Selling Yourself Is Key To Success

Did you know the most successful people in the world have sales skills? They know how to sell themselves and their ideas. Selling yourself and your ideas is the key to success personally and professionally. You have to sell yourself to get a promotion. You have to sell yourself in a job interview. You have to sell yourself to a bank to get a loan. You sell yourself to a future spouse. You sell your ideas to your friends, family, and even children. 

Imagine how much more successful you could be if you really knew what’s involved in selling yourself and your ideas.

You and Selling

Most people don’t realize how important sales skills are until they go for a promotion, look for a new job or start their own business. Learning sales skills on a personal and professional level doesn’t mean that you will become a designated salesperson. It just means that you are in a position to go after what you want and deserve in life. In essence, sales skills are all about advanced communication skills.

Think about the people you connect with in life and at work. These are people you have formed a rapport with. What is that they have that sets them apart? They tend to be good listeners. They understand your challenges. They provide you with the right solutions to overcome those challenges. They are willing to help you succeed in the workplace. They provide you with the right information that enhances your life, your career, and give you the support you want and need to get to that next level.

Did you know that this is exactly what a good salesperson does? They know how to form rapport and build relationships. They are great listeners. They use questions to uncover challenges. Once they understand the challenges, they’re able to provide the right solutions to overcome those challenges. They follow up with support and help you succeed.

Salespeople are probably the most misunderstood people in the world of business. Many people have this perception that they are sleazy and out to sell you something you don’t want or need. Salespeople are the backbone of any business and if you don’t think so, ask yourself why you have a job or a business. Without profitable sales, your job or business wouldn’t exist.

Whether it’s selling yourself, an idea, or something else again, your ability to relate to others and communicate at a higher level is what will get you to that next level. 

Imagine what you could achieve if you understood all the nuances involved in selling. The skills you learn make you a better communicator, a better listener, better at problem-solving, and better at connecting with others.

Can You do it Yet?

“Can you do it yet? Well, can you?” 

You are probably wondering, “DO WHAT?” 

“Can you do it yet?”

 “Do what?” 

You can’t do it yet because you don’t know what “it” is. You don’t know what you don’t know. And nor do you know what you need to know to get to that next level in your life and career.

Why You Need Selling Skills

Take the average CEO, they don’t use their technical skills. The skills they learned in high school or college. You don’t find CEOs with an accounting or finance degree actually doing the technical stuff. The higher up you move in a corporation, the less you use your technical skills, the more you use your strategic thinking skills, communication skills, and problem-solving skills. CEOs hire people to do the technical stuff.

The first level of learning is called unconscious incompetence. At this stage in your career or business, you don’t know what you don’t know. You start your career with a technical background. It’s your technical skills that get you your first job. You are hired for your qualifications. You are hired to use the skills and knowledge related to your studies at school or college and what you do at work. It’s all that technical stuff.

As you become more experienced your skills increase and you become more expereinced. Take an accountant; they know how to work with numbers. Lawyers understand and apply the law. Web developers know how to build websites, and coaches know how to help people set and achieve goals. Not only do they know how to do that stuff, but they also probably do it exceptionally well.

But what about you? Are you good at selling yourself to the next level. Are you good at selling yourself into a new role, a promotion, or a higher-paying job with more responsibility.

If you go into your own business. What about bringing in new business? Do you do that well? 

Selling Skills Get You to The Next Level

Consider this. A CEO, Managing Director, Senior executives all get to the next level in their career because they have the ability to sell themselves and their ideas effectively.

To move up the corporate ladder, you have to produce results. You won’t get a new job or promotion without having to prove yourself and your key achievements. This is what senior executives look for when assessing their people for promotion. This is what new employers and recruiters look for when assessing resumes. Key achievements.

Key achievements don’t just happen on their own. To achieve goals, you have to elicit the help of others.

In customer services, you need listening and questioning skills. In management roles, you need to get your direct reports to deliver the results you want happily – not begrudgingly. If you are in planning and reporting, you need other associates and colleagues to provide you with the information you need to deliver those reports. If you’re in operations you need people from other departments to make your job easier. If you are in the finance department you need customers to pay their bills on time. If you need approvals for budgets you need others to believe in why you need extra money. If you are in sales and marketing you need the finance department to approve your budget. If you’re in Information Technology – you need someone’s else approval to invest in new equipment, upgrade your servers or buy that shiny new object you want.

You get the picture. Without the cooperation of others, you cannot expect to achieve your departmental or individual goals. This is why you need selling skills. To get the corporation of others when you need it – every time you need it.

What Skills You Learn From Sales Training 

Successful people and those who make their way up the corporate ladder have a few things in common. Highly tuned communication skills. They know how to get the right information at the right time because they understand the importance of building connections and rapport. 

Sales training teaches rapport building and communication skills.

Certain roles within an organization need highly tuned listening and questioning skills to uncover the information they need to do their job and solve problems.  Analysts need questioning skills to look at future opportunities to predict the future. By asking the right questions they look at trends from the past and predict trends for the future. Human resources professionals need to ask the right questions from other departments to put together a job description and run recruitments adverts. They also need advanced questioning skills to interview candidates to make the right hiring choices. 

Sales training teaches advanced listening and questioning skills.

Leaders and managers need their people to buy into a companies vision, values, and goals. They must sell the vision and values as they build the company culture. They also need their direct reports to deliver on the vision values and goals. How do they do it? They understand the motivational factors of those they lead. They understand the importance of buyer needs even if those buyers are internal customers (employees). People have to buy into their ideas.

Sales training teaches buyer motivation and uncovering needs.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of the skillsets you need to achieve your personal and professional goals.

Business Leaders Need ALL Their People Trained in Sales

Many business owners, leaders, and managers don’t realize that any employees who have customer contact should also undergo sales training. It’s not always up to a dedicated salesperson to bring in new business. The accounting department need customers to pay their bills. Operations need vendors to deliver products and services on time. These are selling skills.

A receptionist will get asked, “What do you do?” outside of working hours. A store person, bookkeeper, customer service representative, regardless of their role, employees will be asked in a social or networking setting, “What do you do?” “Where do you work?” They need to know that they too play an essential role in bringing in new business. How they answer that question is what leads to others wanting to know more.

Indirectly everyone in a business contributes to sales success even if it’s only connecting with others, making a great first impression, and leaving others wanting to know more about the company they work for. They have the power to make or break a reputation.

There will be times they might need to pick up the phone or greet a buyer and need to answer a few questions on the spot. Smart businesses and smart employees capitalize on these opportunities as they arise.

When everyone in your company learns sales skills, the business will prosper. No one person is more important than another as the cogs of the wheel all need to work together. Ego has no place in building a successful and profitable business. It takes an entire team to succeed.

While a salesperson might close a sale, but the operational and customer service people need to look after that sale and that customer. Teamwork makes the dream work. Without everyone in an organization working together towards the same goal, the relationships break down.

Sales skills are not just for the formally appointed salesperson. In any thriving business, employees and managers need to work together as a team across business functions as they sell themselves and their ideas to their boss, direct reports, colleagues, vendors, and other stakeholders.

With the right sales training – you get to help people buy you, and your ideas successfully.

You Need More Than Just Technical Skills

No matter what technical skills you have or how good you are technically, the first roadblock to overcoming the thought of learning selling sales skills is your mind. Whatever you think about learning selling skills affects your results. If you think it’s not your place to learn how to sell – then consider how often you hit a brick wall in your career and personal life. You don’t get the corporation you want therefore you fail to stand out and shine. If you don’t get results you won’t be up for promotion and bonuses. If you can’t prove results, you will struggle to get a new job with better career prospects.

Whether you own a business or work for someone who does, you are in the sales and marketing business regardless of your role. You sell yourself and your ideas all day, every day.

When you train everyone in a business to always put their sales hat on when they need to, it keeps them employed; without profitable sales, the business will fail. If you don’t sell enough of your products or services for profit, you will have no customers. 

Let’s say you were the appointed salesperson, and a friend asked what you do; how would you respond? Would you be proud to say, “I’m a salesperson?” 

If you aren’t proud of what you do and the products or services you provide, you will struggle. Instead, learn to thrive not just survive.

Selling is an Attitude

Those who have never formally worked in sales tend to think that all salespeople are outgoing, charismatic, driven, and competitive. Hold it right there, are all your customers and colleagues outgoing, charismatic, driven, and competitive? Of course not. That’s why a business needs to have a diverse range of people selling their products or services because a range of personality types will appeal to different people.

Good people come in all shapes and sizes. The one characteristic all successful people share is the ability to instantly connect with others genuinely work together for the greater benefit of all.

Successfully growing a business needs everyone to learn selling skills.  If people don’t like what they are doing or don’t get along with the people they work with – chances are they won’t be successful. 

Next Steps

Imagine what you would do if you could do all your imagined.

Learn how you can sell yourself and your ideas to master a life of success. If you need help learning how to thrive, not just survive, the Strategez for Success Coaching Model just might be for you.

Contact us now or set up your FREE discovery session to find out if Business Coaching or Sales Training is right for you.