Integrity Selling Point #5: Selling Techniques and Selling Principles

The fifth point Willingham develops is "Selling Techniques Give Way to Selling Principles." See Integrity Selling; How to Succeed in Selling in the Competitive Years Ahead (New York: Doubleday, 1987), p. xv.

For Willingham, selling is based on a system founded on values and integrity. [p. xii] Values can be personal, cultural, religious, or other kinds. Integrity, or credibility, are based on values. You can't sell if your efforts aren't values based. This is too often ignored by untrustworthy people

I've been in a number of situations in which people tried to sell me stuff before they found out anything about me. One was a video phone salesman with whom I though I was just having lunch. It turns out he brought his sales materials and tried to recruit me to his team. Another time I met with a financial consultant who, without telling me brought her manager along who tried to recruit me into the business. The third time was a seller of home security systems who brought his manager, without checking with me first, who tried to push his stuff on me.

Each of these products are good and useful, and the people who transgressed meant no harm. Because none of these people laid a groundwork of trust, they weren't successful, and their misguided efforts closed off any meaningful discussion we might have had about stuff that might have made a difference.

Lesson: if you're scheduled to have lunch with somebody, and you haven't made sure it's okay with them that you try to sell them something, don't try to sell them something.

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This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.