You Need to Stop Selling

After you’ve launched your business, the day will come when it is time to start knocking on doors and selling.

When that day comes, your first inclination will probably be to dash out to buy every book you can find about selling. If you can absorb all the powerful advice they contain from their powerful-looking authors, you will be moving your product quickly, right? Well maybe yes. But probably not.

You see, attempting to identify the traits of the perfect salesperson is a waste of time. All you need is to understand your own strengths and perfect them. I’ve been the top salesperson at every company where I’ve ever worked. I’ve won awards, grossed the highest profits and opened a lot of doors. And I did this by being true to myself - by understanding my instinctive talents and strengths and by becoming friends with everyone around me.

Sales is about having a good time and making as many friends as possible. So enjoy what you do. Because when you do, it shows and customers will buy, for a very simple reason:

People Want to Do Business with Their Friends

This is really simple. To make more sales, make more friends. That’s it. Just be likeable. If you do, your customers will buy from you over the next guy. I guarantee that even if you’re more expensive than the next gal or guy, they’ll be happy to pay for your product or service.

If you’re not likeable, then you really shouldn’t be in sales. You need to be in accounting or some other job where it doesn’t really matter if you’re liked.

Once you’ve established friendship, you’ll establish trust. You’ll be seen as an advisor. As a consultant. And you need to become a consultant to your client. Not a salesperson. Not a rep. Not an account manager. A consultant. And the first step in becoming that trusted advisor, that consultant, is to first to become a friend.

The bottom line is that people do business with people they like and people they trust. The product or service is often secondary.

So talk friendly, not professionally. Listen to people and help them solve problems. If you are a real friend, you might never have to think about the word “selling” again.

by Sean Yazbeck

Sean Yazbeck is newly appointed professor of entrepreneurship and leadership at Trump University. He is familiar to audiences worldwide as the winner of The Apprentice's fifth-season competition, in which he outdistanced 17 other candidates and beame the only one to hear the words, "You're hired!" from Donald J. Trump.

Sean was born and raised in London, England, and moved to the US in 1999. He resides in Miami, where he is a director of business development for a recruitment consultancy registered on the London Stock Exchange. Sean has brokered multimillion dollar deals wtih Fortune 500 companies in more than 20 global locations.