120: How to Overcome the Fear of Selling (for Non-Sales People) [Podcast]

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Recently I was encouraging a client to get busy moving her product. After about 20 minutes she told me she just needed to learn how to overcome the fear of selling. Bingo – that was the issue. The fear was pushing her to do all kinds of work on the business – none of them making money or serving customers. Until that point, she had sounded 120% confident in her product and her plan and I thought she was going gangbusters. Yet, at this moment of honesty, she told me she had yet to sell anything and was actually afraid of selling.

Overcome the Fear of Selling for Good

“Overcome the fear of selling by focusing on serving  #FearofSelling”]

Some “quick” fixes to overcome the fear of selling and the resulting resistance to your business growth.

Believe

Be honest – do you think what you are selling will help people? Most people trying to overcome the fear of selling will admit they just do not believe what they are selling with help their clients.  This is critical. If you work for a company and you do not believe in their products – time to move. If they are your own products and services, you need to understand how they impact your customers. To do this, interview past customers. How did your product or service help them? If you have not sold anything yet, ask people who you have helped for free or who have bought from other service providers how the products and services helped them. Whatever you do, do not trust your internal marketing machine – you have to do it. (This is especially true if you are selling network marketing kind of products where the hype is huge.)

Become aware of what makes a customer

Everyone is NOT your customer – even if they need it. For instance, driving around in a beat-up car does NOT make them a customer for your body shop. Fat people are not automatically a customer for your gym. In fact, often your customer will look like they do NOT need your product. Fitness centers do a bang up job selling to people who are already fit.

Your job is to get some understanding who it is that loves to buy products like yours.

Prequalify them – Do they want and need what you are selling

When a customer self-identifies as someone who wants your products, you have a winner. Lead generation can really help in this area. Websites use lead generation through lead magnets – those forms where you enter your email to get a freebie of some sort. No matter if you are a storefront or a web based business – lead magnets can prove to be very powerful. For instance, if they download a brochure “5 ways to get fit in less than 15 minutes per day” they might be a customer interested in fitness on a time budget.

Other things you can do is find ways to get them to tell you what they need. We use this in marketing our graduate program in engineering management. Instead of us selling, we ask questions.

Tell them how you can help them

Anytime someone spends money, they are investing in the solution. So, what solution do you provide for them. Tell them how you can solve their problem. It is up to them to decide if they want that problem solved.

Offer 3 options is a great way to let them chose

A very powerful strategy for selling is to have your products in packages. Think of the Bronze, Silver and Gold plans. Let them pick which features they want. These plans often have the effect of increasing the value of the sale.

If They cannot buy from you – have something ELSE to offer

Customers who do not buy from you might not buy because of price, timing, or they are just not a fit. If it is price or timing, can you offer them something for free? Think about having lower priced products, a freebie tutorial that will help them do themselves, or even a referral to a competitor.

Thank them but Never apologize for the price

No matter if they buy or not, thank them for their business and allowing you to serve them. Even if they walk away with nothing – you have likely helped them make better decisions.

But NEVER apologize for your price.

 

Selling is fun because you are helping other people. Remember, we all want to be sold solutions to our problems. So be part of the solution to your customers.

Join and listen to learn more hints on how to overcome the fear of selling. 

Links mentioned in this episode:

Building Your Own Business

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