How To Get More Sales

(without feeling icky!)

If you’re running your own business I know you’ve had that feeling where absolutely nothing is going right.

Instead of the midas touch you have a touch akin to cursing almost everything around you and turn it to sh*t.

Naturally to combat this period of overwhelm and lack of self-belief, you read everything there is to know about; staying on track, writing goals, staying focused but it’s as if there’s some sort of secret that everyone else knows apart from you…sound familiar?

I’m also pretty sure that you’ve felt on top of the world too, it’s just that as human beings we focus on the bit that isn’t working without a clue what to do to fix it.

When it comes to sales, why are some people just so much better at it than others?

After all, [Tweet “without sales you don’t have a business just a very expensive hobby”]

When I started my own business, sales just felt ‘icky’.

I wished every day that an amazing sales person would miraculously join my team in return for well, nothing (mainly because I had no sales). That didn’t happen by the way (sigh).

Not being deterred (I’m fairly stubborn and determined by nature) I joined training courses and several groups to learn about selling.

That just made me feel worse! especially when the ‘good news’ stories were shared. I felt even more useless and seriously started to consider if I was cut out for running my own business.

Like-minded people that I thought were exactly like me, starting out in business and doing the scary entrepreneur thing, were selling like it was ‘easy’.

It’s not something I’m proud of, and thankfully not a feeling I experience on a regular basis, but I was jealous as hell. The green-eyed, spitting fire, raging kinda jealous!

The worst bit was that they didn’t seem to be smarter than me or have to work very hard, and even more annoying…some methods quite frankly were questionable or took an old-fashioned approach. What was I doing wrong?!

Not being one to judge, I blamed myself and knew I had to take personal responsibility to fix whatever it was, but couldn’t for the life of me work out what was actually going wrong.

Then the penny dropped…

[Tweet “There is no point in trying to replicate others sales methods when they’re a different personality from me”].

I’m an introvert by nature, not shy or quiet, but like to recharge with a good book, a pot of early grey and a netflix session.

Cold calling and networking slap my energy like having my batteries violently ripped out without warning.

(Those types of selling activities made me crave a seat on a comfy couch with a hot chocolate or something stronger).

I wasn’t the jazz hands, social butterfly like most of the people around me that had been successful at selling.

There had to be another way.

With hope and determination in mind I made a commitment to become great at selling and more importantly take action.

The difference this time was that I was going to sell using my own natural talents.

The people I had watched were; outgoing, extrovert, great at speaking to people and were natural networkers.

When they sold the were flowing, you could see it was easy for them and they enjoyed it.

I on the other hand, am most definitely process driven, not so great at the networking thing expected of start-ups, an introvert by nature and better at writing than speaking.

I had to find my own flow! (cue chorus of angels singing)

Armed with that new found perspective I was off and running!

I made a list of ‘warm leads’, people I had made good connections with in the past and reached out by email.

I used my natural introverted, process methods and approach to grow these relationships then make the ask.

From these great relationships came great testimonials which I could leverage for my next round of emails.

I also found I was great at social media ads and generated a good number of leads creating my own personal blueprint for selling.

The takeaway is; you need to know who you are and where you are right now before understanding which role models to follow or so called ‘blueprints’ to replicate.

There’s no point trying to be a Richard Branson or a Jack Welch if you’re more like Ray Kroc or Sam Walton.

It was a different way to approach how to tackle the problem but it sure makes perfect sense when you step back and think about it.

You can learn any skill, including selling, but the key distinction is to learn it using your own super power strengths and not those of other people.

You will never feel confident selling by following someone else’s personality style, but if you step into your own natural strengths and talents, I can pretty much say with certain, that your confidence will automatically start to go up and selling will start to become easier. Crikey you might even enjoy it!

Having belief in what you are talking about is the first rule of successful selling so build on that belief by selling in a way that energises you.

You will bounce back from rejection far quicker and make better sales (and more of them) whilst feeling totally authentic and not ‘icky’.

[Tweet “Find your flow and sales will follow!”]

It’s time to ignite your own genius!

Cat Paterson : Mind Detective and Strengths Coach

Straight Talking Ginger

Are you ready to get into flow?