Sales Motivation | The Entrepreneur’s Doctor Tribe Talks | Dr Behrooz Behbod

How do you feel about sales? Is there a way to fall in love with selling so that you can grow your business?

As a health professional, I used to hate selling… until I had a perspective shift.

So today I want to share 3 steps I’ve found to help me feel better about selling, so that my ideal clients actually take me up on my offer of helping them create and grow their health startup or business.

Welcome to The Entrepreneur’s Doctor, where I’m here to help you, the Entrepreneur, create a healthier, happier world through your ventures.

Today is a very special day. A little over a year ago, started my small podcast with just a very small audience. Now I’m seeing a growing movement of fellow changemakers interested in health innovation & entrepreneurship.

Today is the first episode where we have members of the new Health & Care Tribe here with me today in the audience. So after each 10-min Tribe Talk, we’ll open up for a group discussion. If you’d like to join us in the studio, suggest topics for future episodes, or apply to speak / pitch, simply go to entrepreneurs.doctor/tribe

So let’s get started with today’s topic. I used to hate selling — plus I was never good at it either. My focus is always on ensuring I deliver the best possible care for a patient or community. When I first branched out into working at my own clinic 18 years ago, I refused to be in the room where the payments were collected. I delegated that to the front desk. I simply didn’t want the financial transaction to cloud my relationship with my patients.

However, sales is not just about money. Every day, you’ll have to sell, whether it be pitching your idea to an investor or customer, or you’re selling your experience to get new job or contract, or whether you’re trying to pitch a healthy lifestyle to your patients.

Fast forward to a year or so ago, when I had a perspective shift. As soon as I learned these 3 steps, I suddenly realised that selling is the way that I’ll achieve my professional & personal missions:

Professionally: helping fellow Changemakers to create a healthier, happier world.

Personally: Be able to take control of my work and life, essentially own the day, doing the type of work that I love, being free to work from anywhere, at any time, and with any one.

So here are the 3 steps:

Step 1: Think of selling as a service.

As a health professional, I feel honoured to have the opportunity to serve and help solve problems holding us communities back from better health. So if you truly have something of value to offer, that will help solve problems, then you’re actually doing a disservice if you don’t make the offer.

Step 2: Sell what you love & believe in.

This is important, otherwise you won’t convince anyone to pull out their card and pay you. Of course, you’ve got to have some evidence that what you’re selling actually works!

So there’s both passion & confidence in what you offer. You’ve got to believe in what you’re offering, to the extent that you’ll feel like they’re missing out if they don’t buy.

Step 3: Fall in love with your target audience.

Once you have empathy for your customer, you’ll appreciate their problems, needs, and desires. You’ll then do anything possible to create and offer them solutions that actually help them.

Whenever we evaluate a business opportunity, we need to assess demand. One way is to estimate how large the market size is; how many people have this problem, and how many want our solution? The other way is to understand specifically what they want.

So you may have heard about this before, where you build a customer persona or avatar; giving a name to your ideal customer, and describing their characteristics.

Question is, do you truly have a deep knowledge about your ideal customer? More importantly, are you thinking of them every time you make a decision in your business?

This includes:

• Their problems, fears, concerns, beliefs, attitudes, dreams and ambitions.
• What have they tried to solve their problems?
• What’s worked?
• How do they make their decisions to buy?
• What’s stopping them from buying?
• What are they expecting?
• What will help them want to tell everyone about your solution?

Let’s take an example of who I serve at The Entrepreneur’s Doctor. My vision is a healthier, happier world through innovation & entrepreneurship. I do this by helping two types of changemakers:

• One is someone who has felt a personal problem with their health, or has seen a problem when caring for a loved one, such that they are inspired to create a solution and build a startup or business around it. They may be from any professional background. For example, this could be a serial entrepreneur wanting to learn about the problems in the health sector, to help them come up with startup ideas. Alternatively, it could be someone new to entrepreneurship, looking to also learn basic business concepts and skills.
• The other is someone like me, a fellow health professional who shares my mission of improving health through innovation and entrepreneurship. They too are looking to create a business to offer their knowledge and experience to innovative startups & scaleups. This could be as a Chief Health or Medical Officer, but also as a consultant, advisor, mentor, coach, or teacher. However, they may also be considering this move because they’re feeling burnout, tired of the long clinical hours, and simply want better work-life balance, with freedom to choose where, when, and how they work, while still being of service. Meanwhile, some don’t want to leave clinical practice entirely, and are looking for a way to balance both.

That’s why I created the Startup Therapy Accelerator. As the world’s first accelerator to democratise health entrepreneurship, we are:

• Free to join.
• You don’t need to give away any equity.
• Plus it is lifelong, not ending after a few short months.

The Accelerator includes:

• Health & Care Tribe: weekly live and interactive talks & discussion about health sector needs, analysis of startup ideas from the latest research & innovation, business 101 for new founders and business owners, startup pitches, as well as tips for better Entrepreneur success in life, health, and work.
• Virtual Summit: learn from a terrific line-up of international speakers & panelists, including subject matter experts and Health Entrepreneurs at various stages of their own journey.
• Global Community: 24/7 online platform to connect with a growing rolodex of changemakers and potential partners, each passionate about a healthier, happier world through innovation & entrepreneurship.
• Startup Therapy Checklist: The checklist every Health Entrepreneur needs.

If any of this resonates with you, then we belong to the same tribe.

Come join us. I’m looking forward to personally seeing you on the inside.

So, let me know in the comments: what are you going to do to feel better about selling something that truly helps create a healthier, happier world?

Watch the Tribe Talk:

DISCLAIMER: The content is provided for information only and is not intended as a substitute for medical or any other professional advice. The content is not necessarily representative of any organisations affiliated with Dr Behrooz Behbod. The views or opinions expressed by guests are not necessarily shared by Dr Behrooz Behbod.