When you were a toddler, your Mom and Dad tucked you in at night. They probably whispered positive thoughts into your ear as you drifted off to sleep. Thoughts like, "When you grow up, you're going to be big and strong, and be the best salesperson there ever was. You'll close more deals than anyone. You'll be the best negotiator in town."
Well... maybe not. None of us were raised to be salespeople because, for the most part, "sales" doesn't have a positive image in our society. We think of "used cars" and "snake oil" and "pushiness".
You, on the other hand, are a professional - a business owner, an accountant, an attorney, an engineering consultant, an architect, a financial planner. Now THOSE are positions to aspire to, to strive for and to be proud of.
Yet you have a dilemma: you need to bring business into your firm. You prefer to call it something other than "sales," because people don't like that word. You call it "rainmaking", or "client development", or "business partnering." But there is no denying it... it's selling.
Here's the challenge... you spent twenty years gaining a wonderful education that led to your profession. You are technically well-prepared to perform the services of that profession. Yet you have probably spent no more than a few weeks, if that much, honing and refining your skills as a business developer, as a communicator, as a professional salesperson.
Your "sales education" has come primarily from watching other salespeople, some of them the pushy kind that you couldn't stand. Or from going out in the field with a mentor who told you to "just do what I do", but somehow you could never emulate. You end up "winging it" when it comes to client development, and your results are erratic at best.
Recognize that you are not alone. Many professionals face the same set of issues. Most people believe that a salesperson is "born", not "made." This is not the case. Professional selling - which amounts to building stronger relationships, generating referrals, communicating effectively with comfort and ease, and employing a systematic, non-threatening process for developing more profitable clientele - can be learned. But it takes an open mind - a willingness to overcome the stigma associated with the word "selling". And it takes time: as one very wise marketing director of an accounting firm said to me, "Training our managers to become rainmakers won't happen in three hours on some Saturday morning!"
By the way, some professionals don't need to change. They are doing exactly what they need to be doing to be dramatically successful. Here are a few questions you might ask yourself to see if you are one of them: Is my pipeline of new prospects consistently full? Do I have control over the proposal process so that I don't feel that I am being shopped all over town? Do I have a plan for generating referrals, including a comfortable method of asking for them? Do I have an ever-growing circle of contacts that I refer business to and get referrals from? Do I feel comfortable in the selling situation? Am I accomplishing my business growth goals?
Maybe you were born to be a successful "salesperson"... you just haven't discovered it yet.
