“Upgrade your selling skills.”
“Learn more about sales and selling.”
“Develop your sales skills.”
Every one in business has heard these exhortations.
If you’re a consultant, a coach, a surveyor, an accountant … you’d probably rather not listen to these particular calls to action.
You know you ought to be allocating more of your time to sales, marketing and promotion, but you’d really rather not. In part this is because you want to focus on what you do well. In part it’s because you probably don’t rate your selling skills that highly.
How do you rate your selling skills?
People who deliver expert services usually rate themselves highly in their professional field. That is where they are the experts. That is where they are respected. That is where their opinions are valued and their expertise sought after.
When it comes to selling and thinking about their sales skills, it’s a different situation. Those same people rate themselves quite differently in terms of their selling abilities.
That’s the problem.
They rate their selling skills as inferior or not of the right standard because they are comparing their abilities in this area with their abilities in their spcialism.
Do you do the same?
If you do, that’s where your problem lies.
Are your sales skills good enough?
You spent a lot of time, quite a few years, in fact, building up your professional expertise. You worked for, and gained, a string of qualifications. You then focused on gaining membership of the relevant professional body for your industry. All of this took time, effort, commitment and hard work.
One thing is clear. You haven’t spent as much time on learning how to sell as you spent on building up your professional expertise.
However, you don’t really need to.
You don’t need to be as good at selling as you are at working in your professional area. You don’t need to learn everything there is to know about sales and selling. Instead you need to make sure you’re good enough at selling to bring in the business you need to your professional services business.
Instead of comparing your selling skills with your professional expertise rate your selling skills in the context of your ability to bring in business.
If you’re bringing in enough business at the moment, then you can rate your selling skills as at least satisfactory.
If you’re not, then think about what you need to learn and where you can find that expertise.
Don’t waste time trying to bring your selling skills and selling abilities up to the level of your professional expertise. You don’t want to invest that much time and money in selling. What’s more you don’t need to.
About Margaret Adams
