Make it about YOU

I know I harp on this, but it's just so DANGED important:

YOU are the most important product your company has to offer - not your candles, night creams, fancy jewelry, kitchen gadgets or even the compensation plan.

It's YOU.

You are the only product that people will experience the entire night of your party. You are the first product they experience when you begin your elevator speech. You are the last product they experience when you're packing up and leaving - or doing the customer care follow up calls that are so routinely missed in this industry (even I fall prey to this from time to time!)

You.

So what are you doing about it? How do you make "product you" the best possible experience your customers will encounter? How do you make YOU so good that customers come back time and again - because they are loyal to you first? How do you make YOU so fantastic that even if you change companies, they still want to work with YOU?

Practice.

Practice being the kind of person that people want to be around. Practice providing the customer service everyone says they want and never get. Practice your scripts, your demos and all the "elements of style" that boost your credibility and give people a desire to "buy" YOU.

Jeffrey Gitomer says it all the dang time: "People hate to be sold, but they love to buy".

What are you doing to give them reasons to want to buy YOU?

I talk about "affirmative buying decisions". That means getting clients to say "yes" to your offer. A "no" is also a buying decision - a negative one. It's also usually an affirmative buying decision somewhere else for someone else.

But this isn't about someone else - it's about YOU.

Sales is one part performance and one part handiman. You have to be helpful, and you have to put on a great show. In direct sales, the show's the thing. The show sells your products, but it also sells YOU.

So get crackin'.