A professional salesperson can sell widgets all day long. With product knowledge and a keen interest in helping buyers make good choices, the salesperson can guide buyers through the selling process to solve specific problems. But when it comes to selling himself or herself, some salespeople choke up. Others oversell. What's the problem?

The problem is that it's easy to be objective about objects, but when you describe yourself, you are the subject and the object. A salesperson must be objective even when he or she is the subject. That's not an easy task for most people. It's a necessity for professional salespeople.

Know Yourself

Know thyself. This ancient aphorism suggests introspection or self-observation. It's an attempt to consider and reflect on your thoughts and feelings. Good advice.

However, you don't need to go that deep to become a better self-seller. Instead, you can consider yourself as you would a product that provides a service or benefit. You can be more objective. That task is easier than searching your soul, but it still isn't as easy as analyzing a widget. You are an intricate being that has qualities unknown in widgets: emotions. Understanding yourself as a salesperson requires that you analyze your skills and your goals.

Know Your Skills

If you haven't done so already, begin writing your professional sales resume. Consider what you have learned about sales from your reading and your experience. No one will read this version of your resume, so be as thorough as possible while still being objective.

Include on your personal resume knowledge, training, and experience that contributes to your selling skills. Consider the variety of your sales experiences as well as the types of products or services that you have sold. State facts in measurable terms. Write them down.

Think of yourself as a product. What are your features? What are the benefits of those features? What types of problems can your product (you) solve for others (your customers)? Include the features and benefits you have offered in prior selling or sales-related jobs. To know yourself objectively, you must know the extent and value of your skills.

Know Your Goals

Define and establish your long- and short-term sales goals and your project goals. These goals, in part, help define you objectively. They are measurable indicators of what is important to your sales career and how you go about the process of success.

Your priorities, too, specify objective measurements of your sales goals and assets. By placing a high priority on Golden Rule Selling, you identify what is important to you and what you are striving to achieve in your professional life. Your desire is to sell as you want to be sold.

Knowing your goals also means analyzing them. How will you know if you've reached a goal if you don't use measurements? Your measurement and analysis of goals specifies who you are as a professional salesperson. Include met goals in your resume.

Be Your Friend

Some friends are subjective, looking at you in the light of their emotions. Everyone needs subjective friends; however, you also need objective ones. These are the types of friends that can be most helpful as you attempt to understand yourself and your qualities more objectively. Ask them for their opinions of you as a salesperson, a problem solver. Ask them why they believe so.

If you don't have an objective friend to help you understand this side of yourself, be your own objective friend. Attempt to remove emotions from your judgment as you consider your role as a professional salesperson. List your attributes in your self-resume. To sell yourself objectively you must first understand yourself impartially.