Market Yourself as a Speaker

The Soul of Selling is Service

Posted on August 7th, 2008.

The Soul of Selling is Service by Chellie Campbell

Susan note:  Chellie is one of our speakers at www.speakerservices.com directory see her speaker listing and video demo as well as one of my long time networking colleagues. I have observed her grow her business over the past 16 years with great success. I wanted to pass along this article from her as she really has the right attitude re the soul of selling.

“Every time you make a sale, you can sleep well at night, knowing that you have helped another human being improve their life. If you can really improve your client’s life, and you don’t at least MAKE THE OFFER, you are performing a DISSERVICE to those people that you COULD help, but don’t.” –Joe Nicassio.

Have you ever been to a networking meeting and had a bunch of people call you afterwards to tell you all about themselves and their products in a very obvious “sales call”? Did you love it?

No. No one wants their day interrupted to be sold to. So don’t make sales calls. Make service calls. Call to be of service to the person you are calling. Call to give a helping hand, a referral, a networking opportunity, a free gift, a listening ear, a friendship. Get good at asking a lot of questions: Who are you? Where are you from? How did you find out about the (party, church, networking group, etc.) where we met? Tell me about your business, your life, your interests, your needs. What can I do to help you?

How can I be of service to you?

As I made these calls one afternoon sitting in shared office space, a mortgage broker who was making calls in a nearby office, poked his head in and said, “It sounds like all your calls are warm calls.”

I said, “Yes, they are.”

“How are you able to do that?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t like cold calling out of the blue, so I pay the price by spending time and money going to networking meetings. All the people who attend are looking to meet people and I want to be met, so it’s a good thing!” I answered.

“But,” he persisted, “You sound like you really care about these people that you’re calling!”

“Ah,” I answered, “There’s a trick to that.”

“I thought so!” he crowed. “What’s the trick?” he inquired eagerly.

“I really do care,” I answered softly.

The Secret and Soul of Selling is Service. When you call someone to help them and put their needs foremost in your mind, they will feel it. And you will be the person who cares about them – whether or not they need your product or service. This attitude puts you in a beneficent place, a place of giving rather than demanding to be given to. But if you call to “sell” someone your product or service, you are putting your needs above the needs of the other person. From that place, you won’t know if someone needs your product or service or not because you won’t be listening. And believe me, they can tell the difference.

You may desperately need to make a sale today, but it won’t come if you sound desperate. (Say your affirmations – not your desperations!) You have to put yourself aside, and look to serve the other person. Of course, if at some point they ask about you and your product or service—that is an invitation you can RSVP to! But now, rather than give a pitch, you have to ask more questions: What have they heard about it? How would they use it if they had it? What difference would it make in their lives? For my Financial Stress Reduction Workshops, I would always ask, “What would you change about money in your life?” From their responses to these questions, I could tell if my workshop would serve them to get them what they needed and wanted. And if it would truly help them, then and only then could I sell it to them.

Calling to help people is completely different from calling to sell people. People can tell the difference – and so can you.

For the complete “It’s Not Cold Calling – It’s Gold Calling” report, join the Dolphin Club today and get this and other reports and bonus gifts free with your membership at www.chellie.com.

Chellie Campbell is the creator of the popular Financial Stress Reduction® Workshops, and the author of The Wealthy Spirit and Zero to Zillionaire, both published by Sourcebooks, Inc. She is one of Marci Shimoff’s “Happy 100” and I of 18 who wrote a story for Marci’s current NYT bestseller Happy for No Reason. Chellie contributed stories to Jack Canfield’s recent books You’ve Got to Read This Book! and Life Lessons from Chicken Soup for the Soul , and is featured in How to Run Your Business Like a Girl by Elizabeth Cogswell Baskin and Money, A Memoir: Women, Emotions, and Cash by Liz Perle. She is prominently quoted as a financial expert in The Los Angeles Times, Pink, Good Housekeeping, Lifetime, Essence, Woman’s World and more than 35 popular books. For more information, visit her web site www.Chellie.com or email her at Chellie@Chellie.com.

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