When you’re selling, your prospects are not just buying your offering – they’re buying you. If they don’t have complete faith in your ability to execute the project successfully, they’re not going to buy (even if your offering is very compelling). You can give yourself a leg up on the competition by knowing what sets you as a sales professional apart from everyone else. What are your strengths? What makes you unique?
In the book, How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination, Sally Hogshead proposes that the key to selling yourself is knowing yourself. Your unique strengths have the potential to fascinate your prospects and shield you against competition. This book provides the tools to help you discover your “fascination advantages,” which she breaks down into seven groups: “Innovation, Passion, Power, Prestige, Trust, Mystique, and Being Alert.” If you’re interested in learning how to effectively convey your own value and “fascinate” your prospects, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book.
Here’s a summary from Amazon Books:
“Sally Hogshead believes the greatest value you can add is to become more of yourself.
“Hogshead rose to the top of the advertising profession in her early 20s, writing ads that fascinated millions of consumers. Over the course of her ad career, Sally won hundreds of awards for creativity, copywriting, and branding, and was one of the most awarded advertising copywriters right from start of her career, including almost every major international advertising award.
“She frequently appears in national media including NBC's Today Show and the New York Times. Hogshead was recently inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame, the industry's highest award for professional excellence. Her advertising work hangs in the Smithsonian Museum of American History.
“The science of fascination is based on Hogshead's decade of research with 250,000 participants, including dozens of Fortune 500 teams, hundreds of small businesses, and over a thousand C-level executives.”
