My Top 5 Tips To Sell Without Selling

Would you rather stick pins in your eyes than put yourself out there to sell your products?

You might be an introvert like me, which means finding the confidence to sell doesn’t come easily to you, or you might find the thought of launching your programs, or your products with huge fanfares energetically draining. But, you have to put yourselves out there and sell if you want to grow your business so, how do we do that if we hate conventional selling?

So, this week I’m sticking to a similar theme as my last blog post where I talked about overcoming objections to sell your high ticket offers. 

This week I’m going to talk about re-framing your mindset around selling. Now, I tried for many years to be someone else whilst I was launching and selling; I tried to follow the extroverts and follow their selling styles. And for me, it was exhausting, and I felt sick when I had to face my selling fears. And, doing that repeatedly didn’t take away my fears of selling! 

So nowadays, I’m a great believer in walking in my strengths as an introvert entrepreneur so when I sell, I have learnt how to do that without compromising those special qualities I have inside myself that make me successful. I’m able to re-frame my fears, so I can authentically sell as ‘me’. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today so you can do that too. 

I’m Lor Bradley, author of Grow Your Tribe. And I’m a business strategist, an introvert entrepreneur and I show women in business smart ways to escape the 'feast or famine' trap by working smarter, not harder.

So how does the idea of selling make you feel? I know for many of you, it's enough to fill you with dread and the image many of us have of selling isn’t a positive one. But, you know as well as I do that the ability to sell is something you’re going to have to learn if you want to grow your business. 

And the good news is, over time, this IS something you can master. It just takes time and making some changes to your mindset. I’m going to take you through five things I reframed to help me get over my fear of selling, and I think these will help you! 

Focus on Serving, Not Selling

So, you’re going to need to approach selling from a different angle. For me, the entrepreneurs who trust and invest in me are everything to me. And when their business grows from working with me, every time I see them shine it makes my entire business journey worthwhile. So, when I seek new clients to work with, I remember that feeling. I approach every new conversation or engagement with a potential client with a heartfelt attitude of “how can I serve you so I can change your life for the better?” 

And I believe the main reason people hate selling, or being sold to, is they see the process as something coercive, or manipulative and for many businesses that’s exactly how it is, but you’re watching this video because you don’t want to do that right! I’ve discovered in my own experiences that there’s no need to try to forcefully convince someone to buy something but, if you have an offering that's actually helpful and solves a real problem, or a need, and you’re coming at this with the mindset of service then there's no manipulation involved. You're actually selling without selling!

Be The 'Go-To' Expert

What people may be saying about you and your business, and what you want them to know you for may not be the same thing and to sell without selling it’s important to get this spot on and be known as the go to expert in that thing you do. And once you have those two perceptions aligned, you’ll be increasing your chances of being that first person that springs into your ideal client’s mind when they are considering where to invest.

If you find that what your audience knows you for and what you think you’re known for are two different things then, you need to ask yourself, is what I’m known for right now contributing to the success of my business?

And this same thing tripped me up in the past when I was teaching women how to start a business and I diluted my message by adding new income streams into my business model. My students were frequently asking me if I could recommend copywriting services so I thought it would be a great revenue generating opportunity to offer copywriting services as part of my online business offerings.

And you know what it did?! Well, it totally confused my potential customers. Think about it from their point of view, was I an expert in business strategy, or was I a copywriter trying to teach people how to be brilliant in business? And that confusing mistake affected my sales conversion rates, so I took the decision to be known for one thing and that’s for being brilliant in strategy and teaching business. So, what are YOU known for and what are you the go-to expert for? This is going to make your path to ‘selling without selling’ much easier!

Know Your Strengths

I’m not going to focus too much on strengths in this video as I’ve already created another video on tapping into your strengths. 

When it comes to ‘selling without selling’, in my experience it has always served me well to focus on where I am strong regardless of what my similar competitors are doing. So, for example, if you’re an introvert mindset coach and you baulk at the idea of running an intensive live challenge for five days in order to sign people into your program then don’t do it! 

Instead, find a launch strategy that works to your strengths, and then double down on that. Don’t try to be something, or someone that you’re not! And when we work to our strengths, we naturally become more interesting to our audience, we’re more confident and that feeling of being strong plays a huge part in being successful ‘selling without selling’ – it’s a very attractive quality.

Just Listen

Ok, hand up, who’s been sold to by someone who just won’t shut the fuck up? And that leads me onto my next tip. And that’s…just listen. 

Another reason we hate selling and being sold is that it feels pushy and invasive. The typical image of the salesperson is someone who's talking a mile-a-minute and overwhelming their target until they give in and buy.

Actually, if you want to be a confident seller, you need to be a good listener. And this is going to be easier for us introverts because we’re naturally better listeners. What you are trying to do here is get into the hearts and minds of your potential customer and understand their needs. I have another video which will help you to identify your ideal paying customer.

And, don’t forget my earlier tip, you’re also coming at the conversation with them from the angle of how you can serve them better.

Build Know, Like and Trust

And when you combine know, like, and trust then you build quite a special connection with your potential customer:

1. I like to take time to work out what I can do to make it easier for people to get to know me.
2. Secondly, I work out what people like about me. And these are all elements I have integrated into my personal brand.
3. And thirdly, I do the same with trust. How do I build that trust in me?

So, work out what you need to do to build know, like and trust. And when you’re the go to person on your subject, you’re serving and playing to your strengths then what you’re naturally going to do is build a tribe of loyal followers who will ultimately become loyal customers. It’s much easier to sell when you have built know, like and trust. But building know, like and trust takes time and effort. You need to put the work in for the results - but it’s worth it!

Build Confidence In Rejection

I think one of the reasons many of us hate selling is the fear of putting ourselves out there and hearing a rejection. And that’s because of that one word “NO”. I’ll be honest, I get it, rejection hurts. And even when you know it's not really a rejection of YOU, it can still hurt when you’ve gone to great lengths to explain your offerings and you hear a ‘No’.

In my other post, of Tips To Overcome sales objections I talk about how you can reduce the likelihood of getting a no in the first place

Now, there are many things you can do to build up confidence. And, in my experience confidence grows through building knowledge, being prepared and from life experiences. You’re not going to like this but the more 'NOs' you hear, the less it affects you. But you can also build your confidence by understanding your offering and how it genuinely helps your ideal paying customer.

If you know the value and transformational benefits of your offering, then you can better communicate this to people!

Until next time!

Lor Bradley.