What if ‘sales’ was actually a positive word?
Many business owners associate the word ‘sales’ with being pushy, manipulative or overly persistent. Sales coach Lisa Yelland says this perception can stop us from having the conversations and making the follow-ups that businesses need. In this article, Lisa explains how to flip your perception of sales into something positive, useful and natural.
During ONLE Central, our monthly education and discussion session, sales coach and trainer Lisa Yelland challenged members to rethink what ‘sales’ really means, and what failing to overcome our mental barriers might be costing us.
When Lisa asked what the word brought to mind, the answers were familiar: pushy, manipulative, forceful, arrogant. And if that's what you believe selling looks like, it's hardly surprising that you might try to distance yourself from it.
The difficulty is that this discomfort infects perfectly healthy parts of the sales process. You might avoid inviting somebody to have a conversation, fail to follow up, shy away from talking about money or become so passive that every potential sales conversation ends as little more than a pleasant chat.
Lisa summed up the problem: “You’ll never convert the conversation you don't have.”
Her suggestion was to flip the definition of sales completely. Instead of seeing “sales” as something pushy or uncomfortable, what if it meant being focused on the other person, asking good questions and understanding whether you can genuinely help them?
For Lisa, that means making recommendations only when there is a genuine fit. “It really is about helping somebody, seeking to understand, and then making a recommendation that I know is the best fit for them.”
That leads to perhaps the strongest idea from Lisa's spotlight: the goal of a sales conversation doesn't have to be getting a yes.
“The goal is always the decision. It's never the sale. It's never the yes. It's the decision.” Your job is to help somebody become clear on whether your offer is the right next step for them. Sometimes that decision will be yes and sometimes it won't, but both outcomes can still represent a good sales conversation.
Lisa also encouraged members to bring the best parts of their existing personality into sales rather than adopting somebody else's sales persona. If you're naturally curious, make sales about asking better questions. If you're a good listener, use that. If honesty matters to you, be prepared to tell somebody when your service isn't right for them.
The result is a much more useful definition of “sales”: not becoming more aggressive, but becoming more confident about helping people make decisions.
Lisa's discussion question for ONLE members is therefore a useful one for any business owner: what do you dislike about sales and what is the positive you could flip it to?
What is ONLE Central?
This article is based on Lisa Yelland’s member spotlight at ONLE Central - one of the monthly all-member events included in our membership
It's one of nine optional member events available alongside our regional networking groups, giving members from across the UK, Ireland and the United States more opportunities to meet, learn from and build relationships with each other. Not an ONLE member yet? You can visit one of our regional meetings for just £5 using the code ONLEHELLO. Find a meeting that suits your schedule.