A lot of people ask, “How do I sell without being salesy?” There are five pillars of selling without being salesy.
One is people—now, people buy from people, so make sure that you are showing others who you are and your true, authentic self. Yes, we all love our logos, but logos will not help you sell—people buy from people, so make sure you’re showing your true self to them.
The second one is your personal authority—now, make sure that you are sharing out your credibility, your authority in the space that you’re working in, or the industry you’re in, or the product you’re offering, and make sure that people feel very comfortable with you being the authority in the expertise that you’re sharing out.
Thirdly, be a problem solver—so, people will always be walking around with a problem, a pain, and they need to get from A to B, a pain to a solution, a problem to a solution—so, be the problem solver for them. Don’t come and talking to them about what and how good you are and the like; talk about their problem and show them that you have a solution for them.
The next one is persuasion skills—you have to be persuasive. People want to be a little pushed. It’s not about being salesy or pushy, but some people will need you to persuade them to say ‘YES’. It’s a big decision if they’re buying a product from you that is $15,000 or $25,000 or $50,000, so you need to be very persuasive. It’s not about lying, it is about using intelligent skills around that.
The last thing is persistence. A lot of people out there will talk to someone once, they go, “No, I don’t have any money,” and they don’t persist in working with this person. Â And again, it’s not about being salesy here, but it’s about checking in with them, that if things have changed in their life or things have changed in their business, or they have a different outlook on things, never let it go until they really are saying no.
So, carry on with sales in these five areas:
- People buy from people.
- Your personal authority.
- Be a problem solver.
- Have persuasion skills.
- Be persistent.
By focusing on these areas, you will do well—people will say yes.