The sales industry has gotten a bad rap. Many people buy into the idea that the sales industry is bad or manipulative. They have a hard time selling authentically because they haven’t completely invested themselves in sales. But what if you could learn soul-centered sales?
Today on The Sales Evangelist, Samantha Alvarez explains why you should view sales as a service, and the important role persuasion plays in all aspects of life.
Sam coaches entrepreneurs who have a hard time selling themselves, and helps people discover the service side of sales. Prior to her time in sales, she was a nurse practitioner, one of the most trusted occupations in the country. Moving from that to sales, often considered the least trusted occupation, created an identity crisis for her, but it moved her to discover how her coaching could help people achieve their vision.
Now she focuses on removing the roadblocks to learning soul-centered sales.
Fear
Sam realized early on that sales involved persuading people to buy, and that felt wrong. She felt like she had moved from an industry of giving to people to an industry of taking from people.
The jolt was so profound that she spent the first six months of her sales career speaking in a fake accent, because she didn’t want to take on the salesperson identity. She was afraid of who she would become.
Along the way, though, she realized that she didn’t have to use her skills to hurt people.
In fact, she discovered that the same persuasion required of sales professionals was the skill that empowered medical professionals to convince people to care for themselves. Most of the people she saw in her practice were relatively healthy, but she had to persuade them to make healthy choices for themselves.
The sales industry helps people dream, and it creates a new reality for people as they learn to do it well. Sam envisioned herself as someone who was helping entrepreneurs create magic, and she learned to accept herself in a sales role.
Uncertainty
Although she loved her job as a nurse practitioner, she was burned out. She needed to leave but she wasn’t sure where to go. She accidentally fell into sales for medical research, but she didn’t expect to like it.
It was a perfect fit, because it enlisted her 10 years of medical experience helping to find subjects to participate in expensive medical studies with extremely stringent criteria.
She realized that sales improved things for people, and the more confident she got, the more she recognized her ability to help people create new realities for themselves.
Prejudice
Early on, Sam believed that sales was a zero-sum game: salespeople win, and buyers lose. She bought into the negative connotation, so she just wanted to make her commission and move forward.
Slowly she realized that she was working with people who were doing cool things, and she was helping them accomplish those things.
She recognized that sales was simply persuasion, and persuasion exists in many different industries. When she accepted sales as an opportunity to persuade people to do things that moved them forward, she started having fun.
When you help people change the way they think and feel about themselves, people get excited.
“Soul-Centered Sales” episode resources
You can connect with Sam and find out more about her coaching practice at www.samalvarez.com.
The book Stop Selling & Start Leading: How to Make Extraordinary Sales Happen keeps salespeople from having to shoot in the dark. It prevents them from guessing how to build value because buyers are telling us to stop selling and start leading.
There’s a reason I continue suggesting the book, Stop Selling & Start Leading from our sponsors at Wiley. It’s a fantastic blueprint of all the things buyers say they expect from sellers and want from sellers.
I’m so convinced of its message that I’m offering a free excerpt of the book so you can check it out.
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