Over the past week I’ve had more advice (both solicited and unsolicited) then I can recall in recent history.

The piece of advice that is coming up most often is … you guessed it … sales (and marketing).

In a nut shell … the advice is … to make it on your own … you will need to learn how to sell.

At first I thought … groan … I hate sales.

But … as I thought more about it … it made sense … if I want people to purchase my services … if I want to make a living … build a thriving business … then I will need to learn how to sell.

So … this week … my goal has been to understand sales.

There are so many aspects to sales and marketing that I need to understand.

I’ve come up with more questions then answers … some of them are:

• What is my brand … my niche?
• Who is my Customer … who is my Client?
• What do they need? What do they value?
• How can my products and services help them?
• What are the benefits of my products and services?
• How can I influence them to see the benefits of my services?
• What is my USP … unique selling proposition?
• Why pick me over all the other possible success coaches?
• How can I sell … what do I say … how do I act?

What I’ve realized is that … this is only the beginning … sales is not something that you study for a few weeks and … voila … you have the skill.

It’s something we have been doing since we were born … that we are doing today … and … will continue to do until the day we die.

Every interaction we have … every impression we make … every word we speak … affects the sales process.

Very quickly I’ve come to realize … based on an excellent conversation over lunch (thank you Alex) … is that the key to successful sales … it to build relationships … to build connections … to establish trust … and ultimately … to help people buy.

Now this is not some gimmick to persuade people to buy your product or purchase your services.

Because the goal is … to help people buy … without trying to sell your services.

Yes … you heard me … without trying to sell.

This is truly an outstanding concept … and I feel that I’m just touching the surface here … that once I truly embrace this … that this would really work.

It just seems to make sense … the best sales interactions that I’ve ever had … two things were present.

1. The sales guy (or gal) I was dealing with wasn’t trying to sell me anything
2. I felt that the sales gal (or guy) had my best interest in mind

I recall a time when a salesmen even told me that his product was not right for me.

Now is that powerful or what … instead of pushing the sale … and potentially damaging the future relationship … assuming that I would be dissatisfied … he told me that the product was not right for me.

I’m going to be applying this concept over the next few weeks … and I promise to report back how successful it is.