Be a better salesperson with barter

I have found yet another side-advantage of barter.  It makes me a better salesperson.

When you talk to seasoned salespeople or sales coaches, they will all tell you that good sales from a REAL salesperson boils down to caring about your clients.  Rather than try to sell them something, you need to try to solve their problems.  You have to actaully want to help them.  The second it’s about the money you’re done.  Plenty of salespeople make a living pushing whatever they have to sell down their client’s throats, but those aren’t REAL salespeople and they will never reach their true potential.

So what does this have to do with barter?  Simple.  Barter helps take the pressure off the money aspect of the sale and concentrate on helping the client.  Every good salesperson that is honest with you will admit that their desire to help people and their desire to earn a commission battle against each other on a regular basis.   The beautiful thing is that when I’m bartering it takes the pressure off me to make the sale.  Business that I do on barter is extra business that by definition I don’t HAVE to HAVE to make it on a day to day basis.  What that means is that it makes it easier for me to let go of any self-imposed pressure to close a sale and simply concentrate on helping the client.  If I get the job…great!  If I don’t…no big deal.  Additionally from the client’s point of view the pressure is off too.  Although we all know that purchases on barter are not free, they are definitely cheaper than paying cash.  Because of that the client’s first question in a barter deal isn’t always “what will it cost?”  They can settle down and think about what is the BEST way to solve the problem rather than what is the cheapest way.