I have been thinking about selling recently (not for any particular reason) and I always, when I think about selling, return to Dan Pink's book.
In case you don't understand this it's worth doing it again: we're selling all the time, to everybody, always.
Non-sales selling is what Pink describes that we do in our everyday life when we're not 'actually selling a product' when we're trying to convince our children to go to school on time, when we're trying to convince our partners to let us do something that will impact on the family but be good for us, when we're trying to get our team on board at the practice or trying to work with a colleague who is difficult to work with; all of that is sales all of the time.
I think sales has been given a bad rep by people who abused it in earlier days. By the teaching of 'ethical selling' and the concept of 'always be closing' (ABC)
The public that you want to work with in whatever guise understand hard selling now. It's ingrained in society. We know when the double glazing salesman arrives that we are being oversold. What people are attracted to though is the concept of non-sales selling; sharing of personal information, the connection with someone who has a similar world view. A story as an example:
I met a trainee professional the other day at the practice. At first appearance they were a bit surly (or so I thought) but probably actually just anxious about what was to come in the consultation. Ten minutes later it was like we had known each other all of our lives, despite the fact that the person was 20 years younger than me. We laughed about The Simpson's episodes related to the profession the person was entering and I was amazed when they said that The Simpson's episode in question had inspired them into the profession (I totally feel the same about that and we were able to share that experience and laugh) We then started talking about others things and in the end got around to the 'sales' point of the consultation. It turns out that the person in question has private medical insurance which may well cover the procedure that they're looking for and I can't provide that under private medical insurance because I don't have an NHS Consultant contract (ridiculous). I offered to refer them onto to someone who does and the cost will be covered entirely.
That person left thinking about this but my suspicion is that they would rather be treated by me because they have a connection, that's certainly the way I work but of course, you have to be able to make the connection first.
Blog Post Number: 1017
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