If you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking about making a career move, or perhaps you’re already fully engaged in a job search. Either way, it’s necessary for you to activate your inner salesperson. And before you protest that you know nothing about sales because you’re an engineer or a teacher or a forklift operator or whatever, let’s take a second to prove that, yes, you do have an inner salesperson to activate.
No matter your profession, the reason why you’re also a salesperson at heart is because you use sales skills all the time. You’re selling whenever you want to convince someone to fund something, such as upgrading technology in your department, hiring additional employees for your team, requesting training for yourself or others, or suggesting sponsorship of a worthy cause. You’re selling ideas whenever you’re teaching and mentoring someone, and if you’ve ever asked your supervisor for a raise or a promotion, you were selling then too.
In fact, you’ve been an expert in the art of selling since you were a kid. Whether it was persuading a grownup in charge to buy you something or talking a friend into playing your favorite game or convincing a sibling to watch a certain movie for the umpteenth time, you were selling at a young age.
The point is that no matter what job you do in your career, you’ve been in sales all your life. You have what it takes. It’s just that now it’s time to sell the idea of “you” to those who need what you offer.
Needs-Based Selling
The good news is that you don’t have to be a world-class salesperson to get a job. You don’t even have to be good at selling. Even top salespeople who successfully sell millions of dollars in products and services for a company can find themselves stumbling during a job search because they often forget one basic fact… Like in sales, the best approach in a job search is the needs-based selling approach. It’s an approach that is easy for everyone to do.
Seasoned sales professionals will tell you that to be effective in sales, the first thing you must do is find out what the prospective buyer truly needs most. Once the salesperson knows what those needs are, selling isn’t really selling at all. It just becomes a way to provide the right service to meet the needs of the buyer.
Likewise, once you learn what the employer needs, you can explain how your skills and abilities meet the needs. And, in case you’re curious, you learn what the needs are through the job posting, if there is one, and during the interview process. Anyway, just remember that you will do far better if you find out what the employer needs and then speak to those needs.
Factors Driving Buying Decisions
There are a few factors that similarly drive buying decisions in the sales process and in the hiring process. Understanding these will help improve your results.
The first one is probably obvious since it reinforces the points made above, and that is confidence. People want to hire individuals they are confident can and will do the job, as well as bring value to the bottom-line goals of the organization. They want to hire someone who will solve their challenges while fitting in well with the team and company culture. If you know the needs, know what can do to meet the needs, and simply communicate it with confidence, you’re most of the way there.
Beyond that, it’s really about making a connection with the decision maker by being yourself – that is, being your best professional self. And, of course, having an authentic attitude of curiosity and helpfulness is also important. Although you might not directly tell the prospective employer, “I’m curious to know what I can do to help you/the organization,” this should come across in your demeanor. Remember this is “needs based selling.”
One more thing to keep in mind as you consider this concept of job search as a sales process…. People don’t really enjoy being sold to. They prefer meaningful and helpful discourse rather than a sales pitch. And they want to buy from people they like and trust. Most people think they make buying decisions based on facts and data, and that is definitely part of the process, but the truth is that emotion is the primary driver in most buying decisions, especially the emotion of trust. Successful salespeople know this, and it helps them get further in closing the sale.