How to Sell Yourself, or “How to Look Like a Duck”

September 8, 2008

You are a salesman whether you know it, believe it, want it or not. Every day you have to sell everyone you meet on everything you have to offer as a person. You have to sell new clients or customers on the fact that you are the best person to do business with. You must convince new friends that you are the right person to be friends with. Heck, you even have to convince cab drivers to pick you up. Every day you are going to be selling yourself to any number of people in any number of ways, which means that if this isn’t an area of improvement that you are currently giving a lot of thought to, you may be missing out on a lot of life’s opportunities.

I’d love to be one of those people who tells you that looks and first impressions don’t matter, but I can’t. They do matter and they matter a great deal, whether we like it or not. People are judging you every second you are in their sight and it isn’t really a bad thing. We have evolved to discern whether or not new people pose a threat to our well being. If our new acquaintances make us uncomfortable, we make a judgment that might lead us away from future danger. This survival tactic can be a very handy strength if you realize that first impressions are usually based on looks.

It really is 90% how you look.

If you were walking through a hospital and saw a man in a white coat walk by, would you question the fact that he was a doctor? Of course you wouldn’t, but why not? Did you see his diplomas? No, but he had a white coat. He looked like a doctor and that was good enough information to make that determination. The same goes for every other area of your life. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a by-god duck. Now your goal is to learn how to look like a duck.

There are universal standards for looks which is a great thing for you because it means that making yourself look a certain way is relatively easy. We all know what “professional” looks like, for instance, and it’s an easy look to imitate. We also know what “suspicious-and-shifty” looks like, which makes it a relatively easy look to avoid.

This brings up a few stories I probably shouldn’t tell but, like everyone, I did a few things back during my younger years that I probably shouldn’t have. Nothing majorly illegal, mind you, but when you’re in high school there are always a few nighttime trespasses to be had. My friends and I were, and probably still are ;), very good at getting away with these night time shenanigans. We knew never to dress all in black because that was a look that screamed “up-to-no-good.” We always dressed in jeans and t-shirts and sneakers, a very “all-American-kid” type of look, that way if we were ever caught it was easier to plead innocent. And it always worked. If we looked like were up to no good people assumed we were. If we looked like good, clean-cut kids, people assumed we were.

And there you have my misspent youth.

All this plays into stereotypes that everyone have. We know what a “trouble-maker” looks like and we all have the image of the “boy-next-door” and that means that we can play off of those images. Stereotypes aren’t necessarily bad if you’re smart enough to use them to your advantage.

I’m not saying you have to trick people.

You don’t have to pretend to be someone you aren’t, that’s not what I want you to come away with. What you need to know is that wearing a t-shirt and baggy jeans to a job interview is a good way to get turned down flat. That is unless you want to work for Google, then you’re their man. If you want that non-Google job, you need to play on the stereotype of the “successful-professional” by wearing a suit, a tie and running a comb through your hair. You aren’t lying, you’re simply not shooting yourself in the foot.

Photo by dogfrog

Sell Yourself from The End

The greatest salesmen in the world will tell you that you never, ever sell from the beginning, you always sell from the end. You never tell the customer why your product is better than everyone else’s and how low your price is until you tell them what your product can do for their business. People don’t care about what you’re selling unless you show them how it affects their bottom line. If you want to sell yourself, you must sell yourself from the end; sell yourself from the position of their bottom line and your affect on it.

When you’re going in for a job interview, don’t harp on about your people skills and organizational prowess. Don’t tell the interviewer that you’re a hard worker who gives 110%, they don’t care about that.

You’re speaking your language when you need to be speaking theirs.

Want to get that job? Talk about all of things you’re going to do for that company. Talk about how you’re going to raises profits and how your organizational skills can make it happen. Tell them about how you’re going get them 1,000,000 new customers this year with your amazing people skills. Now you’re speaking the right language because you’re talking in terms the other side understands. You’re selling yourself from their bottom line. Show them what you bring and make it impossible for them to turn you down.

So how do you sell yourself? When you go out into the world every day, how do you present yourself? How do you sell yourself to new customers, new friends and new employers?

Posted in Being Proactive, Featured, Relationships, Social Do's and Don'ts, Success