“I have always said that everyone is in sales. Maybe you don’t hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you, my friend, are in sales.” — Zig Ziglar
Running a Business Center with a wide variety of workspace options, we see a lot of differences and commonalities in the range of businesses we serve. While some may have a differing opinion, one thing we know is that everyone – no matter what your product or service – is in sales. The professionals that embrace that idea are usually the more successful ones.
We noticed that many people go into their profession with the deliberate idea that they are avoiding a career in sales. The hard truth is that you have to sell to perform your profession. This is especially true as a solo practitioner or small business firm. After all, you cannot have a law practice, give financial advice or provide accounting services without first having clients to serve. How do you build that? By selling yourself and selling your service and expertise.
Selling yourself and your expertise shouldn’t be so difficult. But it is not so easy for people that have chosen to become lawyers, accountants, financial planners or even web developers. How can something so simple be so hard? In many cases, it comes down to personality type. After all, you didn’t decide to work with numbers because of your love of conversation and to be social! And that is okay. The trick is knowing that by mastering a few simple skills, you can find enough success in selling to drive your business. Here is where you can get started.
Know your goal.
Here is an example: As a solo practitioner in law or accounting, you may require a minimum of $5,000 – $7,000 monthly to cover your professional and personal expenses. Of course, you probably want to do more than just cover the expenses so you should figure that into your numbers. Now, calculate how many products or services you need to sell to meet your needs. Congratulations you have just created your sales goal. It is that plain and simple. Now, you can begin to take a deeper dive into what tasks you need to perform to meet and exceed your goal. (Hint: Juan Ortega from ActionCoach does a great job going into this at his business events.)
Create consistent habits.
Success in sales is all about consistency. Anyone in sales has heard “sales is a numbers game” more times than they can count. Why is that? Because it’s true. The more people that you present your ideas to, the better your odds of winning a sale. This is not just about playing the odds, though. Remember that the more you present your product or service, the better you become at presenting and the more confident you get.
Another reason to create habits? If you are doing something you are not comfortable with, you will find every reason to avoid doing it. (Believe us, we know!) By sticking to your habits, you will get results despite the many distractions that are available as an excuse.
Practice positive visualization.
Have we mentioned confidence? How about the negative thoughts that creep up and keep you from approaching someone about your service? Dial into the power of positive visualization to change your thought process.
We asked business consultant Coach Jenn Lee from Orlando, Florida to tell us more. As a business coach, she says that she found that many professionals go into business because they love what they do. The problem is they get shy when it comes time to present their services and talk about themselves. She equates this to keeping your talents a secret.
What does Coach Jenn recommend? “Visualize yourself interacting with a client and helping them solve an issue with your services. Take that a step further and realize that by not talking about your skills and talents, you may have done that person a disservice because you kept your abilities to help a secret.” Using positive visualization, you can finally understand that selling is really all about making yourself available to fill a need.
By far, there is more to successful selling but by incorporating a few of these ideas you can make improvements to help you drive your business to success.
Crown Center Executive Suites offers flexible and affordable office space, executive suites, meeting rooms, and virtual office services for self-employed professionals such as lawyers, accountants, and financial advisors. Book your next client review or sales meeting with us.