Comments on: The Truth About Selling? It’s Really Giving

By: Talmadge Boyd

Talmadge Boyd — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:08:31 +0000

I think we’re all still trying to balance the factory mentality with who we are in spirit. It’s hard for people to evangelize and share when it’s not core to their being. For me, certainly, it feels disingenuous when I’m not %100 passionate about the service or product.

By: Phil Gerbyshak

Phil Gerbyshak — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:10:12 +0000

Great point Richard. If you come from that spot, you can win. So why don’t more people win? Fear? Shame? Or is it merely just shifting of an attitude?

By: Phil Gerbyshak

Phil Gerbyshak — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:09:32 +0000

That’d be fun Mick. If you give someone a copy of this article, I’d love to see how they respond.

By: Phil Gerbyshak

Phil Gerbyshak — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:09:02 +0000

Great point Rich. Great salespeople = great listeners.

You may want to check out Winning Without Intimidation too. Great book.

By: Phil Gerbyshak

Phil Gerbyshak — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:08:13 +0000

Thanks for adding your voice Rosa. It’s great to hear this was useful for you.

By: Richard Shelmerdine

Richard Shelmerdine — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:04:31 +0000

As long as you come from a place of “Im genuinely trying to help you” you will enjoy and do better than 99% of people in sales.

By: Mick Morris

Mick Morris — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:40:03 +0000

This is a really interesting alternative perspective to sales. I think I’ll carry a copy of it around and the next time I meet one of those “pushy” sales types, I’ll offer them a deal they can’t refuse by “selling” them this lesson!

By: Rich G.

Rich G. — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:03:37 +0000

I can’t remember where I read it, whether it was a book or a blog but my favorite talk about selling was a hardware sales pitch type thing.

Nobody coming to a hardware store wants a drillbit. What they want is a hole in the wall and the drillbit is how they’re going to get that hole in the wall. We don’t sell, as sales-people, the widgets… we sell solutions to their problems/needs/wants. Our job isn’t to foist our crap onto them, but to find what they need/want and help them with it as best we can. The best salespeople are the best listeners because they’re the most able to find out what the customer actually wants and help them.

That was a huge “A-HA!” for me. I say it a lot… nobody wants a drill, they just want holes in things lol. Then I butcher the story like I’ve done here.

I’ll add this book to my to-read list over on goodreads! Thanks for the heads up!

By: Rosa Say

Rosa Say — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:07:53 +0000

Thank you for sharing this Phil. Count me among those pretty quick to say I have hated selling; like the woman in this story I needed a better perspective than the pushy transactional one. I have a story in my book about how we used a mantra to help us in one workplace; we’d train our self-talk with, “We don’t sell; we help people buy” and it was a good start, but I’ve had to shift further into this giving mindset wonderfully explained here.

I do think that financial literacy factors into this too however, including knowing that wealth is a value. People who sell add money to the coffers, and they have to feel good about what those greenbacks will eventually buy, and what their efforts ultimately finance. We cannot deny the transactional part of it; we have to bring it into the equation.