Why we don't like selling

If you are uncomfortable with a "hard-sell" approach to marketing, maybe your instincts are telling you something.

Perhaps your approach IS too pushy.

If Push Marketing doesn't work on you, and you're not happy doing it, maybe it's time you considered Pull Marketing.

Many business owners and partners in professional service firms don't like selling.

They know sales have to be achieved if their companies and partnerships are to survive and prosper, but they are not comfortable taking a selling role themselves.

Why is that?

I've been thinking about the reasons and I believe it comes down to perception, attitude and behaviour.

Those things influence the style and effectiveness of the marketing systems which business owners and partners in professional firms put in place.

It starts with perceptions. Even just mentioning the word "selling" prompts negative images: flashy used car salespeople, intrusive cold callers, and manipulative closing techniques.

This feeds an attitude that marketing and sales strategies have to take that approach in order to be successful.

When they don't work, you or your team become desperate for sales.

This affects behaviour.

If you're involved in sales, you find yourself actually doing the things you feel most uncomfortable about, and at the same time wishing you didn't have to.

You develop a fear of rejection. When that becomes reality, you swear only to talk to those who call you and are ready to buy.

You carry this reactive mind-set into your marketing, telling yourself "word-of-mouth" is sufficient. You become an order-taker rather than confront your own beliefs.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

I know a saleswoman who consistently achieves top sales figures in the retail store in which she works, without doing anything she feels uncomfortable with.

I was in the store one day and saw how she did it.

One customer asked the owner, who also serves behind the counter, for a particular product. It was duly wrapped, cash taken and change given, and the customer departed.

Another customer was browsing the aisles and asked the saleswoman for advice about the same product.

She asked the customer what he intended to use it for.

His choice of product was slightly astray and she recommended a better alternative.

More questions followed. More listening and suggesting and discussions about the customer's problem.

When the customer finally left, he had bought the first product, two related products, a preparation product and a clean-up product.

The total sale was more than five times the store owner's effort with the previous customer.

The saleswoman's customer was back in the store two weeks later to ask her for advice. And he was happy to wait in line with two other people ahead of him rather than talk to the store owner.

Hardly being pushy.

That's how top salespeople sell — by being empathetic and knowledgeable, rather than manipulative.

But as a business owner or manager, you may have formed a perception that aggressive or intrusive marketing is necessary to achieve sales. So you go along with marketing approaches which involve exaggerated claims, or which turn your representatives into unwelcome visitors or callers.

Such strategies don't work on you and you would feel uncomfortable if you personally used them on others.

So is the problem your own perceptions and attitudes? And the approach you're either directly (or maybe unconsciously) encouraging your team to take?

To find out, try answering these questions:

- Are you (or your team) concerned with achieving sales at all costs — or primarily with helping someone?

- When you're involved in the process. do you talk a lot — or ask questions and listen?

- Is your team under pressure to make a sale, or is no sale an acceptable result when not appropriate for the customer (or you)?

- Is your team instructed to "close the sale" — or make recommendations?

Think about it. You may be encouraging negative Push Marketing in your business.

Pull Marketing - What It Is And Why It Works (free report)