Your prospect will ask you “Is this sales?” in an apprehensive tone of voice for one of three main reasons:

1. The prospect is resistant to being rejected or they’ve felt pressured by a salesperson at some point and feel that’s what salespeople do – and he or she doesn’t want to do that to others. This could be because they feel YOU’RE pressuring them!
2. Your prospect is not feeling confident in their ability to communicate. In my opinion – this is the main reason the question/objection comes up.
3. The third reason is based on an image of a door-to-door salesperson and the prospect not wanting to be viewed in that way. This is obviously an outdated view as there are not a lot of people who go door to door today other than UPS and FEDEX and DHL.

To effectively handle this objection you first need to ask additional questions to find out what the prospect views when they think of sales or sales people.

I’ll share these scripts with you on the conference call next week.

If their response indicates to you that they have a negative picture of the profession of selling (in general), you need to explain that ALL professions – doctors, politicians, colleges, churches, etc., must promote to make it known how they make someone’s life better. Any organization that doesn’t promote perishes.

An additional way I’ve handled this objection is to discuss communication and all the different ways they communicate currently and draw the connection that they are already selling – by communicating.

Many people have an incomplete definition of selling. Most view selling as “moving a product or service to a consumer.” The reason this is incomplete is because it omits that communicating a concept, idea or desire is also selling.

A person is selling when they are courting a boyfriend or girlfriend. A person is selling when they submit a resume for a job. A person is selling when they’re asking their child to do their homework. Almost all communications are “selling.” So this is really getting them to look at and see what selling is, and what it isn’t.

Also, you need to get your prospect to see that a profession/business isn’t “professional” or “unprofessional” – people are either professional or unprofessional.

If someone has been in sales before and had a bad experience with it, normally it’s because they got tired of “being in the convincing business.” This is because of poor sales training. Professional Inviter will give you training in the right way to communicate with prospects and it won’t feel like “sales”.

Much admiration,

Tim Sales

For more in-depth information on this topic study the Professional Inviter lecture series by Tim Sales.

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