5 Steps to the Art of a Confident Selling Mindset for Professionals: How to help your potential clients become your clients

Are you selling yourself? Then you’re in some trouble. More and more personal services are being viewed as commodities. Our work, our intellectual property, and our gifts to the world are now widgets to be compared with other widgets and purchased at the lowest possible price. If we’re going to move ourselves from commodity back to professional, we’re going to have to learn to sell without selling; to master the art of a confident selling mindset, that is, a mindset of abundance coupled with some concrete strategies for success. To ‘sell’ you with confidence and without pressure is both an art and a science. The Science is marketing to fill your pipeline with likely clients. You do this by public speaking, networking, building your referral base, and calling leads-basically marketing and working your business. And now add social marketing (including LinkedIn, Twitter, & facebook, NING, and meetup) to your business development equation. The Art is having the confidence to manage yourself and your caller so that your clients recognize that you are right for them. Here are the 5 steps to The Art of the Confident Selling Mindset

1. Your mind is in charge of your success so practice daily affirmations. One of my favorites is “my clients pay me and praise me.” Another one is, “I support my clients and colleagues with guidance and referrals.” And the third in the triumvirate of affirmations is, “With confidence, reverence, and gratitude, I am always successful.” Affirmations help your stay focused on both receiving and giving. They keep you at the “big picture” where all things are possible. You’re welcome to my affirmations but you should probably design your own affirmations. Just make them BIG and timely and relevant to your goals!
2. The world is abundant so disconnect from the outcome of any given call or action. Releasing the outcome takes the focus off you and places it on the potential client. After all, you’re talking to a potential client because of what they need, what they want, what they cannot achieve for themselves. Focusing on the other person reduces your need to push and that reduces the pressure of selling. Put a post-it or an index card by your phone with words like ‘breathe’ ‘give’ ‘be generous’ and, ‘disconnect yourself from the outcome’ so that you remind yourself that the world is an abundant place
3. Focus your attention to develop a connection by listening for the message and the message under the message! Someone called you because they have a dream or they have some pain. Their presenting question or issue isn’t likely the real one. By focusing on making the connection you slow down the process and that keeps you from moving the sale forward before you know what is really needed and before the client is ready to make a decision. You are getting to the truth without pressure. If the caller pulls away then find the spot where you, inadvertently, raised the pressure and pushed your next client away.
4. Strive for clarity to build trust. Take that connection you just made and build trust by clarifying what you are hearing. Are you sure you are accessing the most important information from each conversation? What are you instincts telling you about this potential client? Follow those instincts and see what you find.
5. Offer a true and absolute release so the potential client is free to decide IF and WHEN they will work with you. Only then can you decide, together, if it makes sense to work together. Do you know, precisely what to say to reduce the selling pressure and tension so that your ideal client will become your client? How about, ‘Based on what we’ve been discussing, I think we are (or are not) a possible match but I am curious as to your thinking’. ‘Where would you like to go from here?’ And, ‘I need to think about this conversation and possible next steps. Would it be alright to schedule a follow-up conversation?’ All these are ways to give power to the caller so they can feel safe, and understood, and connected to you.

If you are marketing yourself properly and implement these 5 steps, then, like my clients, you should achieve an 80% close rate. If not, then you know where to find your Confidence Coach. Email Me: kschulweis@gmail.com