Worried that self-promotion will tarnish the integrity of your people-centred role? Isn’t selling just helping clients get what they want?
By Kim Arnold
There’s an old joke that goes like this: Insurance agent to would-be client: “Don’t rush into a hasty decision. Sleep on it tonight. If you wake up in the morning, give me a call then and let me know.”
It’s a familiar portrait of a salesperson, isn’t it? All scare tactics, underhand techniques and pushiness.
It’s how most people see sales in fact, ie, all about getting their ‘victim’ to buy things they don’t want or need for as high a price as possible.
Most coaches I meet are sales sceptics. When I ask them how they feel about marketing themselves or selling their services, they’ll often wrinkle their noses and tell me:
“It’s a bit ‘used car salesman’”
“I’d hate to be seen as pushy”
“It all feels a bit grubby”
And the same goes for many HR and LD folk, when I talk to them about promoting their personal brand. They’ll look horrified, like I’ve suggested a naturist retreat, saying:
“I don’t want to be seen as a show off” or“That’s just not me”
When it comes to any kind of marketing, sales or personal branding, there’s a secret conflict for many professionals in people-centred roles.
‘People people’, whether in house or with their own practice, often seem to worry that self-promotion will compromise the integrity of their work. They see it as a grubby stain that threatens their personal honour.
And I get it, I really do. No one wants to be seen as a Del Boy or Rodney from ’80s TV sitcom ‘Only Fools and Horses’, flogging their dodgy wares out of the back of a Robin Reliant to anyone, at any cost.
After all, coaches and people professionals rely on building trust with others for so much of what they do. Dishonesty destroys relationships in seconds.
But here’s the thing: iffy sales ploys aren’t really what selling is all about. That’s just bad salesmanship. (Just like there are bad examples of practices in all professions, even, gasp, in coaching.)
Good salespeople on the other hand (and there are lots of them out there), help their customers get exactly what they want and need. They are genuinely curious about how they can help.
That doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?
Selling is simply helping. And marketing? Merely about making yourself findable. It’s about telling people how you can make their lives better. (If people don’t know you exist, you can’t help them.)
Feels better when you say it like that, doesn’t it?
So now it’s time to take a deep breath and ask yourself some probing questions. (You’re great at asking them, I know, but the shoe’s on the other foot now…)
When it comes to self-promotion, are you really afraid of being seen as pushy? Or are you actually afraid of being noticed?
Because when we’re more visible, it can make us feel vulnerable at first. We open ourselves up for potential critique and judgement.
And it’s this fear of being more visible that stops many coaches and people professionals from getting out there more, not actually their worry of being seen as pushy.
Ouch. Did I hit a nerve?
But don’t worry. All you need to do is change the way you think about marketing and sales. Ditch the Del Boy preconceptions.
- Communication and marketing consultant Kim Arnold helps individuals and companies stand out, connect with their audience and make their messages stick. She works with coaches, entrepreneurs and scale ups, as well as global organisations including Accenture, UBS Asset Management and JP Morgan. She is author of, Email Attraction – Get What You Want Every Time You Hit Send, featured in The Financial Times: ‘Completely rethink how you churn out emails’.
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