The Currency Skill: How Entrepreneurs Who Master This Skill Will Never Go Broke
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It's a common misconception that selling requires a product, a big team of professionals, or a large advertising budget to be successful.
However, this is not the case.
If you're an entrepreneur who has just started in business and needs inspiration for selling, this letter is for you. Likewise, if you're a business owner whose sales engine has dried up, this letter is for you.
There has been a misconception about building a perfect product to start selling.
In reality, you don't necessarily need an existing product to sell something.
People paid money for the first iPhone six months before it was shipped, and others signed up for books years before they were published.
Let's go back to the basics of selling and understand its fundamentals.
Selling Belongs To Human Innate Activity
"In the world of business and selling, the most valuable commodity is the relationship, not the product or service." - Dan Kennedy
If you can speak or write, you can sell.
Selling is the act of exchanging your own goods with other people. People will pay money for your goods if they perceive the value to be higher than the price and time they are willing to spend.
How you communicate the value to the person helps facilitate the transaction. The better you communicate the perceived value to the other person, the more likely you are to make the sale.
To survive, you must get good at selling. Relying solely on producing everything and living for yourself - food, housing, and transportation - is not feasible.
To enhance your well-being, you must actively promote and exchange your goods and services with other people.
Everything You Can Sell
You've been selling since the day you were born.
As a child, you sold your attention to your parents. You needed the attention and care of older people to survive.
As you grew older and acquired more skills, you began selling your skills to others in exchange for recognition, meaning, and, often, money. The better skills you are, the more difficult to be replaced, and the more you get paid.
If you're an entrepreneur, you're selling your ideas and unique perspectives on your products and services that serve other people.
Whenever you interact with a person, you engage in an exchange of selling:
Ideas
Beliefs
Volunteers
Products
Services
Time
Selling doesn’t need the involvement of money, but it require the exchange of value.
For example, you share with your best friend an idea and some tips to help them pass an exam in exchange for a “thank you”. Once they pass the exam, they will appreciate you more and trust you more on your advice.
Alternatively, you might sell a tutoring service to students in exchange for payment to help them pass their finals.
If you’re reading this far, you’ve given me your valuable time in exchange for some useful information. Very thankful!
Becoming a Great Salesman
"The best salespeople know that their expertise can become their enemy in selling." - Grant Cardone
People hate being sold.
It never feels good to be forced to buy into an idea and a product. Therefore, as a great salesman, you must learn how to sell without being “salesy”.
Selling just for the sake of selling is not enough. There has to be a higher purpose and reason behind the selling to make it natural.
A great salesman is a student of human psychology. They understand the driving force behind an individual decision to buy a specific product.
For instance, if someone buys a Tylenol pill, they must be in pain, which can lead to feelings of irritation, anxiety, and unhappiness. A great salesman understands the emotions behind a person's motivation and constructs an offer that gets them to act upon those motivations.
A great salesman never forces people to buy his ideas.
Instead, he presents a great offer that speaks to the solution to the other person's problems and lets the person decide for themselves.
Everyone knows selling goods and services in exchange for money isn’t always perfect, but the great salesman makes it always seems fair.
A skilled salesman can make buyers feel that they are being treated fairly after the sale has been made.
The Psychology of Selling
Selling is 99% homework and 1% sales.
Just like the old advice, "You should never judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes," understanding other people's problems, wishes, dreams, and desires is key to successfully selling your products and services.
If you do your homework and understand your people, the sale naturally performs itself.
A great salesman is a student of the people he serves. He does lots of homework by studying people and mastering the information he gathers.
Here is a list of questions that a great salesman should have the answers to before talking to customers:
What are the customers' DREAMS?
What are the customers' DESIRES?
What are their FEAR?
What keeps them AWAKE at night?
What causes them ANGER?
What makes them FRUSTRATED about their life?
What RESULTS are they looking to achieve right now?
If you're selling a product, either digital or physical, try to come up with five answers for each of these questions.
Doing so will help you improve your sales process and gain insight into the customer's mind.
This, in turn, will enable you to empathize with and motivate customers to buy from you.
The Process of Selling
Unlike art, selling is a process that requires discipline.
The better the process, the less likely you are to annoy people and push them away from you.
A great sales process makes you appear fully professional and courteous, and customers won't even realize they're being sold to.
The sales process involves guiding people through your service and product pipeline:
Customers are greeted and offered value upfront, and sometimes for FREE.
Customers choose to learn more about your business while you’re offering additional value (by acknowledging their problems, presenting your solution, show testimonials, etc.)
Along the way, you present an offer to have them buy your product.
You close the deal, and they become your official customers.
The sales process applies to all different mediums, whether you are talking to people, writing a sales letter, writing articles, or doing a presentation.
If you master one medium, you can make a lot of money. If you master multiple mediums, you can create wealth for yourself.
The Power of Selling
Selling is a life skill that can keep you from ever going broke.
Your success in selling depends on your ability to offer value and communicate the value you can deliver to others.
Selling is not just about monetary transactions; it's also about the value exchange between you and other human beings over time.
There is no end game in selling, not even when you close the deal. You only get better at it the more you sell your goods and services.
Learn to sell and be a student of the people you serve; you will never look back.
In Summary
Selling is a fundamental human activity that doesn't require a product.
Selling is a life skill that requires the ability to offer and communicate value to others.
A great salesman understands human psychology and the emotions behind a person's motivation to buy a specific product. They then offer their service that can meet the customers’ expectations.
Homework and discipline are key to a successful sales process, which involves guiding people through your service and product pipeline.