Self Promotion and How to Sell Yourself

When you are in business, you need to know how to sell yourself to gain new clients or customers and grow as an entrepreneur.

Amazingly, selling themselves trips up a lot of people up.

Talking about themselves and explaining the benefits of what they offer to potential clients or customers is a huge struggle for many people.

Why?

For well over two decades, I’ve helped people in the helping industry learn to sell themselves and in turn, they charge the money they are worth. I’ve worked with coaches, consultants, speakers, trainers, therapists and accountants helping them to get over the awkwardness of talking about what they offer and how much they should get paid for their services.

Most of my clients start out tongue-tied and embarrassed, which leads to underselling themselves, undercharging for their incredible services and struggling to gain clients.

There is good news!

If you struggle with selling yourself as many of my clients do, there is a great way to get around it.

It all starts with a ‘blurb’.

Most of us think of a blurb as that snippet of text on the back of book telling us just how great a read the book is. They are even on audio and video programs. You can’t miss them.

Take this blurb on the back of a book from the early 1900s called Are You a Bromide? By Gelett Burgess. The publisher wrote, “We expect to sell 350 copies of this book, this great, grand book. It has gush and go to it. It has that certain something, which makes you want to crawl through 30 miles of dense tropical jungle and bite somebody in the neck.”

Weird, wouldn’t you agree?

Now the jury is still out on who actually wrote the blurb. Let’s assume it was the author himself. Notice that he tells you just how good this book is.

You can do the same thing.

I learned this trick from Dan Lee Dimke from Future World.

He told me, “Peter – don’t write about you, write about somebody else as though that person is you.”

I use a wooden figure I call Peter and I write about him.

It is easier for me to write about Peter than it is to write about me. I can say all sorts of lovely things about Peter, what he has accomplished, how he built his business and how he can help you do the same thing.

Stop for a moment and think of yourself as someone else. You could even grab an inanimate object for the sake of practice and give it a name then write about that person.

Next…put yourself in a box.

If you struggle to sell yourself or your fee rate you can take the next step and pretend you’re a product.

Once you’ve figuratively put yourself into a box, give yourself a fantastic name and strapline, and then start describing all the benefits the box brings to its customers. Talk about the price, too.

Instead of selling you the person, you are selling you the box – or better yet – the system. When you understand that people are buying a system and not you, it’s easier to talk about all the benefits and not shrink from the pricing.

Additional benefit to putting yourself in a box

When you sell a system, you get the added benefit of being able to test names and prices. You can put yourself in that box and create a distance learning program.

For instance, I have a program called ‘The Accelerated Business Growth System.' It has 33 DVD modules, 33 CDs, and 3 workbooks in it – along with some additional action plans and great information.

My colleague, Steve and I sold this for £3,000 each. We ended up selling 600 programs and made £1.8 million.

I didn’t have to deliver each one of these programs individually. Instead, I filmed it with a camera, boxed it up, and delivered it in the comfort of the customer’s living room.

See how the idea expands?

Stop being tongue-tied and get the fees you are worth.

Put yourself in a box and write a good blurb.

It makes a compelling difference.