Your Employees Need the Selling Mindset

by Mark Arnold

Sales. The mere mention of the word sends some people—including many of your staff—into convulsions. Some of our employees fear sales. Some of them view sales reluctantly. And some of our staff even hate sales.

Why? Because many of our employees don’t have the selling mindset. Sales has a bad rap. We need to remove that negative attitude associated with sales and replace it with the selling mindset.

According to Dan Sullivan, president of Strategic Coach, Inc., “selling is  getting someone engaged in a future that is good for them.” Notice that selling is NOT:

  • The employee versus the customer/member
  • Feature dumping
  • Making a product pitch
  • Offering someone something they don’t want or need

Ultimately, selling should provide three things:

  • Education—Your employees are not salespersons; they are educators/teachers
  • Benefit—Everything your employees offer should have a tangible benefit for the consumer
  • Value—Your employees need to clearly articulate why someone should do business with them

If your employees view sales from the lenses of education, benefit and sales, that changes their mindset. We might need to replace sales training with engagement training.

As Success Magazine says, “What would the world look like if someone didn’t sell or market? Where would the jobs be with no selling? Where would the entrepreneurs be? Where would the small businesses be?”

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