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I鈥檓 putting together the curriculum for a for the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Oregon, and reflecting on how I got to a place where I鈥檓 teaching other people how to generate new business. Selling is something that many in the professional services field abhor but need to do to advance in their careers. Sales can feel too much like selling out, taking advantage of someone. My early experiences in learning to sell led me down the wrong roads and dead ends. Not only did I not like it, but I wasn鈥檛 successful either. It took a new way of looking at selling for me to understand how to do it well.

Door to door

As a kid, I sold magazine subscriptions at school, and like everyone else, I loathed it and wasn鈥檛 particularly successful either. To be a Boy Scout, I had to walk my neighborhood with a large cardboard box that said 鈥淭om-Wat鈥� on the outside. It was filled with household gadgets like lint rollers and shoe buffers that I would try to sell to anyone who answered the door. I reluctantly did it, selling just enough to get into the program.

No experience necessary

I found my first job out of high school in the help wanted ads of the Poughkeepsie Journal in the Hudson Valley. 鈥�$500 a week. No experience necessary. We train.鈥� I called the number, and when I got off the phone, my parents asked what it was about. I said it was selling vacuum cleaners. My father enthusiastically shouted, 鈥淥h man, that鈥檚 great!鈥� My mother groaned, 鈥淥h brother, not again.鈥� Earlier in his career, my father tried to support our family by selling vacuum cleaners. Tried is the operative word, as apparently those were some of the dark, debt-ridden days in their marriage. My mother hadn鈥檛 forgotten. My father was still a believer.

Anything it took

The mentor I was assigned to shadow on sales visits was a weaselly little guy named Walter, who smoked little cigars and used every manipulative trick to dupe or demean housewives into surprising their husbands with a $500 dirt sucker. While it felt sleazy, my dad thought it was a good idea, and making a lot of money at 18 and driving a Cadillac sounded good to me too. Before I could get my own leads, I had to try to sell to 10 family and friends. The low point was when I tried one of Walter鈥檚 badgering tactics on a friend鈥檚 parents. They nearly threw me out of their house and never talked to me after that. I鈥檓 happy to say I never sold a machine.

Still about winning

After college, I went into fundraising 鈥� a viable career option for an English major. I liked raising as much money as possible for scholarships and education programs. How could I start a fundraising letter so the recipient didn鈥檛 toss it but read it through to the end? What magic words could I find to convince them to write a check? It wasn鈥檛 selling can openers or vacuum cleaners, but it was still a game of trying to convince someone to buy. Success was measured by what I got out of it. How much I won. My side of the deal.

The revelation

It wasn鈥檛 until later in my career that I learned how all those early experiences had filled my head with the wrong way of thinking about sales. I finally learned the right way only when I didn鈥檛 have anything to sell.

About 20 years ago, I found myself at a networking event after being laid off from an ad agency. I had no clue what I was going to do next. I ran into someone who had volunteered on one of my fundraising committees. He worked for a large developer, and he needed some help researching and approaching different markets. I have no idea why he thought I could help him, but I was keenly interested in trying to figure out how I could. I listened to him, asked a lot of questions, did research, talked to various people to get up to speed, and came up with an idea of what I would do for him and how much it would cost. Impressed, he said, 鈥淵eah, let鈥檚 do it!鈥� Wait, did I just sell someone and it didn鈥檛 feel yucky? In fact, it felt good.

Listening for how to help

What was different was my focus. My entire orientation was around him and his needs, not mine. I wasn鈥檛 focused on closing the deal or making money. I was motivated to help someone I knew who had a problem. I didn鈥檛 hurry to the part where I asked him for the contract. I slowed it down to make sure I knew what the problem was, what was behind the need, and the bigger picture of who was involved, what they cared about, and who I could approach to help me understand even more.

My proposal captured everything I understood about the goals of the work and important considerations for the solution (schedule, budget, deliverables, phases, what my fee included and didn鈥檛 include). I took the contract, which was tailored to this person and this project, seriously. That led him to trust me. And that led me to not want to let him down.

When I completed the scope of work, he had more work for me. Soon other developers, architects, engineering firms and contractors started asking me to fix their problems. I took the same approach of listening first to understand what they needed. What I was selling was my ability to listen.

People buy from people they like and trust. Taking the time to listen is the foundation to not just understanding problems and earning the trust of clients but building long-term relationships. And long-term relationships mean more repeat work and less cold calling and awkward networking events. I count many of my clients as friends I help. Selling isn鈥檛 so bad when you think of it that way.

If any of this sounds interesting, check out the seven-part ACEC Oregon leadership series that starts Oct. 12. The series includes my book 鈥淔rom the Ground Up: Stories and Lessons from Architects and Engineers Who Learned to Be Leaders.鈥�

Leo MacLeod is a Portland-based leadership coach, speaker and author. Learn more tips and access practical videos at https://leomacleod.com. Contact him at 503-880-8393 or聽[email protected].

The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in the preceding commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the Daily Journal of Commerce or its editors. Neither the author nor the 91视频 guarantees the accuracy or completeness of any information published herein.