GUEST COLUMN:
Melissa Curran
Founder
The Modern Mind Group
When I first started out in sales at the age of 17, phoning businesses for a local newspaper in Swansea, I didn’t know that the skills I was building would become the foundations of everything I do today.
I just knew that I liked talking to people, understanding what made them tick, and finding ways to help them solve problems. What I didn’t realise back then is that this approach – focused on people, not products – is still the most powerful route to sales success.
Now, as founder of The Modern Mind Group, a people and performance consultancy, I’m often brought in to help business owners and their teams grow their confidence and their sales. And the one thing I say time and time again is this: sales isn’t about selling. It’s about solving.
If you start from the premise that your product or service exists to solve a problem for your customer, everything shifts. You’re no longer trying to push something on to someone. You’re working with them, you’re understanding their needs, and you’re guiding them towards a solution that will genuinely help. That takes more than a script or a pitch. It takes empathy, curiosity and connection.
This is why I’m looking forward to speaking at the FSB South Wales Small Business Conference in Swansea in September. The theme I’ll be exploring is unlocking your sales potential, particularly in the current climate where many businesses are looking for practical, affordable ways to grow.
Underpinning all of this is the importance of relationships. You can have the best product in the world, but if people don’t trust you or feel connected to you, you’ll struggle to get off the ground.
That’s where networks come in. And I don’t just mean turning up to one event and hoping for quick wins. The value of something like the FSB comes from the ongoing connections – the people you get to know over time, the support you feel around you, and the familiar faces who understand the challenges of running a small business because they’re in it too. Many of my clients haven’t come directly from networking events, but the knowledge, energy and community I’ve gained through them has been invaluable.
Networking, like sales, is a long game. It’s not about selling to the room – it’s about being part of something. The more you show up as yourself, the more trust you build, and the more confident you become in presenting what you offer.
That confidence doesn’t always come naturally. Many people feel nervous about sales, and understandably so. It’s vulnerable putting yourself out there. But I work with people to help them move through that fear, to focus on their strengths and their purpose, and to take ownership of how they present themselves. It’s not about becoming someone else; it’s about becoming more of yourself.
That’s something that no artificial intelligence can replicate. Yes, AI has a role to play. It can speed up processes or draft copy – even a sales pitch – but I never let it do the connecting for me. We’ve all had those messages that feel slightly off, where the tone doesn’t quite fit, and we know instinctively that it wasn’t written by the person it claims to be from. People notice. And they step back.
While I welcome the ways AI can support efficiency, I believe strongly that emotional intelligence will not be artificial intelligence anytime soon. Sales still rely on human connection. On being present. On listening, responding and adapting in the moment. That’s why I believe: we are emotioneering human performance, not engineering it!
Throughout my career, which has seen me sell everything from those newspaper ads to personal fitness, to taking everything I’d learned into leading major performance consultancy projects around the world, what’s stayed consistent is my passion for people. The industries have changed, but the fundamentals haven’t. The best salespeople I know are the ones who genuinely care. Who listen well. Who want to help.
Sales will always be about people. And people thrive when they feel seen, heard and understood. That’s something no automation can replace.
Melissa Curran will be speaking at the FSB South Wales Small Business Conference 2025, being held in partnership with Business News Wales in Swansea on Wednesday, September 3. For more information and to book a free ticket visit the event page: https://events.fsb.org.uk/en/8d2bI2X7/fsb-south-wales-small-business-conference-2025-3aJ8P2cID/overview
