“Salesy” isn’t a compliment. “He’s a bit salesy” I hear my girlfriends say when they’ve been on a date which hasn’t taken off. “Pushy” isn’t a compliment. We have a horror of being thought pushy in Britain, moreso than in other countries, I think.
But we sometimes want people to buy from us. We want to work, sell our services. We freelancers are always selling ourselves, looking for new customers, contracts, projects, pieces of work.
We tell people what we do, when we’re in conversation, all the time – “Oh, I’m a Presentations Skills Trainer, Media Trainer, Communications Coach, Journalist, I help people with Message Development, refining how companies speak about their services, help them perform well in interviews, in interactions with the press. I often finish with a joke such as, “So, if you need any of those skills, let me know!”
Now, people don’t like to be sold to, not when they’re just at a social occasion, or passing the time of day with someone in a queue for tea or lunch – at an event, for example. But there are ways of “selling” in a charming, engaging, subtle, positive way, which makes people WANT to buy from you. That’s my ideal.
Well, my ideal is that people come to me, out of the blue, wanting to buy from me, and I don’t have to do any pitching at all!
I am absolutely not the expert on sales, but I have learned a few things. I was recently working at an event on “lead generation” (getting email addresses so the company could contact them later). Ideally, people would have bought the product there and then, but many wanted to think about it. What could I have done?
Answers are in my courses! One main tip is that: people buy from people – people they like, people who are engaging, interesting and interestED in them (in their problems that need solving, their delays, their pinch points etc). Listening skills are essential, as well as Asking Questions skills (prompting skills, ecouraging people to speak TO YOU skills). Journalists like me are expert at getting people to talk, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Often in social situations, it’s easiest to keep quiet – no-one wants to be the first to speak, no-one knows what they would even say to break the silence. One of the exercises I do in my courses is: getting people to think of an Opening Gambit to start a conversation, say, in a bus queue, waiting in line at a sandwich shop, or a similar social situation where it’s easier to keep quiet. We don’t want to bother people, but sometimes people are happy to chat. Read the room first.
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