You’ve got your brilliant idea. You start to work out the plan to develop it. You finish it and you either need beta testers, or you need to start selling the thing. Then you hit the brick wall. No one seems as fired up as you do. You know in your mind it’s the best idea or product in the world, what could be the problem?
If you’ve tried to gain enthusiasm, momentum, or even some interest in a product, you might be missing one crucial skill in the whole heap of skills your new project required, and it’s the essential skill you will ever need to succeed.
Salesmanship is the skill you will need the most whether you choose to blog, sell physical goods online, arbitrage, or even freelance. The skill is salesmanship. Salesmanship takes a ton of different forms and can be used in a ton of different ways, but this one skill is what every entrepreneur will need to succeed.
You might be able to fake it for a while. Hire this skill out to people much more skilled than you, but the truth is even if you hire it out, you will need some salesmanship chops to at least notice some good salesmen from the bad as you hire them on. So, let’s focus on ourselves being an individual entrepreneur and what we will need to get ourselves moving toward financial freedom.
Salesmanship Reason #1 | Need to write attention-getting content.
Writing attention-getting content not only serves the purpose of solving the reader’s problem but should be well thought out enough to pull them to read more of your content. You want them to feel satisfied that you did satisfy their current question at hand, but maybe open the door to other questions they might have. Or, propose new ideas to them in a way that formulates more questions and leads them further down the path into your sales funnel.
If you are a blogger, propose questions at the end of your posts and lead them to the answers in other posts. This is all salesmanship in print, or as we call it, copywriting. Copywriting takes many different forms. Copywriting and content writing used to be two different things, but in essence, they are two of the same thing. Copywriting takes many different forms. Copywriting and content writing used to be two different things, but in essence, they are two of the same thing.
Good content has a salesmanship aspect to it. As you present the information in an excellent article, you need to have that little bit of copywriting idea in the background to keep pulling your reader toward you. If you are developing videos for YouTube, the video line or script needs to keep your viewers watching.
To create the content of the video, you need to have the salesman’s eye to make sure your view likes or subscribe to watch more from you. If you are creating audio content or podcasts interviewing people, the questions you ask need to intrigue them enough to keep them listening and ultimately lead them to consume all of your content.
Salesmanship Reason #2 | Need great intriguing headlines.
Headlines are everywhere and are one of the most powerful things you will need to write. One of the most influential pieces of advice I heard about writing headlines is to use a juxtaposition. This is something where two things that don’t quite fit together are used in the same relationship. It’s the headline that makes you say, “What? I need to find out how that is even possible”.
If you are a blogger, your blogging headline or the words on your Pinterest pins are the things that will pull your reader into learning more. Your headlines can’t be too over the top because then the reader thinks it’s a lie or ‘clickbait’. The headline needs to be just enough to be believable, but yet shed just enough doubt to create interest.
Salesmanship Reason #3 | Need to write compelling ads.
When starting as a solopreneur, you will more than likely be doing everything yourself. You will be writing your ad copy as well as headlines. This will take some salesmanship skills. One of the best salesmen and ad copywriters is a guy named Joe Sugarman. You can follow the links to find his books on Amazon. If you haven’t read anything by him, I’d suggest picking one up for a read.
The small cost of the book will put us way ahead in the entrepreneurial game. He has several books out, but the one I’ll link to below is arguably his best and most popular. He not only shares his copywriting tips but stories about the different sales strategies he’s used throughout his life. Do you remember the ‘Blublocker’ sunglasses from the seventies and eighties? That was his.
He is a master copywriter and salesperson. The perfect person to begin your salesmanship education.
Salesmanship Reason #4 | Need to negotiate good deals.
At some point in your business life, you will need to do some negotiating of deals. You could be hiring a freelancer or a VA, negotiating for the sale of a product, or even negotiating to buy an arbitrage product for a quick turnaround. Good salesmanship goes hand in hand with excellent negotiating skills.
My wife is a master negotiator when it comes to buying things for our home where there is little room to haggle. Her entire family is car salespeople. Her dad has taught her well, and the skills she got from him have saved us thousands of dollars over the years just in home purchases. She loves good sales and buying negotiating. She gets a kind of twinkle in her eye when she gets to negotiate a purchase.
The best book on the mindset of sales a negotiation I’ve ever read is probably by Robert Cialdini, and it’s called ‘Influence; The Psychology of Persuasion’ This book gives you actual case studies on persuasion when it comes to selling. If you are starting to develop your own side business, I think this is a ‘must read’.
I really can’t think of any greater skill a person, especially a business person can have other than salesmanship. I think it is the one true skill that can’t be freelanced out to someone else. You can hire a copywriter to craft some words, but you will need the salesmanship craft to successfully negotiate with the copywriter.
Even marketing goes hand and hand with salesmanship. Marketing is getting your offer in front of people and salesmanship closes the deal. But, without good sales skills, how do you recognize the customer even to put an offer together?
Salesmanship is the skill you need to be a good entrepreneur in today’s world. Getting out of your nine-to-five job is easier than you think. If you’re struggling to see yourself without a job, you might need to have the path clear in your mind. You don’t need to win the lottery or even have a million dollars in the bank.
You need a clear path and an easy-to-follow ‘plan’ to get there. This is what this site is all about. Browse around, and you will find a bunch of articles and resources to help you put together and ultimately achieve that plan.
Be safe,
Kevin