes from someone with no confidence in themselves to try something that could really benefit them.
In other words, it’s not about you. When one approaches selling as, “it’s not about me,” he or she is likely to find success eventually. He or she is likely to have enough confidence in himself or herself so help increase others’ confidence.
“It’s not about me” is true servant selling.
Peter