Introduction
I guess that most of us have a pretty clear idea of what selling is. After all, once we reach our adult years, most of us have been ‘sold to’ dozens of times already and as we go through life, it’s going to happen again and again, probably with ever increasing frequency.
But familiarity breeds contempt as they say, so let me ask you a question.
Have you ever really sat down and thought exactly what selling is, or have you searched the net for ideas and definitions of exactly what selling is all about?
I ask because as an experiment for this book, I did search the net for ideas and concepts about selling and was quite frankly amazed at the diversification and range of opinions and ideas of what selling really is.
From straightforward dictionary definitions – ‘the exchange of goods for an agreed sum of money’ (from Princeton WordNet) – to some far more detailed and esoteric descriptions, it’s clear that selling means many different things to different people.
And whilst research of this nature might all seem a bit like time being wasted (we all know what selling is, so why bother investigating it?), I disagree for a couple for reasons that are extremely relevant to you if you are trying to sell online.
Firstly, selling online is not the same as selling offline. Whilst the online and offline business worlds have lots in common – far more in fact than many online marketers would have you believe – selling on the internet and in the local high street or shopping mall is not the same.
