What do you sell, Really?
Me, me, me…I, I, I…
Yes, we get it. You like to talk about yourself.
You and everyone else on the planet.
Look, the desire to sell yourself is rooted in good intention.
Your desire to hit your quota, to earn trust and respect and to be a good provider to family and loved ones.
The problem is the way you are going about it is terribly wrong.
Ask yourself this…
Have you ever sat in a conversation where someone spoke about themselves for a prolonged period of time?
Perhaps a more pointed question…
Have you ever listened to someone talk about themselves for what seems like an eternity and walked away and thought “Wow, that was just wonderful?”
Even the most altruistic person would probably walk away and say man that guy (or gal) loves to talk about themselves.
We all know that our favorite subject is ourselves, so if we want to sell more perhaps we should talk less about our favorite subject and more about our customers favorite subject; T.H.E.M.
All the periods would suggest an acronym, but they are merely for emphasis.
Try this instead
Next time you meet with a prospect or even someone you are interested in leaving a good impression on…don’t talk about yourself.
Sounds crazy right?
For the first 20 minutes, make the conversation 100% on them.
Ask a lot of questions to learn about them and no matter how much you want to compare, one-up or fill space about yourself…Do not!
Don’t be rude and don’t be awkward, but just cordially redirect the conversation back toward them.
It may be a bit uncomfortable at first, but rest assured as you get better at it you will move your goals forward faster and you may not even realize it.
If you want to be able to genuinely help another person and build a meaningful relationship, you have to know enough about the person to actually help them.
That won’t happen if we spend all of our time talking about ourselves.
Think about it, have you ever met someone that was really interested in you and wanted to know all about you and you were insulted? (Stalkers not included) Usually you walk away from those types of conversations feeling really good.
Why?
More specifically, Why does not talking about yourself work so well?
Because it is the key to selling more you, or whatever it is you are actually attempting to sell.
As we have all heard before, people do not want to be sold, they want to buy.
Which means they want to come to their own decision to invest in what it is you are selling.
So your continued self-serving banter rarely, if ever, moves the needle. If anything you will get lucky from time to time because you are offering something the customer already wants.
It is when you have genuinely taken interest in the success of others that you individually will see the greatest success.
And if you don’t believe me, I’d love to know why?
