Intrinsic Selling: The Answers Are within YOU!
By: Kelly Graves “The Corporate Therapist™”

Part 1: Passion

A wise old man told me once to: find something you love and the money will follow. Most people sell so they can make money rather than love the art of the sale and so they often drift from sales position to the next looking for that magic place where customer say’s hello and open their check book. Guess what, that is never going to happen. It is up to YOU and your passion--Period. The good news is that you have the answers within YOU. They may be lying dormant or not fully developed, but they are there. You just need someone to help you awaken them and help you become the person you feel down deep were put on this earth to become.

One of the first steps is to forget about your wants and needs and focus 100% of your attention on the customer. Immerse yourself into your customer, their wants and desires and how much better their life will be with your product or service. If you don’t truly believe this, the customer will feel it and you are dead in the water, you just don’t know it yet. Passion also allows you to overcome obstacles more easily; sustain yourself through dry spells, prospect and follow-up more consistently, and become overall more joyful in your everyday life. 

Part 2: “The First Sale Must Be to Yourself”

We have to make the toughest sale to ourselves, first. Only then can we generate the conviction and passion that can carry us over prospect objections and obstacles. You must rise above the shadow of your own doubt or that doubt will cripple you.

You must believe. Too many people are trying to sell products and services they don’t really believe will add value to the customer, don’t believe in the brand they are selling, or don’t believe that the product or service is worth the price. The bottom line is that you must sell yourself first and truly believe it and only then will you be in a position to improve the customer’s situation by presenting your product or service to them.

You must believe that you’re worth more money. You cannot sell anyone else, if you don’t believe down deep that you are exactly the right person to improve their personal and/or professional condition with the product and service you are representing. If you don’t deeply believe it, why should they? In fact, if you don’t believe it, your words, your actions and your statements will telegraph to them that you are not trust worthy and they should not trust you--And they won’t.

Never waste your time, your company’s time, and the prospect’s time unless you are absolutely convinced that you can significantly improve the prospect’s well-being. If you don’t believe it, then change the industry you are in, change your product or service offering, change your attitude or change careers.

Most sales people have a confidence issue. In fact, there are major self-esteem issues among those, in general, who are in the business of selling themselves. A great problem here is that even if a sale is made, the resultant gross profit is always too low because the salesperson doesn’t feel she/he deserves a higher fee.

Although far too much focus in most company sales trainings are focused on causes of one’s failures, (especially in this current economic climate) research clearly outlines that human beings only learn by building on strengths. The key is to find out why were good, not merely hearing that were good. If we know what makes us good, or made us good at one time, then our objective is to replicate it. Following are suggestions about how to develop or build on ones confidence and former successes:

• Ask people who compliment you why they liked what they saw or heard. Ask them to be brutally honest, this is for your growth, not for people to give you empty praise and tell you how great you are.
• Make a list of the distinctions that surround your best sales and/or most successful experiences.
• Ask customers, acquaintances, friends and family what they think your most distinguishing traits and abilities are. Don’t talk, just listen and think about it. Ask questions at another time if necessary.
•  Formalized testing…(Kelly Graves “The Corporate Therapist” can provide Personality Assessments or you may know of another highly trained and experienced professional to help you grow through your "Blind Spots.”) The key is to ASK. The best athletes in the world get objective guidance and Professional Development from others every day of their professional lives, why not you? Invest in YOU.
• Examine your hobbies, interests and passions for commonalities. 

Final Thoughts

This is the end of phase one. Contact Kelly Graves “The Corporate Therapist™” for more information on these and many other sales and closing techniques, presented from a pragmatic and psychological perspective. This includes other sales topics such as:

• “The art of the sale: the three prerequisites for successful selling”
• “Creating a need: it’s not the customer’s job, it’s the salesperson’s job to create and articulate the customer’s need”
• “Twelve steps to creating sales competency”
• “Twelve behaviors of the successful salesperson”
• “Passion: the first sale must be to yourself”
• “Building relationships: successful salespeople make sales to friends, not strangers.”
• “The psychology of selling: how to read a prospect in the first ten minutes.”
• “The four basic personality types: drivers, expressives, amiables, and analytics”
• “How to talk with each personality type”
• “How to find the other person’s self-interest: thinking from the outside-in”
• “What to appeal to and what to avoid”
• “The real answers to any sales situation, if you know the answers to the test anyone can succeed”

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