This sets you apart

I came across a nice post about selling your services/skills to clients or peers. Although it was mainly meant to convey attributes of a great sales person in regard to UX Design, the list summarizes atttributes and skills more broadly. Speaking in front of an audience is an aspect of selling yourself, your idea or business and its actually more scary for people than death itself.

Here it comes:

• Are passionate about what they are selling - they love the subject matter and when they talk about it, you feel embraced by their energy. You want to be around them.
• Are informed and current - they are people who are reading up on the latest and greatest and like to share their knowledge.
• Communicate clearly - they know how to get to the heart or sweet spot of what they are selling so people can understand it. They avoid jargon.
• Are honest - they don’t make stuff up and if they don’t know the answer to a question, they say “I don’t know”. But they do find out and its their honesty that helps them form stronger relationships with the people they meet.
• Are focused - they stick to a few ideas or concepts and find ways to explain these clearly to people they meet.
• Have real goals - these may be sales goals i.e how much stuff they want to sell, but may also be larger goals that pertain to growing a community of interest, bringing people together, getting themselves and people around them motivated to do more.
• Are trustworthy - people trust them and have networks of trust. So when they introduce people to other people in their network, there is an inherent trust and value in those connections.
• Are connected - they know people who can help other people. They value and protect their network. They do not network for the sake of networking, handing out hundreds of business cards. Nor do they grow their network for the sake of growing their network.
• Go beyond and reach out - they go beyond comfort zones, their own communities, reach out and think about things holistically.
• Are open source - they don’t shut down ideas or people. They are open to ideas to help inform their own ideas. They create environments where people feel comfortable to express their needs, concerns, excitement towards something more than themselves.
• Are storytellers - they like to tell stories to help make people understand concepts towards their sales goals. They engage.
• Know when to speak and when to shut up - they know when to present a story and when to listen and learn. Yes, there are times when you don’t have to be the one shouting the loudest in the room.
• Tweak and learn (repeat) - they know how to pilot their story and continually improve it along the way. They know the way you sell now will probably change in the next year. The tools you use to tell a story will probably also change as the business and social landscape changes too.
• Are human - they are able to be themselves and make others feel comfortable too. They are able to make fun of themselves and also know that its OK to make mistakes. That its OK to fail.

For more details, esp interesting for designers, please see the post of Daniel Szuc