Can you sell your way to success?

When it comes to success, in any aspect of your career, I firmly believe that being able to master the sales process is critical.

Now, I don’t mean you should jack in your job to start working in a store, but let's face it: if you want to succeed, you have to be able to sell yourself. Whether that’s because you’re trying to get a pay rise and need to show your boss the value you add to the business, or because you’re talking to banks about a loan or a mortgage, or to potential investors, and you have to show them the benefits the benefits of working with you.

I really do believe that being able to sell yourself is one of those key skills that will elevate your career and standing in any aspect of what it is that you're trying to do. So here are my top tips!

Build rapport (in person)

How you interact with someone, and build rapport, is a key component of sales and always has been. However, what’s changed in more recent times is that more and more we rely on digital platforms like email or Whatsapp to communicate, which makes it harder to get your personality across. There’s no nuance of tone in an email, so something you might think sounds funny and light could be taken as rude or flippant if it’s being read by someone who doesn’t know you well. This makes is so much more difficult to build rapport with someone.

Where possible, you should look for opportunities to speak to people face to face, or at least on the phone. If that’s something that makes you nervous – practise! I think that a lot of younger people have spent so much time on social media that they're nervous of speaking on the phone, so it’s an important skill to develop.

When someone can really get to know you and what kind of person you are, it stands you in far better stead than someone who communicates solely via email.

Think about your body language

When you’re meeting someone (whether it’s for the first time or the fiftieth), you have to be aware of your body language and what unconscious messages you might be giving off. Whether you feel it or not, you need to walk in the room confidently.

Don’t sit with your arms crossed – this makes you look defensive, and have a good, strong handshake: there’s nothing worse than when shaking someone’s hand feels like you’re holding a limp sponge.

You make not feel confident in the moment, but you need to pretend that you are. It’s all about stepping outside of your comfort zone: a lot of shy people put themselves in the limelight by coming on podcasts or sitting on panels, even if it makes them uncomfortable. So get yourself out there, and fake it till you make it!

Don’t go for the hard sell

Before the internet put the world’s knowledge at our fingertips, people weren’t always able to do much research before an initial meeting. They didn’t have much information about you, about your business or about your product, so you really had to do a lot of what might feel like ‘traditional’ sales - explaining to them what product you were selling, why it was better than your competitors and why they should buy from you.

Nowadays, there's so much information available online that buyers have become a lot savvier. They already know everything they need to about you or your product before you’ve met them. So, you're not really selling to them: they’ve done their research. What you need to do is encourage them and assure them that your service or product is the one that they should be investing in.

What’s in it for them?

So that means that whatever you’re selling, you need to be able to show people how it will benefit them. You might have the most fantastic product, or you might be the best person for a job, a payrise or a promotion, but all the person you’re selling to is interested in is how it’s going to make their life better or easier: people are far more likely to invest in something when they can clearly see the positive impact it will have.

This means you’ll need to do your own research on the person you’re selling to. Dig around online, see if you can find anything helpful on their LinkedIn profile or from their social media. If you’re selling a product (rather than yourself), take a look at the company website and learn more about them. Take this information and weave it into your presentation – it will show you’ve done your homework. It’s all very well walking into the room with a standard prepared presentation but that’s no use if it doesn’t address anything your customer is looking for! Which leads me to my next point…

Learn to listen

You have two ears, which means you should learn to listen twice as much you speak!

Of course, you want get to out of your prepared script as possible, but it's key to ask questions and really listen to the answers you get. Listen to the customer’s pain points and why they need whatever you are selling and if you can find out one key thing that your service has over and above your competitor, zone in on it!

You'll only find out that information if you’re listening. Don’t constantly talk over people as you try to get all your information over, at best, it’s annoying, at worst it will come across as rude.

Understand their motivations and needs – and if you're actively listening to them (rather than just waiting for a gap in the conversation so that you can talk again), you can actually figure that out very quickly.

Don’t go in with rigid expectations, saying ‘this is the deal, take it or leave it’ and make sure that you give them a chance to talk. If you haven't listened at all to what it is they're looking for, you might be trying to sell a lemon to someone who wants to buy an orange.

Learn to accept rejection

It might sound pessimistic, but learning how to accept rejection is a hugely important part of the sales process: every rejection provides an opportunity to learn and refine your approach. Is there something you could have done better? What could you change next time?

It also helps you become more resilient - accepting rejection builds emotional intelligence, allowing you to maintain positive rapport even when someone is saying ‘No’. Over time, you’ll find that being able to handle rejection gracefully not only strengthens your sales skills but also gives you a better understanding of customers’ needs and preferences.

Remember, each rejection is a stepping stone towards future successes, making the sales journey more effective and rewarding.

I hope you’ve found this useful! Developing your ability to sell is a critical skill that will really set you on the path to success – if you’d like to hear a more in-depth conversation on the topic, take a listen to my conversation with Mark O’Dwyer on Episode 76 of the podcast.