Audacious Introverts: Provide Value that Sells

The best salespeople I’ve met are audacious introverts.

But before working in a sales team, I had absolutely no idea about the reality of sales. I had every prejudgement there is:

• I thought salespeople were the part of the population to be avoided at all costs

• I thought sales is transactional (spoiler, it’s so not)

• I thought all salespeople were extroverts

Oh dear, how wrong I was.

We all are selling something

Let’s start with a universal truth: we are all selling something.

Every job interview = selling your skills
Every date = selling the best version of yourself
Every new freelancer client meeting = selling your offer
Every LinkedIn post (indirectly) = your brand is doing the selling

It should be easy peasy. Everybody has at least one job interview under their belt.

And yet, if I could avoid it forever, I personally would.

Why is selling your offer so hard?

Selling is uncomfortable. It is asking another person for their hard-earned money and trust that you have their right interest in mind.

But luckily there are beginner pointers that you are going in the right direction:

• You feel cringy. Yes, you are probably doing it right. Selling oneself is a barrier that needs to be mentally addressed first.

• You want to avoid sales at all costs. Yes, I feel you. But no sales → no food on the table. Can you get away without selling? Yes you could, by building a word-of-mouth reputation. But that takes an incredible amount of time that you probably don’t have. And importantly, it is out of your direct control.

• You are reframing your offer so that you don’t sell → you provide value.

Value is the most important sales currency.

Keep pushing value.

Sales taught me to think about human connection

Sales is the conviction that your offer can genuinely help people. It is the commitment to foster a long-term connection.

Great salespeople know: it’s more important to retain a customer than to find new ones.

Hence, think long-term relationships.

The best salespeople I’ve met are introverts. And I think it is no coincidence: Introverts tend to listen more than they speak. You can learn so much by actively listening to your customer’s pain points, objections, and values.

The combination of listening and asking the right questions = 🏆

Consider this

A big part of sales takes place in the online world nowadays.

This means, creating the awareness that:

• You exist

• You are consistently showing up

• You educate and maybe help others do the same as you do.

For me, this means creating awareness on the only social platform I truly enjoy: LinkedIn.

By sharing stories (or oversharing? 😂), I know I have started building brand recognition. A great consequence of just showing up. My focus is simple: I try to capture and share stories of the most interesting things I experienced in the hope that they can inspire someone else to take action. Any small action counts.

I truly believe that:

• Every story is an opportunity to connect.

• Every learning is an opportunity to teach someone something new.

• Every sales-sy post is an opportunity to work with the people of your choice (and to pay rent).

But done consistently, it can be a game-changer.

Keep up the audacity,

Laura