For the consultant who does not see themselves as a salesperson

"I'm not really a salesperson." I hear it almost every week. From consultants, advisers and specialists, people who work with customers, are good at their craft, but feel a slight cramp at the word sales.

Do you say that too? Then I have good news. You are often exactly the one who is best at sales. You just need to look at it differently.

The idea that sales is a separate trick, something for smooth types in sharp suits, runs deep. So we leave it to the account manager and keep our hands clean. But meanwhile, you are the one with the real customer contact. You hear what is going on. You build the trust. And if you avoid that conversation because it smells like selling, that is precisely where you leave opportunities on the table. For the customer, and for your organisation.

I understand that resistance well. I work with a great many people who do not see themselves as salespeople. And time and again I see the same thing: as soon as they stop selling and start helping, the cramp falls away. What remains is what they were doing all along, only now with direction.

The biggest blockage is rarely in your skills. It is in your beliefs. If deep down you think selling is something dirty, you radiate that, and your customer feels it. Turn that belief around. Sales is not something you do to the customer. It is something you do for the customer. You help someone make a good choice. There is nothing pushy about that.

Beliefs are one of the six elements of the Customer Experience Model. Together with honest and relaxed, your content, your process and your form, they determine whether your customer contact turns someone into a fan.

And a customer does not become a fan because of one department. Marketing, sales, delivery, support, you. Every conversation counts. Everyone who works with customers helps make the difference. I call that the total customer experience, and it is exactly what the Customer Success Training is about: how you contribute, from your own role and without becoming a salesperson, to growth and to customers who stay.

You do not have to change your character for it. In fact, the more yourself you are, the better you do it.

So: not becoming a salesperson. Just getting even better at what you already are. How everyone who works with customers can create fans this way is what my new (Dutch) book Van klant naar fan is about.

Curious how you score right now? Take the free scan and look at your score on beliefs first. That is where it starts.