Define your Terms to Create More Sales

Along my personal development journey I learned the value of defining terms. I use my personal story to illustrate the value of defining terms both personally and professionally.

I spent most of my life talking about how "hard" things were. And they were hard! I was a single mother at 22, survived a near fatal auto accident that left me with a handicap at 23, not to mention the other life stuff that goes on every day when you are working hard to make a living and raise a family.

An amazing thing happened when I redefined the word hard. It's curious...when I asked myself if my life was truly hard I had to admit, others had it much rougher than I did. What I discovered in truth is that I had some "challenges". There were some activities that were "difficult" for me. I did have to exert a littte more effort to get things done...but I could do them.

In that discovery I had an "Aha" moment...I could work with challenges and difficulty but hard things were just plain hard...and my speaking it made things even harder. So, I changed my vocabulary. When I would have habitually described a situation as "hard", I began replacing the word with a true statement. My attitude changed and, I swear, life got easier.

When it comes to doing business, I believe defining terms has been instrumental in building a profitable growing consulting practice, serving my clients, and creating business development curriculums.

For example, early on in my career I redefined selling.
Old definition: Selling is convincing someone to buy something they didn't need.
New definition: Selling is serving customers by discovering and matching a true need with a valuable solution.

When I quit trying to "sell" my customers and instead focused on serving, exchanging valuable information and connecting them to resources my sales increased immediately. Of course, I had to complete the sales process by creating an opportunity to purchase but that wasn't the end game...just part of serving.

Same thing with networking.
Old , old definition: Networking is schmoozing and positioning.
Old, new definition: Networking is relationship building, connecting people to people, and perfect elevator pitches.
New definition: Networking is a strategic marketing activity intended to increase exposure, build credibility, and create opportunities in addition to generating leads.

What I began to view my networking in light of the bigger picture, my sales increased exponentially. As a matter of fact I doubled my sales in one year using this new definition. Achieving this led me to clearly see and define another type of valuable networking activity; networking to build professional relationships or strategic partnerships.

Check this for yourself. How do you define these terms? Is it working for you?

Watch for an upcoming post on our definition of packaging, pricing, and target marketing.

Happy Networking!