“Ugg gross, sales.”
I can hear it from here, the sales anxiety and resistance. Being an entrepreneur means being a salesperson.
AND YET, nearly every person I talk to “hates sales.” There is this icky sticky feeling in the pit of your stomach when you actually have to ask someone to pay you for the product you worked so hard to develop. You need to stop feeling like a sleazebag whenever you start to head towards the selling part of the equation. Really, you do. Your business cannot flourish until you get over your sales aversion. You are, literally, preventing yourself from helping the people you have chosen to serve.
So I’ll let you in on the secret formula to get over that sales ick.
If you are selling a quality product to a person that it can truly help for a fair price, there is no reason to feel sleezy.
Let me break down those requirements.
Quality Product: You need to believe in what you are selling. Really, truly believe that it is transformative in some way, big or small. When you believe in your product you know that it has value, that it is going to help people to live their lives or build their businesses better. Sales isn’t just okay, its a good thing. It’s how you help people. You aren’t out here selling snake oil or stolen cars. You have created a product, service, or program that people need. There is a problem that you solve. You need to believe in your business. Believe in yourself. Imposter syndrome is the sneaky demon hiding behind a lot of sales aversions. Your work has value!
To the Person it can help: You have identified your target market and are intentional in selling only to the people who can benefit. In other words, you aren’t just trying to sell it to any old person. This is why door to door sales is almost always icky feeling. They are not filtering out the people who don’t need it. We aren’t mad when someone sells us a drink in a bar when we are thirsty, we are irritated when someone tries to sell us a new roof when ours is perfectly fine. It is your job as a business owner to tailor your messaging and target your marketing in such a way that only (or mostly) the people who are being invited to buy are the people who actually have the problem or desire that you cater to. When you dive deep into the language that your customer needs to hear in order to identify that you are the one they need to work with, then you are filtering out the people who aren’t a fit for your offer and therefore wouldn’t benefit from being sold to.
For a fair price: You have done your market research and aren’t trying to cheat people. This one can be the hardest to narrow in on, but it is easier than you might think. If the price you have set is based on how much it costs to run your business at moderate capacity and employ and fairly compensate the person (you) and/or people (your team) required to deliver your product in accordance with your methods and standards, then it is a fair price.
That right there is the sleazy test. If you meet these requirements, the sleazy feeling is unfounded. Breathe a sigh of relief, you don’t have to feel like a used car salesman. Sales is simply getting permission from a person you can help in order to help them.
Knowledge is power, but your sales aversion may be too deep to be logic-ed away. Getting over a sales aversion may be a longer term project, but you absolutely can get over it. I recommend two strategies used in conjunction.
Exposure therapy. In other words, you gotta keep selling. Get yourself out there and sell. Set a goal to have one sales conversation a day (or one a week if you are really averse). Repeated exposure helps us to acclimate to something that is unnatural or unfamiliar to us. Even if you have to “go for no” (try to get one no a day, the beauty is that it will require you to ASK at least once a day), you will build up a tolerance to selling that makes it less scary.
Prescriptive affirmation. A prescriptive affirmation is an affirmation you “prescribe” to treat a fear or limiting belief. They are pretty easy to create. They are simply the positive statement that contradicts your fear. So, for example: If I am afraid that everyone is going to say no to me when I ask them to buy, my prescriptive affirmation might be “People are waiting for me to ask them to join so that they can say yes.” If I am afraid that people will laugh at me because I am charging for my time or knowledge, my prescriptive affirmation might be “The experience and training I have to offer are valuable and worthy of 10 times the price I have set for this product.” Drill down to the basic fears behind your sales aversions and create affirmations that are as specific as possible to combat that fear. These become simple statements that you journal or repeat aloud until you begin to embrace and believe them.
Please know that sales aversion are incredibly common and can be overcome. I encourage you to take yours seriously, because they are long term projects to overcome, but the work is absolutely worth it. Nothing can sabotage your business faster than an unwillingness to sell. In working with clients over the past 4 years, these reframes and strategies have been the most effective in working through a sales aversion. If you would like to work one-on-one with me to tackle your sales aversion, do not hesitate to reach out.