😵‍💫 The ugly and uncomfortable truth of why you suck ☠️ 💩 at sales and what you can do about it

Relevant when you are trying to sell facilitation services external and in-house

Photo by Walid Hamadeh on Unsplash

🤔 Wonder why you are struggling with sales? People seem to be interested in your products / services / CV but you are not going anywhere because you do not manage to close the sale / being hired / getting the facilitation gig.

Yu are doing at least one or more of those things wrong in the following order 👇🏻

1. You are in the wrong market.

If you are living in a rural area where people need agriculture services and you are selling UX research, you have a real problem because neither people around you need your services nor they see and recognise the value you can provide. You lack product - market fit.

2. You know the wrong people.

Maybe you are in the right market and moved from your rural town to a big city with companies that need UX research, but nobody you know in that market, actually needs the kind of service you are providing.

3. The right people do NOT know that you and your product / service exist.

Maybe you put your research skills at good use and managed to map out the market and find right people that need and would buy your services. It does not help you at all that you know that they exist, their names and positions. What it actually helps it that they KNOW that you exist and that you can help them.

4. The right people do NOT like you.

The right people know you and your services but they do NOT like you. They might find you annoying, pushy, obnoxious, unfriendly, arrogant, boring… whatever reason they might find. If they do not like you, they are never going to buy from you.

5. The right people do NOT see you as authentic and different enough: be weird!

The right people, even liking you, do not manage to differentiate yourself from your competitors so you are one of the many thousands of service providers out there in that market. You are lacking an edge and and authenticity that can separate you from the many, and sorry enough the rest of the conversation will be about “cheaper” and discounts, if you are lucky enough.

6. The right people do NOT trust you.

Congratulations if you have managed to come so far! Let’s say that you have manage to overcome all the challenges and obstacles to be thrown at you, so the right people like you and find you authentic and different enough… but they do not trust YOU as a service provider to do the job because you lack something that is very important and critical to them like experience, delivery time, credentials, knowledge, quality…. at this point is never about the product, but about you.

Insights

💡People do NOT buy from companies. People buy from people. Specially and exclusively from people they know, they like, they see as authentic and different, and they trust. Remember this. So….

• Go out and actively and unapologetic build network around and with the right people so you make sure that they know you.

• Go to the right places where the right people gather and be there, be visible and unselfish give tons of value to those around you, so they like you and want to spend time with you.

• Be authentic, be weird, do not do the same everybody does. Be a contrarian and dare to stand out, be opinionated and stand tall.

• Be trustworthy. Your reputation will always precedes and outlast you. You need to walk the talk and deliver value.

😤 If you are struggling with some of this, please, check my free "Market Value Canvas". It might help you big time to get unstuck and move forward 🤩 🥳 https://miro.com/miroverse/market-value-canvas/

PS)

By the way, I am doing a free live webinar on Tuesday 28th of February at 17:00 CET where I will walk you through the Market Value Canvas explaining in detail each part of the canvas and how it's supposed to be used, answering questions throughout.

This will be a very practical and valuable session so you should definitely try to be at this one! Sign on here.

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