Entrepreneurship is sales… You have to sell your vision in order to get investors behind you, sell your culture to potential employees, sell your dependability to suppliers, sell your superiority to customers, sell your worth to larger companies looking to buy your business, etc. The ability to sell is not a gift. It takes practice and persistence like most other things, so I don’t want to hear, “I suck at sales.” Let’s translate that into, “I hate sales” or “I’m not confident in my product.” I’ve said all of the above at one point or another. If you just don’t like sales then you’re going to need to find a way around that if you wish to proceed with your current path. If you’re not confident in what you’re selling (your idea, product, business, whatever) then you need to re-examine what you are doing.
People can always tell if you truly believe in what you’re selling. If you wouldn’t buy what you’re selling (given you were financially able) then they can tell and they will not want to buy it either. If you don’t believe in what you’re selling, then consider if it is even worthy of being sold.
If your product is awesome and you’re still hesitant, then call a potential customer right now! We must learn to take action and not just think. It doesn’t matter if you get rejected… you haven’t lost anything… but you have gained courage and if you’re smart you’ll find out why they said no so that you can improve next time.
For great things to happen great things must be overcome.
March 24, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Hey Lee,
Great post. You’re right that so much of entrepreneurship is sales and that it’s not a gift.
I do think that tailoring our sales approach to our gifts or God-given personalities is critical to our success as salespeople. What works for me, likely won’t work for others and vice versa.
Then practice, practice, practice. You said it perfectly when you noted that “people can always tell if you truly believe in what you’re selling.” I’d add that even if you do believe in what you’re selling but you don’t present yourself confidently, it can be perceived just as easily as a lack of faith in your product/service.
If anyone is interested in reading more, I posted on this as well here: http://bit.ly/dxWkZY and here: http://bit.ly/dBBYTd
Cheers!
Travis Robertson
March 24, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Thanks Travis!
You’re very right that confidence is key and you get that confidence largely through practice.
Travis also has an awesome blog that I would recommend to anyone! So check it out http://www.TravisRobertson.com