If you accept that people buy from people, then one of the ways you can give yourself the best chance of succeeding in sales is to be enthusiastic about what you sell. My wife’s recent trip to Birmingham reminded me of how important this is.
Some people are lucky enough to be selling Formula 1 advertising space, or maybe tickets for commercial space flights. If you can’t get enthusiastic about selling those, then you really shouldn’t be in sales. But for most people, the thing they sell is relatively mundane…..haircuts, packaging, industrial valves…but as we all know this is the real world and we can’t do much about that. But what we can control is how enthusiastic we are about the things we sell.
My wife returned from a business trip to Birmingham this week, in which she had managed to squeeze in a trip to the shops, amongst all the other stuff. She bounced into the house brandishing a bag of Kilbeggan organic porridge oats. To set the context, it’s me who’s the foodie in our house, not my wife. And yet, she was clearly excited.
The best porridge in the world
‘I met the farmer’ she said, ‘and these are just the best porridge oats ever!’ She’d tried a flapjack (best ever) and was halfway towards baking some herself before she had even got her coat off. The farmer just loved his job.
Why am I telling you this? It’s because the farmer had chosen to be totally enthused by his product and had conveyed this enthusiasm to my wife and no doubt hundreds of other people he’d met that day. I bet he sold the lot. And yet porridge oats should rank fairly low in the ‘excitement’ stakes. Just like the brick salesman we met when we were looking to build our own house, (who chose to make bricks something more than a commodity – see earlier blog article) he decided they were something to get excited about.
The flapjacks were fantastic (no surprise there, I bet the farmer was just as enthusiastic when it came to producing his produce) and my wife has told loads of people about them. And I’m telling you. In fact, I want to do all I can to help them succeed, so here’s their website link.
So what does this mean or us? Well, very obviously the more we get excited and enthusiastic about our products and services, the more likely we are to be successful. But also, the more likely we are to get some crucial word-of-mouth going. My friend Rory used to talk about ‘Steve the scaffolder’ the man who just loved scaffolding and not surprisingly, ran a very successful business. Everyone in their part of town used to use Steve.
Being enthusiastic helps us stand out, gets people talking about our business, and may even make us enjoy our work more.
So, here are a few things to think about:
- Make sure you actually enjoy what you’re selling, or find something to enjoy about it.
- Read around the subject. The oats farmer knew all about what to make with his product .
- Get some good stories that bring your product to life….people love stories
If you’d like to discuss how to make your sales even more successful, please drop me a line – info@andycoughlin.co.uk
