How I overcame my fear of Selling

“Keep.. moving”, I say to my girlfriend whilst gripping her hand as we enter what can only be described as… the Gauntlet.

We are at Dunn’s River Falls, a famous waterfall in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. The flow cascades down over a 900 feet climb to the top.

But we’ve already completed the climb and are on our way out of the park.

This is where the real mission begins… The Dunns River Falls Craft Market.

Situated between the falls exit and the car park we have no choice but to pass through it.

“Do not make eye contact, Do not hesitate” I say.

It’s a labyrinth of narrow passage ways lined either side by the market stalls of super aggressive vendors waiting to push you to buy their ubiquitous goods. They are on us at once.

“COME AND LOOK”, “come and look”, “just look man”

“OVER HERE, SEE WHAT I HAVE FOR YOU”, “best price”

“Princess!”, “PRINCESS!”, “RASTA!”

“WHERE YOU FROM?”

This is not the place to come for peaceful browsing, they pounce on the tiniest ounce of interest and harass you until you’re out of their zone of reach.

It reminded me of the original Pokemon nintendo game where you had to walk through all the different trainers that wanted to battle you. *adjusts geek glasses*

This week I’ve been reevaluating my beliefs on ‘sales’ and ‘selling’.

If the story above is anything to go by, the vibe that I associated with sales is not good.

• It’s a no holds barred arena where vendors use any means possible to extract money from customers.  

• It’s the dodgy used car salesman that does not have your best interests at heart and will deceive and lie to make a sale

• It’s the cringy imbeciles on ‘The Apprentice’ that go around terrorizing people with a complete lack shame or ounce of self awareness.

Honestly, this is what formed my belief about sales people.

I just couldn’t identify it with my personality and morals. The extroversion of the stereotypical salesman is just not for me.

As an introvert I’m too sensitive to disturbing and negatively impacting others.

Up until now I’ve never had to think about sales, its never been part of my role.

But 2 things have changed for me recently.

1. I’m seeking freedom in the form of my own one person business.

2. I’m on a journey of self improvement, its no longer an option to avoid essential skills because they make me feel uncomfortable.

I’ve realised I can be the most skilled life coach in the world but if I’m not able to persuade people to pay for my services I won’t be able to fulfil my dream of making a career doing what I love.

So after reflecting on my pre-existing beliefs and my current goals I set out to learn more about sales. I discovered a book called ‘To Sell is Human’, by Daniel Pink, as of writing I’m about half way through it and would highly recommend as most of the information I’ll share here I’ve learnt from it already.

Non-Sales Selling

Selling is more than just making money, its about influencing people to part with resources.

People in non-sales jobs do more selling than they actually realise.

For example my job as a doctor is more than just regurgitating knowledge of how to solve patients medical issues.

AI could do that pretty easily, but I doubt whether most people would be willing to place their livelihoods solely in the hands of a machine.

The majority of what I do is convince people to accept my management plan to resolve their problem. I persuade and influence them to relinquish their time and effort into following my advice. Even something as simple as taking paracetamol requires me to sell them on the value of taking it.

This all involves moving people and that’s all selling really is.

Instead of moving people to part with tangible resources like cash, I and many of you in non-sales jobs move people to part with intangible resources like their attention, time or effort.

So what I’ve realised is that I’m not a salesman, but I do sell and I do have the skills to sell.

More reassuringly I know that I’m not out to cheat anyone, my only motivation is to help them solve their problem with something that I truly believe will help.

This mindset shift has really helped me to overcome my introverted sensitivity about bothering people.

Times have changed

In the past sellers had all the information, the dodgy used car salesman could say whatever he liked about the car and the buyer would be none the wiser.

In the age of the internet, buyers have access to practically all the details they need about the car to make an appropriate purchasing decision.

No longer is the market controlled by the sellers, its controlled by buyers.

If you feel uncomfortable about selling being associated with deceptive dealers this belief is likely based on the stereotypical representations from prior to the internet.

There’s now an equal balance of power between seller and buyer, thanks to ‘information parity’ the charlatans of the past are much less able to operate.

I’m sure the vendors at Dunns River Falls craft market know this all too well.

Helping people understand info they have access to

With the market today now favouring the benevolent sellers, the non-sales selling skills that education and health care professions possess are even more valuable.

When patients attend for consults armed with their google search information I have to be on top form to untangle the knots they’ve got themselves into.

Prior to the internet doctors were really revered and respected, patients relied on them whole heartedly for information.

Now they come with demands based on their internet research which often complicates the process of helping them, especially in terms of managing anxiety.

The other main challenge in education and health is that moving people requires them to actively engage, rather than simply handing over money and having the problem solved for them.

They have to actually move themselves.

Irritation and Agitation

When it comes to moving people there are 2 things to keep in mind, Irritation and Agitation.

Irritation is challenging people to do something we want them to do.

My keyboard teacher when I was a kid was obsessed with ABBA and made us practice ABBA medleys and his other favourite pop songs from the 80s.

Its safe to say it was not my vibe and I gave up on keyboard at the earliest opportunity. (Dancing Queen is still a banger though to be fair)

Agitation is challenging them to do something that they want to do.

I wanted to get selected for the regional basketball team, if coach told us to do pushups until the whistle I would do them no questions asked. I didn’t really want to do the pushups, but I wanted to be on the team.

So when it comes to moving people, its easy to see that agitation is a lot more effective than irritation.

Agitation requires understanding what the buyer wants, what is actually motivating them. In order to move them you have to be able to frame your offer around this.

An essential part in the development journey of a new doctor is learning how to connect with people, empathise with them and see things from their perspective.

Just having the knowledge that an antacid tablet will relieve heart burn is not enough. It has to be explained in the context of the patients life so they understand how it will benefit them personally.

5 tips for transitioning into Sales from a Non-sales background

1. Evaluate your beliefs about selling

2. Assess any mental barriers that are holding you back

3. Reflect on all the persuasion, influencing and convincing of others to part with resources you do over the course of your normal day.

4. Compare your original beliefs and mental barriers against your reflection of your non-sales selling activity.

5. Reframe selling as serving and helping people for their gain not yours.

Entrepeneurship 

I’m embarking on a new chapter of my life, moving away from the constraints of NHS servitude and towards working for myself, creating a service based on my passions.

Up to this point I’d never envisioned this, starting my own business, becoming an entrepeneur, taking risks.

Despite all the negatives of NHS work at least it offered job security and structure. However I realise now that it had also inhibited my imagination of what was possible in the world.

I’ve never had to think about selling my services in exchange for money. You might think as a Locum GP this is basically what I do. But its not the same in my mind. The money is still ultimately controlled by NHS funding, there’s just more steps involved.

I feel like this is a common stumbling block that holds a lot of people back from becoming entrepeneurs. I previously assumed successful entrepeneurs all had life long missions from early ages based on most of the biographies I’d read.

However I’ve learnt that if you want to live a fulfilled life you have to actively create it and that includes your career.

Entrepeneurship is the best way to do this. You don’t necessarily have to be Warren Buffet, there are plenty of micro-entrepeneurs living fulfilled lives doing what they love, helping people and making money.

I previously referred to the concept of elasticity, meaning stretching yourself across multiple different areas in order to operate a business.

When your employees are made up of just you and a dream, elasticity is essential.

So in case you hadn’t already figured this is why my first letter of the year is on the topic of sales. 

I may not be a sales expert but I’m pretty good at learning new specialties.

Being a generalist requires humility, I’m very familiar with the process of moving through incompetence to competence.

Despite my intial trepidation about sales I’ve actually found theres much more to it than I thought in terms of life skills.

I’ll be learning more about persuasion, convincing and influencing others for the power of good.

I hope this has been of some value to you as well.

Thats all for now

Lewis

P.S.

Happy New Year! I wish you all the best in your endeavours this year and look forward to celebrating how far we’ve come this time next year.

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