The Key To Selling Is…

Many cringe when the topic of selling, or sales, comes up.

If I told you that you are in the position of selling every day of your life, does that make your stomach turn?

It’s true.

Everyone Is A Salesperson

Whether you are an attorney whose livelihood depends, either now or in the future, on having another human being spend money for your services, or you are an IT professional whose responsibility it is to sit at a help desk and take phone calls from frustrated users, you are in the business of selling.

My first jobs out of college were in sales, so I’ve been right there with you.  I’ve been through some of the best sales training in the world with L.M. Berry, now called The Berry Company. I was sent out of town for two weeks of sales training before I was ever allowed out on the streets for what was, in retrospect, one of the most difficult products to sell.

I also sold real estate and title insurance.  I’m in sales again as I run my own company.

We Can’t Avoid Sales, So Let’s Make It Easy

Knowing we can’t get away from it, and it is our responsibility to be good at it, let’s talk about how to do it so it’s not so intimidating, okay?

Here goes:

The key to selling is to stop selling!

What do I mean stop selling?

That’s right.  Stop selling and learn how to ask good questions that you really want to know the answers to, not just questions you’ve been taught because someone told you to ask them.

• Learn what the other person’s business is all about.
• Learn what they do every day to make their product or sell their service.
• Learn how they got there.
• Learn where they want to go.
• Learn what’s working.
• Learn what’s not.
• …and so much more

The Most Important Skill For You To Have

So, yes, the key to selling is to stop selling, and start listening.  Only then can you adequately even begin to think about what you have to offer that might be remotely interesting or necessary to the other person.

You might even learn that you are not the best solution and have the opportunity to suggest another path, person, or solution. That makes you an extremely valuable advisor and infinitely more memorable than someone who tries to convince everyone that their solution is the only one to choose.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that the key to selling is to stop selling and start listening.  Your time will come.

Nancy Myrland is a Marketing and Business Development Advisor, specializing in Content, Social & Digital Media. She helps lawyers grow their practices by integrating the right marketing practices in order to build their reputations and their relationships, which leads to building their practices.

Also known as the LinkedIn Coach For Lawyers, Nancy is a frequent LinkedIn trainer, as well as a content marketing specialist. She helps lawyers, law firms, and legal marketers learn and implement content, social, and digital media strategies that cut through the clutter and are more relevant to their current and potential clients.

She is also a personal branding speaker, trainer, and advisor, helping legal and business professionals in firms understand the importance and the impact of defining and reinforcing their personal brand. 

Nancy is also the founder of the hybrid self-study and online course, LinkedIn Course For Lawyers, where she personally guides lawyers through the sequential creation of their LinkedIn profile and presence. 

As an early and constant adopter of social and digital media and technology, she also helps firms with blogging, podcasting, video marketing, voice marketing, and livestreaming. Nancy also works with many firms and lawyers on Zoom and virtual presentation training and coaching to be the best they can be when presenting online.

She also helps lead select law firms through their online social media strategy when dealing with high-stakes, visible cases.