Salesy people. Ugh, they make us all uncomfortable, don’t they? And we certainly don’t want to be them. Which is why we may be hesitant to promote our businesses. We don’t want to come off as icky, tacky, annoying “sales people”! 

Guess what? 

If you’re worried about being too salesy, my most favorite Marketing Mentor in the whole world, Ilise Benun, says this predisposition means that you simply don’t have the ability to be salesy enough to actually annoy someone. It’s impossible. :) 

It’s like how a cat can never be a dog — and a Poodle can never be a German Shepherd. And as much as I want to be my own dog, Cannoli, who sleeps all day in the sun like she’s on a tropical vacation — I can’t. I’ve tried. 

So no matter what kind of fluffy animal you are, you are not the annoying sales person we all don’t want to be. 

Phew! You can exhale now! And you can start to put yourself out there without fear.

How? By reframing the way you think about selling. These ideas have helped me over the years:

• You never have to sell anything! All you have to do is simply make people who need your offerings aware of your offerings! (The salespeople who make us cringe are usually selling something we don’t need.)
  
  
• You can be totally authentic. It’s not necessary to morph into Sales-Jargon-Bot to promote yourself. You don’t have to use weird selling techniques. You can just be your actual self, letting other humans know you exist. In fact, yourself is the best way to be! Because by being who you are, it will attract the ideal clients and weed out the non-ideal ones. (Ideal clients like your personality.)
  
  
• If you can do something better than someone can do it themselves, then your offering has value! A lot of our hesitation to promote ourselves is because somewhere inside, we don’t think our work is good enough (or we’re good enough). Guess what? It is good enough! Because your ideal clients CANNOT do it themselves. Stop comparing yourself to every competitor (real and fake) out there. Just ask yourself, “Can they do it themselves?” If not, then let them know you exist.
  
  
• It feels good to help people! If you saw somebody in the grocery store struggling to reach something on a high shelf, you would go grab it for them, right? Well, introducing yourself and your services is the same thing. Sometimes you can see them struggling to reach the mustard, and sometimes you can’t, but it never hurts to say, “If you ever need help reaching the condiments, call on me!”

What’s next? Don’t worry about being salesy. Just introduce yourself.

Here’s my basic outreach script.

And when that gross worry creeps in, just remember: You can’t be too salesy — it’s impossible. (The people who are too salesy never consider if they’re being too salesy!)

Shout out to Kevin at GDLOFT for sparking this idea!

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Hi, I’m Deidre. In my posts, I talk about my voyage down the road of self-employment as a web copywriter, my achievements and roadblocks along the way, and what I’m learning as I go (with Marketing Mentor as my guide). To keep in touch, sign up for my un-newsletter here and get my freebie download, 12 Sparks to Write Sizzling, Audience-Attracting Website Words.