📄 Can selling be fun?

Almost every day, someone tells me a different reason why they don’t like selling.

“Selling is stressful”.

“It’s frustrating that the process takes so long”.

“I wish I wouldn’t have to always look for new prospects”.

“It’s such a waste of time, to issue proposals and not get the sales”.

I get it. Building your business, marketing, having sales conversations, writing proposals… it’s work, of the kind that you simply can’t get around - and it's no fun when you do all the work and you don't get the sales.

But that doesn’t mean selling has to be a slog.

In fact, for me it’s the opposite: I find the whole marketing and sales process a ton of fun.

Why?

For one thing, because it’s like a puzzle:

Who is this for?

How can I reach them?

Who’s most likely to buy?

What do they want to hear, or know, in order to want what I’ve got?

Puzzle, puzzle, puzzle.

Shifting pieces, figuring out what works, seeing a picture emerge… it’s endless discovery and learning, and I just love "learning people".

And that's the second reason I like sales so much:

Learning what life is like for that other person. Learning what it's like to be in their shoes.

Every person is a world, and for that person to buy my work, I need to 'learn that person'.

What are their fears and frustrations… which wants and aspirations do they have…?

How committed are they, how can I help them, what can I do to help them get out of repetitive and dysfunctional thinking, and operate and grow their business from the heart?

What’s the key I need to turn, in order for them to see, and deploy, their own abilities, leadership, communication and sales skills?

Who, in other words, IS this person that ought to buy from me - and in what way do I need to show up, so that they can relate to me?

And also, what's the identity-piece?

Meaning: if they decide to buy, what change in identity does that cause for them?

When you turn marketing and sales into the kind of exercise that focusses you on figuring out a person, it becomes a lot of fun.

Because you can see selling as a separate thing - something you just have to do if you’re in business - or you can see it as an integral part of being human.

Where ‘being human’ means you exist in relation to others, and at any moment you have the opportunity to connect with someone, share in an experience, and figure out how you can create resonance with that person, and figure out a way for both of you to move forward on something.

Much like you would with relatives, a partner, or a friend. The only thing that makes sales different from all other human interactions, is that there's a financial transaction in the mix.

So 'selling' then isn’t some terrible task: it’s what we do all day long anyway.

And once you internalise that, once you make the shift into selling as a normal, helpful human activity, suddenly it becomes fun.

You don’t need to ‘get over yourself’ or ‘suck it up’ or ‘just accept sales’.

All you need to do is discover your own innate curiosity for others, and make it your mission to learn people, and figure out what's going on in their world.