Can You Sell Yourself?
February 22nd, 2010 | Posted by in NewsThe moral of the story in ”Sales is not Magic: Understanding the Discipline of a Sales Connoisseur – Part 1“ is that you have to have the confidence to sell yourself, regardless of your product. Gary Whitehill points out that he entered the game with no sales experience, actually little experience at anything except school, and succeeded beyond his wildest imagination. Why? Beyond the numbers game that the sales arena ultimately depends on, it is the belief in your skills. My advisor in college told me you either “know what to do or pretend you know until you figure it out.” If this is true, then when looking for jobs – even if it is out of your normal scope of work and education – have the confidence in your own abilities to succeed, and who knows? You just might. The best way to build your confidence is to view yourself as a brand. Then promote that brand with social media. We know this works.
Melody K. Smith, Feb. 22, 2010
Note: Post was not sponsored.
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I propose that most people with a lot to offer not only have no idea how to sell themselves but refuse to. I would rate them at the 20% of the Pareto divide. The other close to 80% may try but are not going to get good grades. So I would claim that your branding advice may apply to that maybe 1-2%. Brian Sommer wrote a blog piece at the beginning of the month called “The scary side of freelancing: the inadvertent freelancer” at:http://blogs.zdnet.com/sommer/?p=781 He writes: “…there don’t seem to be sites designed for the inadvertent freelancer and I suspect they have very different needs wants and requirements”. For some curious reason, he received very little coverage – anywhere.
I’ll check the article out. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Melody:
Thank you very much for the coverage – truly appreciated!
Marc:
You also bring up a great point – the article was more of a macro-level intro into the world of sales. What you’re talking about, and rightfully so, is much more in-depth.
You’re both rockstars and thank you for the wonderful forum!