How to Use Sales Skills in Your Classroom
As a teacher, you learn A LOT of different things in your undergraduate and graduate programs.
You learn how to create lesson plans, how to manage your classroom, how to assess and evaluate students, child and human development and behavior, all about the basic school subjects, the list goes on.
But the one thing that neither of your degrees really prepares you for is how to STAND OUT as a teacher.
I mean after all, there are about 3 MILLION teachers in the world and they all generally receive the same degree, so how exactly can you make sure that you’re setting yourself apart from the rest to really shine for your students and be someone that they remember forever?
Short answer? SALES. SKILLS.
I know what you might be thinking… sales skills?! How does that connect to teaching at all??
And I get it! When you think of sales you probably think of car salesmen, insurance, real estate, etc. And there’s a chance you’ve had a bad experience with one or all of the above, so thinking about sales as a skill you need for teaching might feel odd.
Here at Green and Growing, we used to think this, too… until we experienced the transformation first hand!
Before we get into that transformation specifically and show you how you can experience this life change too, let’s talk about what teaching typically looks like…
Each year you’re introduced to a new group of 20-25 students and you never know what you’re going to get.
Maybe you fear that they’ll be a wild bunch. Or maybe you hope and wish that you don’t get that one kid that has had a bad reputation since Kindergarten. Or maybe you try your hardest to come up with new classroom management strategies that will keep your students calm and focused throughout the school year.
You start the first day of school with high hopes and at first things are looking up! But a few weeks in, you lose control and it seems like no matter what you do, you can’t reign your students in.
They aren’t listening. Work isn’t getting done. You feel defeated and drained at the end of each school day. And your confidence is plummeting.
That scenario ⤴️ is the exact opposite of what we want for you friend, which is why we’re pumped to tell you that there is a way you can have ultimate control over your classroom, create an environment where students are excited to learn AND earn their respect REGARDLESS of their “bad reputation” or wild tendencies.
When you have sales skills as a teacher, a few things happen:
you are able to guide your students into making their decisions versus coming across as the “because I said so” authority
you can help your students see the bigger picture of the work they’re doing instead of them viewing school as something they “just have to do”
you can effectively communicate with your students AND their parents and feel confident doing so
Here’s why all of this is possible ⬇️
Sales is simply guiding someone into a favorable decision for THEM.
Sales is effective communication.
Sales is serving.
Sales skills are life skills.
Both, Mrs. Wedger and myself, experienced a complete 180 in our life AND in our classroom when we learned and implemented sales skills.
I (Mrs. Nerswick) specifically went from being wishy washy about myself as a leader in agriculture education to leading teams within my school, state and country with my confidence in sales skills.
And Mrs. Wedger went from teaching lessons that felt lack luster to creating lessons that excited both her and her students!
Overall, having sales skills allows you to show up as the confident teacher that deeply cares about your students' outcomes.
You’re not only able to manage your classroom more effectively, but you can also create true leadership opportunities for your students that instills lasting confidence in them, which ultimately creates a legacy for you as a teacher.
You quickly become the teacher that students fight to have and you become someone that people look up to.
So, you may be wondering how you can learn these skills exactly…
We encourage you to get plugged in with the GUIDE Culture community and learn from the same people we learned from.
You can listen to their weekly podcast episodes, join the sales training that we both took and dive into personal and professional development books that teach the principles that make up sales as a whole.
Additionally, we’ve previously recorded a few of our own podcast episodes that relate sales skills and principles to teaching as a whole:
Here’s to becoming that stand out teacher that you were created to be, friend 🎉
The Green & Growing Fam 💚