Mastering the World of Selling: The Ultimate Training Resource from the Biggest Names in Sales

Chapter 8. Selling for the Independent Professional

Ian Brodie

We're a funny bunch, we sole practitioners—but an important one.

Nearly half the lawyers in private practice in the United States are sole practitioners. The ranks of consultants, coaches, trainers, architects, and engineers are dominated by the independent professional.

We're hugely diverse: We come from different ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds, and we have different personality types, different experience bases, and different lifestyles.

Yet we almost all share one universal characteristic: a hatred of selling.

Our mantra is well practiced: "I didn't spend five years in training because I wanted to do selling," "I didn't get all those years of experience because I wanted to sell myself," or "I didn't set up my own business because I wanted to sell."

Yet sell we must, if we want to survive, let alone prosper.

Sure, a small minority of professionals have such rare and in-demand skills, or such a brilliant contact network, that they never need to actively sell themselves.

But the rest of us have to live in the real world. We have to "suck it up" and learn how to sell effectively.

Now that doesn't mean we have to become professional salespeople. For the independent professional, selling will always be an adjunct to their day job of actually delivering their services. And of course, they have to run their businesses, too.

And our clients don't really want to buy from professional salespeople either. They want to buy from ...