You're Wrong if You Think You're Not in Sales

Are you in sales? You may not have the word "sales" in your job title, but I have news for you: You're in sales. Here's what you need to know about selling.

Be prepared. Everyone is selling themselves and their ideas in business today. Too many people, salespeople included, think selling starts when they are sitting down in front of their customer. Wrong. It starts well before the meeting, during the preparation that successful salespeople do.

What do you have to do to be prepared for selling your idea? Treat that meeting like a sales call. Prepare by setting your objective. What do you want to happen as a result of the meeting? That will drive what you say. 

Plan how to start the conversation. You could say why you called the meeting and what you wanted to discuss and what you want to accomplish. If you want a discussion, plan the questions you will ask. 

Your planning will also determine whether you are successful or not. Success is simply achieving your objective.  If you are not successful, it means that you have more work to do.

Be persuasive. The job of a sales professional is to persuade a customer to make a great buying decision. It's your job, too. In your case, the purchase is agreement. Salespeople use ethical persuasion. You can, too. You might want to start with Aristotle who defined the art of rhetoric or persuasion.  

He said a persuasive argument had three components: Speaker credibility, listener emotions, and the proof you offer. Without your credibility, it's almost impossible to be persuasive. Here's how you can build credibility.

Watch what you wear. Hoochie mamma won't cut it. There's a mental shortcut that people make when they make decisions about you when they first meet you. The shortcut is that more skin showing means less power and credibility. Less skin equals more power. This holds true for men and women. 

Think about any President of the United States. Did you ever see one wearing a suit with a white, short-sleeved shirt? Never. They always wore a long-sleeved shirt with a suit. It’s all about power and credibility. If the president is dressing with less skin with the power he's got, think how important it is for you to pay attention to what you wear.

Women, wear your suit jackets to meetings. Watch your hemlines. Showing too much skin detracts from your credibility. 

Be persistent. All great salespeople focus like laser beams on business that they want. You’ve got to have the same persistence if your idea is important to you. You don’t want to become a broken record, but you also want to keep your idea top of mind.  When can you introduce it again? How can you keep people thinking about the possibility of your idea? 

Just make sure you avoid becoming a pest. Being strident and obnoxious is not a strategy for polite persistence. Just like salespeople can’t become pests, you have to thoughtfully build support for your idea. You might consider going to informal coffees with some of the people you want to influence to gauge their support for your idea. You’ll also learn what you need to improve or compromise on to move the idea forward. 

Now that you’re in sales, remember what all great salespeople know. Selling is a never ending process. What great sales you’ve accomplished today are history tomorrow. You have to continue to deliver results. When you think like a salesperson, you’ll continue to produce the results you want at work. 

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Maura Schreier-Fleming is a sales strategist and founder of Best@Selling, a sales training and consulting company. She wrote and works with sales professionals who want to sell more and get more business.

Follow Maura on Twitter @Besatselling.