Authentic Selling 101 According to ME

I grew up in a pretty conservatively minded environment. Selling was bad. Rich people were bad. Money was bad.

I don’t know if that was really how it was, but that was my perception of it.

As I grew up, that mindset made me angry. And you could say I rebelled.

I started studying business. I started studying “successful” people. I looked past all of the examples I saw of dysfunctional human beings and I put people on pedestals because of their material accomplishments.

Eventually, I figured out that chasing success ended up with me going around in circles. A journey like that takes a lot of energy but you never really get anywhere.

In my search for the truth, here’s what I found:

Most of all, I’ve realized that there is no absolute truth.

There is only my truth.

And that that’s how it’s supposed to be.

This statement is not a thought… it’s not something that’s just stuck in my head that I am insisting is “right.”

It is not a belief… it’s not something I just “know” that, despite any proof, I’m choosing to hold as true.

It is simply something that I’ve discovered through experience.

People can argue with my thoughts.

They can poke holes in my beliefs.

But my experience is something that really can’t be argued with. It’s mine alone and it’s not really available for comment or criticism.

My experience shows me that the only truth that matters is the truth I experience as my own.

What’s the lesson for me in all of this?

The lesson is to stop searching out “there” for truth and start listening and watching to the events of my own life for it to be shown to me.

I don’t consider it a great honor that it’s taken me 34 years to understand such a simple idea. But I’m grateful that I finally have.

How does all of this relate to business? Read on…

There are plenty of people out there who are willing to tell you what to do and how to act to be successful.

I used to listen to those people.

Now I have a better person to listen to. Someone who is far more intimately aware of my own strengths, weaknesses and true motivations and intentions. Someone who truly does have the map to “success” in his hands, just waiting for me to unfold and read.

That person is, of course, myself.

I now realize that the way to be successful is to spend the majority of your time working out who exactly you are.

Because that “who you are” thing is key.

You don’t get better at selling, you go deeper into who you are. You go deeper into what that means.

Because the more you understand that and the more that you bring that to the surface, the more you are providing the raw material that serves as the true foundation for every sale.

And that is a real CONNECTION with another human being.

We’ve been raised in the age of the “expert.” In the age where we look at the guy on stage or in the books to tell us what to do and who to be.

Let me tell you, I’ve realized that there IS no expert on Jason Leister. And it isn’t for lacking of trying either. Trust me, I’ve looked for the guy. But clearly, it’s my job to be that expert.

All of this “looking for the expert” has created an entire generation of people who have no idea how to be themselves.

It’s created an entire generation of people who listen more to others than they do to themselves.

And it’s created an entire generation of people who are not being authentic.

And to me, “selling” is really about being authentic.

So that’s my goal.

I’ve come to a point in my life and career where I’m done with all of the gimmicks, “marketing tactics” and other garbage that you see marketers use to get what they want.

There are plenty of people that still want to spend their days doing stuff like that, but I realize now that I’ve got to get on with the work that I feel I am here to do right now.

And that work is to get real “value” into the hands of people that can and want to benefit from it.

To me, that’s authentic selling: getting real “value” into the hands of people that can and want to benefit from it.

That doesn’t mean shoving it down their throats or making up little ways to “make” them want what I’ve got.

Approaching business in this way makes the journey harder. Because that means the responsibility is on your shoulders to offer your customers stuff they actually want to buy instead of just stuff that you want to sell.

Manipulating people is easy. But as we can all see, that’s becoming less and less effective.

Being authentic is harder, simply because we’ve all spent so many years covering up our true authenticity in the world.

It’s time to get that back.

For me, that’s what true selling is all about.

See you Monday,

Jason Leister
Editor, The Client Letter
Creating Success for Independent Professionals
ClientsSuck.net

P.S. Here’s some real value that you can use to grow your business. This can help you.