An interested couple listens to a proposal and explanation of what is recommended to make aging in place renovations to their living space
For some of us, the concept of selling anything, but especially aging in place solutions or treatments, may be something that we’d rather not have to worry about doing. It’s alright if someone else makes the sale, just not us. Once the sale is made (by preferably by someone else) then we can help to satisfy what the client has ordered or agreed to have done. Just don’t ask us to engage the client and get them to agree to work with us – they might tell us ‘no’ and that would be hard to accept.
Selling is looked upon is an unpopular light by many people when it shouldn’t be. The people who think they can’t sell or protest to others that they can’t sell are likely afraid of two things: (1) being asked to make a full time living based just on their ability to make sales, and this frightens them to the point of terrifying them, and (2) talking people into buying something they don’t want in order to make a commission on the sale.
Taking the second point first, selling aging in place services and solutions is what the client is expecting us to offer and what they are looking to have. In many cases, they are calling us or contacting us to come to their homes and discuss how we can address their expressed needs. We aren’t using fancy techniques or closing strategies to get them to agree to something they don’t want, don’t need, or possibly can’t afford and shouldn’t be spending their money on just so we can get paid.
Not everyone we meet with will want everything we propose to them, but many of them will. Some people may decide to wait a while longer before doing anything. That’s OK. There is nothing high-pressure about what we are doing. Either they want us to help them because they realize that they are having difficulties with certain activities in their home, or they don’t want the help. It could be a case of priorities or pricing, but when they are slow to act or decline to accept what we have suggested, we shouldn’t take anything personally except that we really believe in the solutions we are offering and want to see the client benefit from them – based on what we have observed and what they have expressed as their concerns.
This leads to the first point of making sales. Selling is nothing more than having a conversation with an interested person (potential client) and persuading they that the idea or opinion (sometimes in the form or a product or service) we are presenting, discussing, or advancing is believable and that it will help them. When a product, service, solution, or renovation is involved, we are talking with people about what we offer or represent so that they will believe our claims or assertions about the value and quality of what we have so that they will feel that they want to own or have it.
Selling – though not when money changes hands – is what all of us do several times a day. We likely don’t view it as selling, but it’s advancing our idea or opinion in the hopes that the other person or people we are talking with will do what we want – go to lunch with us at the place we suggest, go to the game or a movie with us, try a new restaurant we heard good things about, or shop at a certain store we like. It could be which TV program to watch, what to fix for dinner, what to do on our day off, where to go or stay on vacation, or other seemingly routine decisions. We are just attempting to persuade or convince the other person that they would be happy doing what we suggest because we feel strongly enough about it and really feel they would enjoy themselves. We wouldn’t try to get people, especially co-workers or family members, to do something they would like doing or appreciate because we have a continuing relationship with them.
So, selling itself isn’t so hard. Most everyone does it – from small children trying to get their way to adults trying to win someone to their position. Being a salesperson is a little tougher, however. Here, money is involved.
Nevertheless, making a sale is just being prepared with the features and potential benefits of our product or service and explaining in clear, understandable way what it can do for the people we are talking with about it, being able to answer any questions and objections that might arise, and being able to accept either a ‘yes’ (easy to do) or a ‘no’ (a little harder) knowing that either way it was directed merely at what we were proposing. When a sale is made, the client benefits, and we get paid for helping them.