How to Sell Without Being Pushy

No public Twitter messages.

By Arthur Cundy

Now matter how you make money online at some point you have to sell stuff. Especially, if you want to really want to crush it, you will need to create and SELL your own products.

Now the average person is not a salesman. They are just a guy/gal who love to talk about what they love. So how does the average person sell without knowing how to sell?

“Be like water my friends.”

Sorry, I just wanted to sound cool. Here is what you do.

1. Don’t sell. Make recommendations.
You will not succeed if you are known as the guy always selling stuff to people. People are really good at sniffing those kind of people out. You don’t want to be that guy. Don’t you ignore or hang up on telemarketers? There are online versions of them as well. Don’t be that guy.

Instead make recommendations. If you are writing a blog post about a problem that many of your readers face. You can show them how to solve the problem and recommend a tool they can use to help.

For example, I can write a blog post about how to make your blog look nice. I can show to you how to change the header image or the css styles. I can also recommend that you get a really professional WordPress theme from WooThemes. The link to WooThemes would be my affiliate link and if someone buys a theme I would get paid.

See?

I didn’t say you should go now to buy a theme from WooThemes because they are so awesome. I just said you might want to check out this resource if you are interested in solving this problem (making your blog look professional).

2. Don’t hype but reveal what will really happen.
Don’t make crazy unbelievable claims about the product or service trying to make money. Be honest with your audience. Show them what will really happen and what they can expect if they choose to purchase the product.

Being honest builds trust. If people trust you they will trust your recommendations and buy whatever you are selling. And that’s what every business owner really wants. Peoplewho will buy from them over and over again. If you over hype something and customers see the real deal afterwards, you may get a quick sale buy they willl never trust you again to buy anything.

3. Don’t try to make money of people. Give high value information and have them want to pay you back in return.
Gary Vaynerchuk calls this the “Thank You Economy“. This is where you go above and beyond providing value and helping people for free. Helping them solve problems and being a trusted source of information. Then when you come out with a product your audience loves you so much they will buy your product as a way of saying thank you.

Gary attributes this as the reason why his first book Crush It sold so well. People wanted to say thank you for all the years of free content he put out on his WineLibrary TV show.

Don’t focus on making sales. If you are helping people online wit your content and providing value you will be trusted. And people buy from people they trust.

Remember the saying, “The best sales pitch is no sales pitch at all.”

photo credit: ilovememphis