If you’re in business, you’re in sales. They say that nothing happens unless someone sells something. Even if you have no business development angle to your role, you’re selling yourself. You’re selling your arguments, your values, your opinions, your advice, your excuses, your ideas and your thoughts.

If you want to rise to the top of almost any profession these days, it will really you’re your cause to be good a selling. It’s hard to make partner in a professional firm, take up positions of responsibility in the bank or move up the ranks in an organisation just by being good at what you do. You must develop that dimension to your offering where you’re bringing in business and creating opportunities.

It will help you to be a profit centre more than a cost centre. You may not be a natural seller. But you can be more persuasive. You can be more ‘clued in’ to what makes people buy. You can make an effort to learn more about sales. You can understand more about why emotions make people buy and cold-hearted logic and common sense are what they use to justify afterwards.

After two years selling private medical insurance for a major healthcare company, I knew I wasn’t a natural sales person. And I knew that wouldn’t change. So I learned to be better than I was at what I could, and that’s when I became successful. You have to be absolutely brilliant to make it merely by being good at what you do.

Just making yourself 10% better at selling takes the pressure off being brilliant all the time. Never forget you’re in sales!

All of my work is dedicated to helping people become famous. In other words, you get the deal. People come to you first, above and beyond all of my other choices. My message to you today:

Make your reputation a key theme for you this year. Think about how you can enhance your good name and raise your profile in three key areas:

1. Your existing customers and clients. Hang onto them so they stay loyal and continue buying. People tend to switch advisers providers because of price, service and relationship issues. If your relationship is poor, they'll easily be wooed away. Keep close, stay deep and keep 'front of mind'.
2. Your target customers and clients. Your target market need to know who you are. What are you doing to break into their thinking? More importantly, what are you doing to stay there? Fame can be fleeting. You need yours to endure!
3. Your peers and your industry. Respect from peers (and envy from competitors) is healthy, and keeps you accountable for improving yourself. If you are a stranger to your industry, and your competitors,  your influence and your opportunities will be limited long-term.

Define what fame means for you. Decide what being famous will do for your reputation, your business and your opportunities. Determine the price you will need to pay for it. And resolve to pay that price. That way you'll definitely become the 'go to' professional for what you do!

From your perspective, whether 'profits' in the above title means more money, more influence, more respect, more attention or more customers and clients, there is a basic formula you must follow. It's the foundation of all my relationship marketing work:

It's unlikely someone is going to come to you or call you up and say 'Hey, you don't know me but here's a six figure sum - can I retain you for a few months?' More likely, you'll have courted them over time to the point where you've built the relationship, uncovered the need, made the pitch and won the business. 

Great questions will usually bring you great conversations. And that almost always leads to great relationships. Once you have those, it's inevitable you'll create great opportunities, which ultimately leads to great business!

It's a long term thing, not a one night stand. And every step readies you for the one after it. So get out there and ask some questions - you don't know where it might lead! If you want the very best resource with over 300 of the best questions you can ask, check out the Great Questions Bible!