Buying isn’t Selling. A clients walks in to your business, asks for X and you give it them. Have you sold anything?
Selling can be defined as ‘exchange for money: to exchange a product or service for money, or be exchanged for money’ – so technically, yes you did ‘sell’ something. But they bought something which they convinced themselves they need or want – you just happened to have what they wanted.
Continuing this story – this customer then complains – they come back to you and say ‘you sold me this product/service, and it doesn’t….’. True! You created this problem by focusing on the ‘sale’ – not what the client really needed by determining what problem they were looking to solve or opportunity to capture.
Selling is defined above – but it is what happens before this exchange which creates a relationship – and from a relationship regular ‘sales’ can happen, sometimes no ‘sale’ as it’s not in their best interest, maybe a different ‘sale’ and, even better, sometimes your client will ‘sell’ for you if you do it properly.
Don’t focus on the sale – focus on the journey to this point.
Sales Deconstructed 