How to sell without selling

You have changed at some point in your life.

The way you dress, eat, think, or speak.

You don't change alone; others do too, and so does life.

Life events change society's behavior.

New technology influences people's habits, skills, and markets.

The market itself has changed, whether you sell products, services, or your skills and experience to get a job.

The result is that old methods of selling don't work anymore.

Pushing people to buy with cliché scripts is no longer authentic; it creates mistrust.

Even with digital channels like cold emails and marketing, this approach doesn’t work. It’s all about the seller and nothing about the potential buyer.

Words like “guaranteed” and “best quality” are outdated slogans—messages focused on the seller.

There's nothing about the buyer's problems.

Most people think it's just the medium for delivering sales messages that has changed, but it's also the tactics and strategies.

What caused sales to change?

Every year, new businesses open, flooding the market with sameness, and the number of bad actors has increased.

Manipulation, fraud, and poor quality have changed the sales process and created a lack of trust.

Many people have lost money on services or products that were sold to them.

Even the way you sell yourself to get a job has changed.

Here’s the equation you must change:

New product + old sales messages = mistrust.

Many still believe that the quality of their product, service, or skills is what will sell. But no one will trust you if you make it all about yourself.

Talking about how good your skills, experience, or product is won’t resonate with many.

You need to start making it about them.

Never begin with a sales pitch; start by building trust. When you’re just starting out or meeting people for the first time, it’s all about building trust.

As a stranger, you're in negative territory. You need to move to neutral territory first.

How do you do that?

Start by capturing attention and nurturing your prospective customer, client, or employee with value that resonates with them until they turn into raving fans and loyal customers.

Capturing attention begins by highlighting your unique selling points and value propositions that align with your target segment.

You need to identify your ideal customers—remember, not everyone is your customer.

Likewise, not every company is the right place to advance your career.

Everyone has pain points and desires to achieve. Your product or service should address these by offering clear benefits.

You also need to position yourself correctly—know how and where to market yourself.

If you’re a musician playing at a subway station, people will throw pennies at you.

But if you perform in front of an opera house or fine restaurants, people will throw bills, and you could even land a job inside.

How do you capture attention and nurture?

By creating written content, videos, or both on social media, you provide value that helps build trust. Offer free courses, ebooks, and other resources to engage your audience.

Cold outreach is becoming harder. You need to write a compelling email to encourage your prospect to reply.

An easier way is to run a capturing-attention ad targeting your ideal customer, offering them a free course on how to solve a particular pain point.

When they sign up, you nurture them with the value you promised and build a database of prospects.

By providing value, you build trust. This is when the sales stage comes in.

Your prospects will ask you questions or seek to buy your product or service. You always have to address the benefits of what you sell according to their problems and desires.

You can be creative and come up with your own ideas as long as you build trust.

Life is all about selling—whether it's the ideas you have, the product, the service, your skills, your experience, or getting buy-in.

Selling is about persuasion and convincing. You start as a stranger and, over time, become a guest.

Turn yourself into a guest, and then go sell.

Thank you for reading. We’ll talk in the next letter.

Ahmed

PS two things I can help you with:

1. Run a business design discovery

Exploring and defining the strategic direction, objectives, and key elements to achieve market relevance. uncover opportunities, understand user needs, and design solutions that align with business goals.

2. Guiding and advising

Guide you and help you on a project you’re working on; need help to set direction to reach desired outcomes.