In my decade+ (omfg) of doing this, I have yet to meet a person who loves selling.
Or rather, loves selling in the way you might be thinking. On the other hand, I have met hundreds of entrepreneurs who LOVE having a sales mindset.
Because, you see, there’s a difference between “selling” and “having a sales mindset.”
How to Have a Sales Mindset
Selling is bothering people, sheepishly asking them to pay you, negotiating against yourself to close a deal, feeling like you’re being annoying, never closing a deal and growing.
Sales mindset, however, is understanding the transaction that we’re all agreeing to in a society and using those rules to deliver value.
That sounds like bullshit, I know. But hear me out and let me tell you what might be the disconnect for you.
If you’re reading this, then you’re most likely someone who frequents this blog a lot (hi! And thank you!) or you’re an entrepreneur trying to get over the fear of selling.
And I completely understand because I was that way, too. In my book Day 1: A Practical Guide to Launch Your Business I talk about how I would drop $10,000 on a trade show and come home with 0 sales because I was afraid to ask for a sale.
Think about that. I dropped thousands of dollars just to hide away in my booth, intimidated by the entire process and feeling like if someone wanted something, then they’d let me know.
Except here’s the thing:
We’ve all got a LOT on our minds, right? Bills, agendas, trying to see when we’ve got fingerprint smudges on our glasses (current view), wondering what to make for dinner, worrying about the kids, remembering the car needs an oil change. My point is: there’s a lot of shit going on.
So we’re not thinking about you, or at least, not actively. We’re all worried about our own worlds and focused on that. So believing that “if you build it, they will come” works goes completely against reality.
You can build it, but I won’t show up because I didn’t know it existed. I didn’t know it existed because nothing about your “build” told me to pay attention.
You understand what I mean? The first thing you need to get past is believing that actively selling is redundant. Telling people to buy something isn’t insulting to their intelligence, it’s giving them clear instructions so that they focus on you and your value.
Once you get past that, you can open up into developing a better sales mindset.
How do you do that? Let’s discuss:
1. Change your idea of selling
Selling is gross. It’s underhanded, scheme-y, disingenuous. It’s why you understand what I mean when I say “Used Car Salesman Tactics.” Having a sales mindset, however, is understanding that what you have solves a problem. It could be that your soap helps alleviate dry skin, or that your fitness coaching helps clients change their eating habits. You’re not selling a “thing”, you’re offering a result. To achieve that result, they’ve got to invest with the currency we’ve all decided as a society has value. They exchange the currency for the solution when they understand that the value of the solution is worth more to them than the currency because it will deliver more results.
2. Do it more, do it often
So many clients come to me when developing a marketing plan for social media with the fear that they don’t want to annoy people, or be pushy, or show the same message often. Let me tell you what I tell them: Thanks to algorithms now, there is no way to do that. All platforms have evolved from a chronological delivery method to delivering what they feel you’ll be most interested in seeing. So the ability for you to be annoying is incredibly small because very few people see all of your content.
If they DO see more of your content, that means that they’ve shown enough interest that Instagram/YouTube/whatever has taken notice, so they’re going to want to see more of your stuff anyhow. Don’t be afraid to deliver your message more often and across more platforms. The algorithms are actively working against your chance to be seen as annoying, so use that to your advantage.
3. Understand your expectations are not reality
Even if you still feel weird pushing the same message over and over, releasing product announcements regularly, and promoting yourself, remember that the way you’re feeling isn’t the way other people feel. If it takes 7 times of seeing a product before a customer takes action, then your 1 facebook post not only isn’t going to cut it, but isn’t even going to be noticed.
Above all, remember that a sales mindset is one of service and not of money. Change your thinking from what a sale does for you to what result will occur for the customer. It’s a slow process to create this mindset shift, but once it clicks….oh man, it’s like magic.
If you need some ideas for how to create a better sales mindset, then start with 5 small tasks a day. I’ve created a ginormous list of 150 sales tasks you can do that can help increase sales and shift your mindset. Click here to check it out!
