You are a business owner. You succeed when you help others buy your services. It sounds so simple until you actually try selling.

After some bruised ego even hurt feelings you discover it’s brutal out there. So you decide you’re going to have to learn how to sell. Now some of you were told you’d be trained to sell by the people who taught you the skills and knowledge you need to provide your services. However, when you tried to do it the way you were shown you found it didn’t quite work like you led to believe.

Are you a little like Hiram and his red shirt? There’s a children’s book about a man named Hiram whose favorite shirt was a red shirt. Hiram wore the shirt a lot and as it began to show its wear Hiram took it upon himself to patch and repair his shirt.

Hiram had a great attitude. Whenever a new hole or tear appeared Hiram cheerfully patched and sewed his shirt. It wasn’t long before Hiram’s shirt didn’t fit so well. As he took a little from here to make a little for there his shirt got too small, and it didn’t cover his body like it did when it was new.

Eventually through some encouragement by others Hiram decided it was time to buy a new shirt. He was very pleased by how the new shirt felt and looked. He realized he’d waited too long to get his new red shirt.

As you struggle through sales you focus on one problematic area at a time. Then you go and get training to resolve your problems in that area. It seems like you’re making improvements when all of a sudden you have another new problematic area.

And so you continue to get “training” on one new problematic area after another. Yet somehow like Hiram’s red shirt all this “training” doesn’t seem to fit together all that well. You seem to have parts of a shirt rather than a whole shirt.

Then you decide you’ll buy an entire “training” program confident that will fix all your sales ills. You find the “training” highly motivating, even entertaining. You’re excited about the investment you’ve made eager to put it to the test.

It’s when you’ve gone home, and put it to the test you realize all this “training” still isn’t working like you thought it would. Your “training” shirt still has some gaps and areas it isn’t covering, and now you don’t know what to do. You aren’t a whole lot better off than when you first decided you needed to get help.

How can this be? Aren’t you cut out to be a business owner? Perhaps you just can’t sell. But you have to sell because you have a business to run, and there isn’t anyone to sell your services but you.

There comes a time when you have to accept that even though you know your business and you know your service, you don’t know how to sell yourself. You have to figure out how to sell in order to survive. You didn’t learn the skill behind your service overnight, and you don’t learn through isolated events.

The best way to learn is with the help of a guide along the path. You need someone to help you understand the sales process in a way specific to service professionals. Then you need on-going help and support from that person helping you with your specific challenges and issues as they come up for you not when they’re talked about in a “program”. You my friend need a mentor coach.

I know you’re thinking coaching is too expensive. Like Hiram how much is it costing you every day in lost sales not to get the help you need so you can start turning missed opportunities into cash. You can continue to make the mistake of struggling on your own, or you can make an investment in yourself and get the help you need. The choice is yours. Will you continue to patch your business like Hiram and with his red shirt, or will you join Hiram making a decision to get the help you really need?

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Cheryl_Clausen/56791

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1114887