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The Seller Internship

I bought a sold- out event ticket at double its retail price on Carousell, and was trying (hard) to sell it at what I buy at. It was tough. It's still on sale.


After being a corporate warrior for nine years, there is a skill that is totally lacking in me --- selling. You see, my corporate job mainly requires me to share technical know-how. My selling point is my technical know- how, which my clients have already purchased from my company. I do not sell anything that requires people to fork out their money. My company has a marketing and business development group to oversee this. Direct selling is definitely not what I get to do at work. In my life, there are occasions where I need to be involved in these, but the chances are rare. I spend most of my time as a consumer. 

When I try to sell some items, I realize that I tend to be on the receiving end. On reflection, there are a number of skills that I lack, and these are ones I identify:

1. Be street smart
I tend to be very honest and frank. While I strongly believe in being honest, being frank is not required. For instance, if I am selling a house, my thoughts are one should tell the owner there are some defects here, it's facing the west sun, but need not tell them that I am selling it urgently because of xyz reasons. The latter is frank and the former is honesty.

Selling also makes you learn to protect yourself, and see problematic people (buyers). You tend to see the most nasty sight of people when they need to part with their money or has something to do with money. You learn to write contracts/ agreements, word your words, look for help in such a way that it will protect your own rights.

2. Persuasive
Being street smart protects you, but being persuasive will teach people to be convinced of your point of view .With that, you need to know the selling point of what your product/ services and convince your buyer that these selling points exactly meet their needs.

3. Know the market
To get a good price, knowing how the market works, what sells, and how much they should be sold for would be important. An example for me was not knowing the market, and as such I bought an event ticket at twice its original price (without bargaining). And when I try to sell at this price, it's tough.

4. Cater to the buyer
Sing the song of the potential buyer. Only when you can sing the song of the buyer (resonate with the buyer) then will they stop to see what you offer.

Identifying these skills is useless unless I am going to act on them. Well, the most common thing that most will advice is to sign up for courses to learn the skills. But having utilized fully my skillsfuture fund, I am not going to pay a teaching organization to learn how to sell. That will bring me back to the consumer front. Going for lessons to learn how to sell is not going to make you be a good seller without practice.

I'm so fortunate to be living in the internet age, and am able to practice how to sell without digging deep into my pocket to open a physical store.

The potential buyers shall be my teacher. Let the internship begins!

Cheers.











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