How Redefining Selling Changed My Perspective on Everything

We’re all selling all the time

The manager gave me a sales lesson.

After he rambled on about a technique, he handed me his phone.

“Let’s see you put this technique into practice,” he said. “Sell this to me.”

I put his phone in my pocket and left. An hour later, he showed up at my door.

“I need my phone,” he said.

“Sure,” I said. “That’ll be 100 bucks.”

That’s a joke, but there’s truth to it

You can sell people anything you want if you have something they need.

You can’t take something away to create the need like in the joke. But if you recognize what they’re lacking, you’re in great shape as a seller.

When we got a new car this summer, I was ready to fill a potential buyer’s need for a car with our old minivan, which we no longer needed.

I thought about ways to make our old van seem like a good fit for them. I could tell stories about how much it felt like part of our family for a long time, and it could do the same for them.

But we had stopped trusting that car to drive our kids around, so I felt bad telling them they should trust it for their kids. It had been a good car, but it was past its prime and not especially reliable. No story or sales pitch could mask the risks associated with that car.

The problem with that sale was I didn’t believe in the product I was selling, so I didn’t want to convince anyone else to believe in it either.

I’m not a salesman

I come from a blue-collar background, and while my company had to sell our services to customers, that was never my job. I didn’t think about what it took to convince someone to hire us, I just did the job we were hired to do.

But as a writer, you are always selling. Even if you never try to sell a product or course, you have to convince people to read your work. You have to sell them on the idea of you.

I was intimidated by this concept until I realized I’d already been selling myself in my everyday life for years.

I had to sell my then-acquaintance on the idea of being friends and then a few years later to be more than friends. And ultimately, I had to sell her on being my wife. But that was an easy sale by that point.

I didn’t have to use any advanced copywriting techniques. I didn’t have to convince her that she needed a husband. And she didn’t even need one, but we both realized it was time to get married.

I had to sell her on the idea of leaving my blue-collar job to pursue a writing career seemingly out of the blue. That took a little more convincing, but I didn’t have to work too hard either.

We needed more time-freedom to manage our kids’ schedules and I’m better suited for driving them around. And her job helps the family more than mine did.

She had to sell me on having kids, but that was an easy sale, too.

A different way of looking at sales

Like a lot of people, I’ve always associated a layer of negativity with salespeople.

No one wants someone to try to convince them to do something they don’t want to do. No one wants to feel dirty selling or being sold to. But I discovered a new way to look at sales.

When you sell someone something, you’re helping them solve a problem while getting paid for the solution.

You might have to persuade them that you’re solving their problem, but that doesn’t seem so bad either.

For example, this story is an attempt to convince you that you need my writing in your life. I’m not asking you for any money, just your time. I’m selling you on the idea of spending your time reading what I write.

It’s taken me a while to get used to this idea, but I’m becoming more and more comfortable with it.

Recently I had an opportunity to advertise a couple of my stories.

It was a low-risk situation. My stories were already written and published so I wasn’t investing any time, effort, or money. The only risk was that the reader wouldn’t click, or they’d click and not like what they saw. I’ve gotten used to those results already, so no big deal.

But I was still uncomfortable promoting myself even though there was plenty to gain but nothing to lose by doing so. That’s the part I had to convince myself about. Asking someone to read something I wrote doesn’t make me a slimy salesman.

I’m helping them solve a problem they don’t even know they have, which is that they’ve been missing out by not being familiar with my writing.

If you’re also a writer, don’t be afraid to sell yourself a little bit. Don’t forget that life is one sales pitch after another.

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