More than likely, if you are in sales you’ve never even looked up the word. Be honest, you haven’t have you, yet you expect people to take you seriously when you try to gain their attention for your own purposes, right? It is not unreasonable to ask you to spend a little time learning about your craft, is it? I mean after all you do it for a living, don’t you? You know you’re probably the same person that gets offended when someone finds out you’re in sales and you kind of feel sheepish or embarrassed that they find out that that is what your life work is all about.
Starting now, it doesn’t ever have to be that way again. Starting now, you will actually come top appreciate the sales profession. I wholeheartedly believe it is the most important honorable and worthy position in the entire economy. From here on out you will finally know the truth about sales. You’ll finally be informed, don’t be lazy again. I’ll let you slide this one time.
You see the root word of sales came from the old English word “sellan.” And now for its profound meaning, what did the word “sellan” mean? Do you know? The word “sellan” means to give. Now stop for a second and really think this through. This is critical. Sales means to give. It doesn’t mean to share half truths; it doesn’t mean to be slick; it doesn’t mean to take because you’re more street savvy than your potential customer; it doesn’t mean to be manipulative. It means to give.
As my mentor Lefty Lefton once said, “You Got That? Cause if you ain’t got that you ain’t got nothing,” So you want to sell more? Then sell—by giving, by educating, by going the extra mile. And by sincerely showing your appreciation. In a word, by giving a darn. More for the value that the client will receive than what you may or may not get out of it.
Please understand I am currently booked 6 weeks in advance for various lunch appointments, phone appointments, and review appointments. And many people will gladly wait for their appointment. Do you know why? Because the value that they receive and the feelings that they will share and the work that we will do to protect their assets and grow their wealth or grow their businesses is well worth the wait. Are you worth the wait? Are you adding extra value? My team and I want to be great. We want to be difference makers. We want to be, as Robert Palmer sings, “Simply Irresistible.”
How about you? When you focus so hard on the give first, the price for your product becomes irrelevant. I can hear you now, oh now hang on Marvin, you don’t know what I go through, my prices at my company are way higher than the competition. So what! That is such bologna. That is such victim thinking, if you haven’t read the book by called Ownership Thinking by Dr. Dennis Deaton, you need to get the book and you need to get off of this whole consciousness of victim thinking. The reason people do not buy from you has nothing to do with your price. People have always bought what they wanted, not what they could afford. They are emotional beings that buy emotionally. They decide to not buy from you not because your price is too high but because your perceived value is just too low.
Everyday you should be obsessed with asking yourself the following question: What extra value or service that I can make available to my clients that’s not necessarily tied to directly to increasing my own income. Print that question, laminate it, put it in your pocket, go drink a cup of coffee, alone, on your back patio, quietly, think about what you can do for your client. You will flat blow your competition away when you come up with something unique and valuable.
