Why learning how to sell is not the challenge you think it is

lionPayoff: the shortcut to learning how to sell

Investment: 1 minute

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Let’s nail this right now.

When learning how to sell, you only ever have to be ‘good enough’. Good enough to win. Good enough to get the ball over the line. Good enough to beat the competition. That’s all.

Phew!

You surely know by now the story of the two guys running from the lion?

The first says “you can’t outrun a lion!”

The second says, “I don’t have to – I just have to outrun you.”

I work mostly with non-sales people – professional service consultants and subject matter experts who want to sell or develop business more comfortably and effectively.

Often they are put off at the start because it seems like such a major challenge to become good at selling when it doesn’t come naturally to them.

But they soon learn that they don’t have to become good. They just have to become better than their competition (or better than their customer’s alternative options).

And here’s the thing:

To become better, you just need to learn and apply the right approach that your competition doesn’t know about. Just invest a little bit more time (frequently enough) in your sales training and development than they’re doing, and you’ll probably get the edge.

You win.

You outrun the competition.

And you stay sane (and begin to feel more energised!)

That’s how good at sales you need to be.

Better sales performance, and therefore better sales results, are constantly limited by unrealistic perceptions of what it takes to achieve them. (By non-sales people who don’t know! Because they don’t know what they don’t know! Think about it..)

It all seems too hard and too unlikely. So many people don’t bother.

You could seize that opportunity to get ahead?

And if you want another tip on reducing the size of the challenge, don’t ever feel you should try to beat your personal best (when learning to improve at not just sales, but anything). You just need to do this, and everything goes up.

Hopefully, you realise that this challenge isn’t so big after all? (Even I, as an ex-engineer, managed to learn to sell). If you have a team of technical experts or non-sales people who you’d like to see some improvements in their sales capabilities and performance, give me a shout.

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