By the Ocean
Sunny 76 Degrees
6:51 a.m.
Buying has got to be their idea.
In my work, I’m rarely helping someone sell widgets off a shelf. Most of the time, what I’m helping people sell is THEMSELVES.
Not only are they selling themselves, but many times, they have to work with the very people who bought access to what they have.
And what that means is that HOW THE SALE HAPPENS influences the rest of the relationship you have with the buyer. It influences what they think of you. It influences the amount of respect they have for you. It influences the impact with which they receive your counsel. It influences how they talk about you to others.
How the sale happens controls whether you inhabit a “salesperson” box or a “trusted advisor” box in the mind of your buyer.
So “getting the sale” is only ONE of the goals on a rather long list of things you need to be aware of.
Selling yourself requires a very different strategy. It takes more mastery to do this, more understanding of human nature, longer term thinking, patience and the ability to project an authentic persona out to the world. That doesn’t mean it’s fake, it means you have to work to be the best version of yourself in every interaction.
Selling yourself requires far more “self work” than most business people are willing to do. Most of them just want point and click results, overnight success, an AI bot that can write their books and craft their presentations and make sure the REAL version of themselves never actually has to show up and risk rejection.
And that’s why mastery of this skill is reserved for only a certain type of business owner. It requires a business owner who refuses to do business like everyone else. It requires a mindset focused on becoming a one-of-a-kind option in the marketplace. It requires a business owner who understands that selling yourself like you would sell a bag of apples puts unbreakable limits on your ability to grow and succeed.