28. A Short Lesson in Sales We All Need

Today I’m going to give you a short lesson in sales. If you’ve ever held a sales position or run a business, you’re probably aware of it already, so I’ll make it quick.

Never leave it up to someone else to dictate whether or not there is going to be a sale. Don’t make the person buying from you be the one who has to do the work in order for you to make the sale. This is why business cards are actually useless (in my opinion). Go ahead and hand 1,000 individuals your business card and tell every one of them to call you so you can sell them your product or service and it’s not far fetched to predict that you will end up with exactly zero calls back.

Here’s what to do instead. Go ahead and hand them your business card, but don’t say “call me anytime”. Instead, ask your prospect if it’s okay that you call them and then tell them when you’re going to call if they say yes. Same goes for texts and emails. The whole “feel free to reach out if you want to give me some of your money” strategy just does not work.

There is an infinite number of products and services to buy, so to leave it up to someone else to choose yours is as effective as a shot in the dark. If you’ve been reading my blogs, you know that I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave things to chance.

I could go deeper into selling products or services and one day I will, but today what I’d like to suggest is that we’re all sales people. We all sell every day, specifically ourselves. But here’s the thing, we all too often sell ourselves short by leaving it up to somebody else.

Whether I’m trying to sell someone an 80 session personal training package, a $2,000,000 house or an evening get together with Christina and I, leaving it up to someone else garners no results. In a world with so many distractions, how is it reasonable that someone remembers my proposal and makes time for my request? Even if it’s important, people neglect important things all the time. As I stated last week, I’m not that important, and neither are you, at least not to most other people.

Let’s be real for a second. My priorities are not your priorities and vice versa. As important as it is for you to succeed in your endeavours, the world marches on whether you do or don’t, so stop leaving it up to the world to determine whether or not you get what you want.

Side note: it’s okay to want things for the sake of wanting things.

Another side note: it is very important that you succeed in your endeavours, big or small, and you owe it to the world to try. If you get better, the world gets better, and we should all be trying to make the world better.