Clive Miller shares a purpose of sales to feel good about.
How the act of selling adds value. Learn about the purpose of sales in this 5-minute video. Discover the optimum sales mindset and the most empowering sales attitude. Watch the video or read the transcript below.
Video Transcript
Hello and thank you for watching this video. My name is Clive Miller. I am the founder of SalesSense. I've made this video to share some ideas about selling.
What is selling all about?
It might seem obvious that the purpose of selling is to get other people to buy things that they otherwise might not have bought. While this serves as a definition, it suggests self-serving motives and to my mind, this obscures the huge value that selling can contribute to the success and well-being of buyers.
There is a difference between helping people do what they want to do and getting them to do things that they don't want to do. Helping people do what they want to do is selling. Getting people to do what they don't want to do is a confidence trick intended to fool people into thinking that a particular purchase will help them do what they want to do. In my opinion, such deception has no place in selling.
You may be thinking that people don't need help to do what they want to do. If so, ask yourself, how much of your time is spent doing what you want to do? 20%? 30%? Perhaps some of you spend half your time or more - doing what you want to do. This still leaves room for a salesperson to make a contribution.
Delving deeper, we can consider the quality of our experience when we are doing what we want to do. Could it be improved? Improving the quality of an experience represents another opportunity for a salesperson to help others get more value from the things they do.
To my mind, being a seller offers an almost unparalleled opportunity to help people get more out of their lives - and get paid for doing it. Few other pursuits are quite so fulfilling.
Despite many sellers having this mindset, potential customers are wary and perhaps for good reason. There are those who care little about the true value of a thing to a buyer. Instead, they focus on the money or some other self-serving return. These people may also be known as sellers.
No seller can influence buyers without their permission and most buyers are consciously or unconsciously cautious about allowing a seller, influence. Another way of describing such permission is Trust.
Let me draw your attention to this diagram. It represents the meeting of a seller with a potential buyer. Recall the last time you were browsing in a consumer electronics store. What was your reaction when a salesperson approached you?
Most people automatically raise their mental defences because of the expectation that a seller is there to persuade. No seller can persuade without having established a level of trust with the potential customer.
In the diagram, the seller must shift the position from one of opposition to one of collaboration.
Extending this concept further, I'd like you to consider the ultimate purpose of a seller. In a classroom setting, I often ask participants this question directly. What is the ultimate purpose of selling? Common replies include, 'to get the order', 'to get the money', and even 'to win the customer'. Occasionally an enlightened individual will say, 'to have the customer sell for you'.
This is important and worth repeating. Make your objective to have the customer sell for you. It is worth writing in a place where it will remind you of the idea as you go about your work.
This description of the ultimate purpose of sales works on two levels. The sentence might be interpreted as 'have the customer sell themselves'. It could also be understood to mean, 'have the customers become so enthusiastic about a purchase that they tell everyone they meet how it has changed their lives'.
Business is secured with much greater ease when customers sell for you. So if you set this as your sales purpose, what would you do differently?
I'm sure you can think of many things that would shift if you adopted this attitude. I wrap them into a single sentence to remind myself.
"Stop trying to sell people. Instead, help them do what they want to do."
I hope this video has reminded you of the purpose of sales or if the idea is new to you, inspired its adoption. If you would like to learn more, join the SalesSense Sales Club. Thank you for watching.
Video Article by Clive Miller
Selling is perceived by many to be an unsavoury occupation yet those with the right sales attitude, sales ethics, and sales mindset not only succeed, they make an enormous contribution to the success and well-being of others - which is in my view, the purpose of sales.
If you are interested in professional selling and fostering an ethical sales mindset, we can help. To learn more, telephone +44 (0)1392 851500, send an email to jimm@salessense.co.uk or use the contact form here.
