Debunking the Myth That is Killing Your Business

What skill all professionals need

Liz Wendling //September 12, 2018//

Debunking the Myth That is Killing Your Business

What skill all professionals need

Liz Wendling //September 12, 2018//

One troubling and fictitious myth continues to dominate the business landscape and is costing professionals their credibility and profitability. This fable suggests that professionals don’t need to know how to sell products and services; they need only invest large amounts of money on marketing and lead generation – and the clients, profits and referrals will roll in.

This implies if you’re a good marketer, you don’t need to know anything about closing business nor how to inspire and influence a new consumer.

Not anymore!

Professionals need skills – sales skills. They need to understand how the savvy consumer hires professionals and makes buying decisions.

Not knowing how to sell effectively is a guaranteed disadvantage in business and will leave you sitting on the sidelines while your competitors win the business.

What is the point of being a brilliant professional if you’re ineffective at getting people to hire you or buy from you? Why keep investing in marketing leads without advancing the skill that will increase your likelihood of securing business?

Selling is still a dirty word to many people.

If you have a business, you are in sales. If you want to sell more, you must trade in this decades-old myth that depletes the bottom line for some fresh skills that accelerate profits and increase referrals. You can’t generate new business using old skills.

In the past selling was something only salespeople did – Not anymore.

Everyone sells something, and sales affect everything – Every person, every practice, every company, every industry and every bottom line. Organizations stay in business because someone knows how to effectively close business and seal the deal.

I receive calls daily from business owners who tell me: I’m not a salesperson. I don’t want people to feel like I’m selling to them. I would rather market my services than have to sell them. I don’t want to be perceived as pushy, aggressive, salesy or phony.

These mantras keep them from converting more clients. My response? There is a more evolved, ethical and genuine way to close business and seal the deal.

The best part of selling today is you get to create your style. You get to be comfortable with what you say and select language that keeps you true to yourself. As such, selling becomes an authentic extension of who you are.

The act of selling isn’t about clever closing techniques, putting someone in a headlock or talking people into something they don’t want to do.

Selling is about helping people get what they need and moving them to take action and retain you. Selling is about exchanging your expertise for money. You are the facilitator of that transaction.

If you don’t give prospective clients what they need in their decision-making, they will take their money and their business and happily give it to your competition.

Progressive companies and innovative professionals don’t magically morph into salespeople; they work to strengthen their sales and lead conversion muscles and build a strong competitive edge to win more business. They want to get to the root of why their dollars spent in marketing are not translating to dollars returned in new clients and business. They are tired of watching clients leave their office and hire the competition, so they are clamoring to learn this potent skill.

Why keep investing in marketing leads if you are not investing in the skills that would help you convert those leads into paying clients?

Why not invest in the skills, instead of resisting the skills that could double or triple your bottom line? Why not be a prospective clients first choice instead of the runner-up?

Extraordinary benefits come from knowing the up-to-date methods that will allow you to convert a lead into a client. It is not too late to catch up to what some of your competition is doing and profiting from.