Embracing Your Inner Salesperson
Somewhere between the travelling salesman selling snake oil and the pre-internet days of “smile and dial” cold callers, sales got a bad rap. However, when you think beyond these outdated stereotypes to the day-to-day aspects of your own career you realize that at some point selling is a part of your job.
Take the Prospect Researcher with the amazing prospect profile for a time-sensitive major gift opportunity. That Researcher not only needs to do a good job of “selling” the prospect in the profile they created, they also need to “sell” that particular profile to their Major Gift Officer or Fundraiser who has countless other profiles vying for their attention.
Now that the Fundraiser is sold on the profile, it’s their turn to put on their sales cap and sell this prospect an invitation to meet for lunch. During said meeting, they will subtly begin to “sell” their cause in hopes of securing a major gift.
Whenever someone needs convincing, whenever you’re trying to get a new idea heard, or perhaps you’re just trying to explain the logic of a situation, these are times that sales skills will come in handy.
Lucky for you, Jeff Haden of BlackBird Media, realized that we all could benefit from some basic selling skills, so he went to the expert Geoffrey James, author of Business Without the Bullsh*t who provided the following list: 9 Sales Skills You Absolutely Must Have Even If You’re Not in Sales
[divider type=”e.g. 1, 2″ width=”e.g. small, medium, wide”][/divider]
About the author: Megan McMillan is one of iWave’s Marketing Managers.
Want to see iWave in Action? Try the platform for free today!
Stay Up-to-date on Fundraising News and Resources
