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<\/a><\/p>\nI\u2019m selling you right now<\/h2>\n
If you\u2019ve made it this far, it is going well for me.<\/strong>\u00a0 You probably decided to read this article because of the headline I created for it, \u201cThe One Thing You Don’t Know How To Do That You Do Every Day.\u201d\u00a0 Then, the questions I asked in the paragraphs above must have held your interest long enough for you to get to my sub-heading telling you that I am selling you right now.<\/p>\n You see, unless I am actively selling you with my words, you aren\u2019t going to be reading this blog.<\/strong>\u00a0 And, if you aren\u2019t reading this blog, there really isn\u2019t a point in me writing it.<\/strong><\/p>\n This may not seem important, but the effects of a good sale are profound; especially when you magnify them by a huge number.<\/p>\n Imagine for a moment that this article lands in mainstream media and is featured on national media outlets\u2014yes, a pipedream, I know, but bear with me for a moment.<\/p>\n What would happen to those ads over there on the right or at the bottom of this article?\u00a0 How valuable would they suddenly become?<\/p>\n How many people would subscribe to this blog?\u00a0 How many people would follow me on Twitter or check out the other things I am doing?<\/p>\n The difference between a thousand page views and a million page views is huge!<\/strong><\/p>\n If I had the ability to \u201csell\u201d these free words to millions of people each day, even my $0 priced product would have immense value.<\/p>\n When I am writing this blog post, it doesn\u2019t \u201cfeel\u201d like I am selling anything, but it is a mistake to think I am not.<\/p>\n I am selling you my ideas, my brand, my name and more.\u00a0 You are paying me with the single most valuable asset you have\u2026 your time.\u00a0 CHA-CHING!<\/strong><\/p>\n You may not think so, but everything you do in your life, every interaction, every word you speak, and even the clothes you wear are all part of one big sale.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t even matter what your profession is, even if you are a programmer, you are selling something each and every day.<\/p>\n Take for instance the last conversation you had with your boss or your coworkers about what technology to use or what direction you should take to solve a certain problem.\u00a0 If you had an opinion at all on what to do, you were in the process of negotiating a sale.\u00a0 In this case you were selling your ideas.<\/p>\n Even the code you write is selling something.<\/strong>\u00a0 The code you write should be conveying something about what it does and how it works.\u00a0 If you can write the code elegantly, the reader of the code might not even be aware of the \u201cselling\u201d taking place.\u00a0 Great code sells itself, it seems apparent, like there was no other way to write it.\u00a0 Just like certain tech companies sell their products in a way that seems like they are obvious and your life wouldn\u2019t be complete without them.<\/p>\n (If you lack the elegance of selling your code naturally, you may have to resort to hard sale tactics and add some comments to the code to describe in detail to the user what the code is doing and what its intent is.)<\/strong><\/p>\n Your sale might not even be successful at all, as your reader may simply delete your code and replace it or ignore it completely.<\/p>\n Your code is also selling something besides meaning and understanding, it is selling your programming skills.\u00a0 When someone reads code they know you have written, they are making certain judgments about you as a programmer, and even you as a person, believe it or not.<\/p>\n Now, you may not think this amounts to much or is very important\u2014and it may not be\u2014but most sales calls aren\u2019t.\u00a0 Professional salesman face a lot more \u201cno\u201ds than \u201cyes\u201des, but for some salesman it only takes a couple of \u201cyes\u201des to pay their whole years salary.<\/p>\n But it goes far beyond this as well.\u00a0 Even the subtle things like the clothes you put on in the morning and how you sit in your chair, are influencing people around you and shaping their acceptance of everything you are selling.<\/strong><\/p>\n What you post on Twitter, even what you like on Facebook, are all either working for or against the image you are trying to sell.<\/p>\n So, you may be thinking, \u201cok that\u2019s nice and all, and I kind of agree, but seriously, why should I even care?\u00a0 So what if I am selling my \u201cideas\u201d or my \u201cpersonality\u201d or something else, it doesn\u2019t make a difference to my daily life.\u201d<\/p>\n And that would be where you are wrong. Do you know those kinds of people which seem to have everything go right for them?<\/p>\n Those people in which opportunity just seems to open its floodgates and rain on them pelting their heads with hailstones of success?<\/p>\n Guess what, most of those kinds of people happen to be excellent salesmen.<\/p>\n You see all those hundreds of sales calls that happen unconsciously every day of your life add up big over time.<\/strong><\/p>\n If you are consistently \u201cknocking it out of the park,\u201d you are going to make a big impact and have huge amounts of influence.<\/p>\n This \u201cinfluence,\u201d which is really what sales is all about, will permeate all areas of your life.<\/p>\n If you have a large amount of influence, people will tend to like your ideas and agree with what you say.\u00a0 They will want to follow you and they\u2019ll be buying into your personal brand and your message, whether it be \u201csave the whales\u201d or \u201cgive me a promotion.\u201d (Which is exactly why so many companies hire celebrities to represent their brand or product.)<\/p>\n If you lack influence, you can actually have the opposite effect and create a repulsion.<\/strong>\u00a0 Think about the worst salesman you ever met.\u00a0 Did he make you want to buy the products he was selling or did he actually turn you off from them and make you never want to buy those products?<\/p>\n It is the same with us, we can actually become repulsive to the point that we are working completely against ourselves.\u00a0 We can get in situations where the more we try to promote our ideas or our vision of reality, the further away we actually push others from it.<\/p>\n So the bottom line is that we all need to learn how to sell and be better salesman, because even if we aren\u2019t actively trying to sell something, we are still participating in the process of hundreds of sales transactions or more each day.<\/p>\n If we aren\u2019t doing something to help make those sales transactions a positive influence for our interests, we may be inadvertently making them a negative influence.<\/p>\n You can be doing everything else right, but if you are selling wrong, you could be spinning your wheels or even going in reverse.<\/p>\n Now obviously, I\u2019m not the best salesman I could possibly be, otherwise you\u2019d probably be reading this post on the New York Times or CNN.com and not on simpleprogrammer.com, so you shouldn\u2019t turn to me for sales advice.\u00a0 (I\u2019m just telling you that you need to develop the skill.)<\/p>\n But, I do have a few suggestions of where to get started.<\/p>\n First of all, a book that I always recommend over and over again that doesn\u2019t seem to have anything to do with sales, but in actuality has a lot to do with sales is \u201cHow To Win Friends And Influence People\u201d by Dale Carnegie<\/a>.<\/p>\n And second, the place that makes sense to me to look next is Amazon\u2019s Best Sellers in the Sales and Selling category.<\/a>\u00a0 (If you can\u2019t figure out why to check this list, you may need more help than I can provide.)<\/p>\n By the way, I am working on a top secret specifically to help programmers and IT people learn to promote and sell themselves to help them increase their opportunities.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n And before I let you go, let me sell you on my YouTube video for the week about getting \u201cpunched in the stomach.\u201d<\/p>\nYou\u2019re selling too<\/h2>\n
Why selling matters<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nEven if you are not trying to sell, you have to be good at it<\/h2>\n
YouTube video for the week<\/h2>\n