Ways to distinguish yourself – #22 Learn to sell
By Rajesh Setty on Sun 24 Apr 2005, 9:30 PM – 2 Comments
If you are not in sales, this might surprise you. Many of you may be
thinking “I don’t ever intend to be in sales. This does not apply to
me!”
Believe me, it DOES! Everyone of us are selling something almost on a
daily basis. We may be selling our abilities to perform a job, our
ideas or our point of view.
Unfortunately, the sales profession does not get a lot of respect from
many quarters. Many of us won’t accept that everyone is a salesperson
in some way or the other.
A key point to note is that “selling” does not always refer to the
actual selling of a product or a service. However, the same principles
of sales apply even if you want to “sell an idea” to your co-worker,
boss or your client. If you can master some of the basic principles of
sales, your daily life will be simpler.
As a starter, take a look at Mahan Khalsa’s book Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play
. One of the best books on sales I have ever read.
Whether you are a salesperson or not, you will enjoy this book.
Have fun!
Related Articles:- 25 Tips to Selling in a Recession
- “25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself” released at ChangeThis.com
- Selling the right stuff vs Not selling at all
- 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself in Spanish – Translated by Carlos Padilla
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25 Tips to Selling in a Recession | Life Beyond Code on November 30th, 2008
[…] their ideas or selling themselves. The times we are facing now makes it mandatory for everyone to learn to sell. My long-time friend Paul D’Souza has a series of blog posts on the topic of selling in a […]
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Anonymous on April 25th, 2005
As a reformed programmer
I agree, and also think that everyone who wants to succeed needs to learn how to market themselves too. It’s funny, but I can remember going to hacker conferences and laughing at 2am with the other geeks about “suits” and those $#@$#@ “marketing weenies” and such.
Zoom forward a decade and it’s now startlingly obvious to me just why everyone needs to be able to put on their marketing hat sometimes (how else are you going to get companies and colleagues interested in your thoughts and abilities?) and even, yes, do a bit of sales too (marketing gets them to the “door”, sales is what gets them to “buy” you).
As a consultant it’s critical that you can market yourself, your company and your services, but it’s just as critical that you can *close*, that you can *sell*, that you *land the contracts* and keep food on the table.