Everyone Sells Something! It's Not WHAT You Sell, It's HOW You Sell

By Liz Wendling

Everyone sells something and like it or not, we are ALL in sales. Smart sales people and enlightened business owners recognize that their product or service is only part of the sales process and that selling is actually just a “value exchange”. They realize that even knowing the basics of selling and the sales conversation gives them a significant competitive advantage over their competitors.

Some business owners are coming late to the game because they had no clue they needed to know how to sell. Good news....it’s not too late to create immediate change and grow your business. If you want to survive in this rapidly changing marketplace, you need to learn how to sell and become more comfortable with the sales process, because all business (including yours) is sustained through the generation of revenue and is dependent upon sales transactions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Liz Wendling
• Release date: Aug 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301027897

Liz Wendling

Liz Wendling is the president of Insight Business Consultants, a nationally recognized business consultant, sales expert and emotional intelligence coach. Liz is driven by her passion for business and generating results for her clients. A successful sales professional for over 24 years, she understands the challenges that business owners are facing building a business and selling in today's market.She teaches them to create effective, dynamic and fluid client conversations that turn interested prospects into invested clients that keep returning and become raving fans.Liz challenges her clients to move out of their comfort zone so they can generate the money they desire and deserve.

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Everyone Sells Something!

It’s Not What You Sell, It’s How You Sell

Liz Wendling

Copyright 2013 by Liz Wendling

Smashwords Edition

Licensing Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal use and enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, please visit Smashwords.com and purchase a copy for yourself. Thank you for respecting this author’s work.

Published by Women & Co Press

4385 S. Balsam Street

Suite 11-201

Littleton, CO 80123

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-0-9846766-4-4

First Edition

Editing by Karen Reddick

Book Design by Maryann Swartz

Cover Design by Maryann Swartz

E-Book by e-book-design.com

Dedication

To my parents and sisters who make me laugh and feel loved every day.

To the smart, confident and courageous professionals I have been fortunate to work with, the pleasure to meet in person, and the people I have yet to inspire. We have the power in us to create dynamic change in our lives and our businesses.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. The Inner and Outer Game in Sales and Business

2. Professionals Who Know How to Sell Earn More Money

3. Sales Fear—Dismantle it for Good

4. Sales and Business Discipline Is Paramount

5. The Three Power Players; Motivation, Decisiveness, and Perseverance

6. Making Yourself Unforgettable

7. Ditch the Pitch and Start a Sales Conversation

8. Sales Process Equals Sales Success

9. What’s Trust Got to do With It?

10. It’s Never About Price, It’s Always About Value

11. Your Customers are Talking! Are You Listening?

12. The Savvy Professional’s Guide to Negotiations

13. The Power of Follow Up

14. Get Your Ask In Gear and Close the Sale

15. The 7 Rituals of World Class Sales People

16. People Buy YOU!

17. Great Marketing Plan; Lousy Sales Strategy

18. Building a Successful Mindset

19. Be the Change You Want to See in Your Business

20. Create Your Own Success Story

Thank You

The Next Steps

About the Author

Introduction

Welcome to Everyone Sells Something and thank you for holding my book and my passion in your hands.

This book is for all entrepreneurs, business owners, and salespeople. It’s for professionals who play a vital role in marketing, selling, and running a successful business. It’s for every professional who knows that the success of their business is dependent on the ability to sell them self first and everything else second. Your success level is entirely up to you. Ask yourself how much you want success and how hard are you willing to work to acquire it?

Smart and savvy business owners know they are in complete control and totally responsible for what does and does not happen in their business. Serious business owners don’t blame the marketing, they don’t blame the competition, they don’t blame the customer, and they don’t blame the economy. They all know one thing—they win or lose the sale because of one thing and only one thing—themselves.

In this fiercely competitive economy every meeting, every sales call, and every interaction with a potential customer is critical to the survival of your business.

Each of us is blessed with a different level of innate talent, skill, and gifts. For most, the ability to sell is not innate, it is a learned skill.

Every professional needs a system to attract new business and create a selling approach that aligns with their values and integrity. As you make your way through the pages of this book, you will start the transition from denial, anxiety, or full blown fear about selling to being completely self-assured and gratified.

What You Will Need

First, choose right now that you deeply want to build a thriving business. Second, be clear on your intention to make a profit with honesty and integrity. And, finally, choose to be willing to take action and assume 100 percent responsibility for the direction of your business; at all times.

My passion and the purpose of this book is to provide you with a complete set of concepts that enable you to break through the boundaries of the outdated traditional selling model and become a dynamic sales professional who is filled with satisfaction and success. Although, this is a book on selling, it’s not a step-by-step guide to selling. There are hundreds of books on that subject already.

If You Have a Business, You Are in Sales

The reality is, if you can’t sell, you can’t grow your business. Sales are the only way to keep your business in business. It doesn’t matter what you sell, it is how you sell it that gets your customers to part with their money.

People have been telling me for years that they have been yearning to find a way to sell that’s right for them, feels authentic, and is comfortable to execute on a consistent basis. I discovered that selling was the one area where many individuals revealed their greatest deficiency. It wasn’t that they didn’t know what to say, it was that they couldn’t deliver the information in a structure that was polished, professional, and most importantly, persuasive. These people felt they would sound neither dynamic nor convincing and the result was they never bothered or attempted to step into that role.

I show professionals how to change that. I empower individuals to step up and be authentic, confident and courageous when it’s time to sell themselves and their product or services and do it in a way that feels right and moves others into action.

I developed programs that inspire business professionals to become stronger presenters by giving them the power and the ability to sound highly persuasive and extremely professional. Once they embraced and developed their sales skills, their income naturally skyrocketed.

My goal for you is to get good at being you first and allowing the rest to fall into place.

Once you understand that there is a better way and a new approach, your selling performance will improve immediately. Selling will become more natural, more rewarding, and more fun. You'll find that you can use these techniques and sell yourself in almost any situation. When you use collaborative selling, you get to bury the tricks, gimmicks, and out of date techniques that no longer work.

It is time to set goals, re-adjust, take action, track and measure your results. Decide right now, with passion, that you are going be the cause of your success. Without the fire that only passion arouses, success will elude you. If you’re not passionate about your business, you won’t do what it takes to carry it out, because pursuing your goal would be too difficult without a dose of passion.

Let’s begin the journey into the exciting and lucrative world of selling! If you sell in a manner where you’re open, honest and authentic in your communication, you’ll feel stronger, powerful, confident and successful.

Chapter 1

The Inner and Outer Game in Sales and Business

The inner game in business is the belief in yourself and your abilities. The thoughts you have are more powerful than you think. The mental game in business is the toughest game you’ll ever play.

The outer game in business is the actions you take and skills you use to generate your sales results. The outer game of business is the one the world gets to see. But if your inner game isn’t in line with your outer game it will be impossible to grow your business. What you will discover is that your outer game is a direct reflection of your inner game. The means that the results you produce are the outcome of your inner belief. Put another way, if the mindset of your inner business person is running her business from a place of fear, anxiety, or stress, you will produce lackluster results. If you’re not producing the sales results you’d like, please read my first book The Unstoppable Business Woman: A No-Nonsense Approach to Accelerating Your Business and Creating Extraordinary Results to get your inner game congruent with the outer game.

If you can’t sell, you can’t grow your business. Unless you’re closing sales, going to the bank, and operating in the black, you won’t have a business for very long. Tough to hear but that’s the truth. No sales equals no business, every time.

All business ventures have the potential to succeed. Your business is no different. There are some key ingredients that go into building a successful business and I intend to share the recipe with you. Notice I did not say secret recipe. There is no secret recipe, no magic formula or top-secret technique. The recipe is widely known but seldom used.

Just like there are no secrets or magic formulas to losing weight or saving money. It’s pretty simple: eat less, move more; spend less, save more. Everyone knows the formula for both but there are plenty of people who do neither.

Many business owners are surprised by just how much effort, passion, energy, money and time it takes to launch a business and how much discipline, hard work, and perseverance it takes to keep it going. Success comes to those who stay the course despite challenges, setbacks and obstacles. If you stick with the process, remain committed to your passion and your business plan long enough, you’ll succeed.

You’re on your way to learn a new approach to selling that will give you the necessary edge to stand out from your competition. Savvy and smart customers are no longer tolerating sales people who use old school traditional techniques. Techniques like high (even subtle) pressure, the hard sell, and manipulation that create friction in the sales process.

You don’t have to be aggressive or pushy to be successful in the world of sales. You don’t have to be a fast talker, skin like a rhinoceros, and teeth of a tiger, and all those other clichés to be a great sales person. What you do need is to find your passion and transform your view of sales.

You are about to embark on a new approach to sales that will be more comfortable, more authentic and easier to execute on a consistent basis than you ever thought possible.

Keep in mind that without creating a shift in your mindset and skill set it’s going to be tough to come across in a credible way. If you have a fear of being viewed in a negative light because of your own personal current vision of what it means to be in sales, it will be reflected in your effectiveness. You can’t make a living selling with fear. Customers can sense fear the moment they meet you. Fear is a sales repellant.

The Game Plan

You can no longer rely on your services or products alone to be your differentiator. Your competition is fierce and the playing field is getting bigger by the day. You are not the only one selling what you sell. You are competing for the same space in the marketplace and your customers will likely be viewing and comparing what you sell to your competition.

The value