Four Principles of Selling

Did I hear you say you’re not really a salesperson?

           I said that — for years. In the strictest sense of the term, I’d never sold anything in my life.

           Then I realized I’d had job interviews, during which my first task was to sell the would-be employer on my skills and promise and personality. I’d read papers I’d written, or made presentations, to audiences. My task in this case was to sell the audience on the ideas I was presenting because I was convinced they were true. I’ve had abundant one-on-one dealings with others where I had to convince them it was worth their time and effort to assist me on some project, whether for pay or not, or that I could assist them.

           We all sell, even if we’re not professional salespeople in the formal sense. Whether we truly want to or not.

           Excluding collectibles on sites like eBay which usually sell themselves, selling involves persuasion. That makes studying the science of persuasion worthwhile. There are some good books on the subject, such as Robert Cialdini’s Influence; Science and Practice (several editions; I use the 4th, published in 2001).

           At AWAI, copywriters have brought together, in an easy-to-understand summation, three principles of selling. I’ve added a fourth, which I think is implied in one way or another in the first three. These are truisms if we think about it.

           The first: people like to buy, but they don’t like to be sold.

           The second: people buy primarily on emotion.

           The third: people need to rationalize their emotional buying decisions with logic.

           A fourth I’ve added: people need to trust the person they are buying from, at least somewhat.  

           Let’s take a look at each one.

           The first involves what psychologists call locus of control. Who makes the buying decision, buyer or seller? Well, hopefully it’s the buyer, who may have seen something he likes or that he thinks will solve some problem he has. The locus of control is with him. But if he thinks he’s being sold, he’s likely to sheer off. Buyers need to believe the buying decision is theirs, not the vendor’s, and this is as it should be.

           The vendor has the job of convincing the buyer that the product or service will solve a problem, and do so spectacularly. The vendor isn’t simply selling a product or service; he may be selling a vision of things, maybe a lifestyle, something that will transform the buyer’s life for the better! That may seem a bit over the top, but it happens!

           Buying decisions are emotional, at the very least. It’s sometimes said that two emotions motivate buying: fear and greed. This is too cynical. Things are more complicated. The range of buying emotions is far richer. People buy for all sorts of reasons, including but hardly limited to those. They buy for pleasure, out of curiosity, to achieve some larger goal they have, or just to solve some immediate problem. They listen to a sales argument with this kind of question running through their minds: how will this benefit me? They buy on benefits, that is, not features. They’ll buy a condo, for example, because it offers a fantastic view of the ocean, not because it has 140 square meters of floor space.

          But buyers won’t rely just on emotion. They’ll need reasons. Otherwise, they’ll hesitate and then not buy. Or if they’ve bought, buyer’s remorse easily kicks in. They may decide curiosity wasn’t enough.

Hence the need for evidence this product or service really will solve their problems, that it really will help them achieve some goal, that it really will transform their lives. Expert recommendations are good in a lot of areas, but they often aren’t enough. Testimonials by satisfied customers may be invaluable in sales presentations. They tell the buyer that ordinary people just like them bought this product and were more than satisfied!

Bottom line: buyer’s need reasons, and they need reasons convincing to them, not just the seller, and for the long term. Additional reasons to buy include guarantees of satisfaction: if they know can get their money back and there’s a clearly stated procedure for doing so, the vendor can truthfully tell them they have nothing to lose by giving this widget a try.

Those are the three principles AWAI supplies in their flagship program on how to write compelling sales letters. I think we ought to consider a fourth.

Everyone reading has doubtless heard of the Hippocratic Oath: at first, do no harm. This applies to more than medicine. In our arena, it advises us not to try and sell something we aren’t convinced will solve a problem, satisfy a need, or improve a life. Nothing compels the salesperson to involve himself / herself with just anything that’s out there, and yes, there are all sorts of lousy or useless products out there, not to mention hucksters looking to make a few fast bucks.

Every one of us has had a few bad experiences, often with stuff that didn’t work as advertised, or last more than a few weeks, and so we often approach new products or services suspiciously. And some of us have encountered a huckster or two.

That there are hucksters out there hurts us all, but hucksters are part of life. The suspicion that one is a huckster can be gotten around by working to build relationships of trust, based on ethics, because we want relationships that will last. The best way is through the sort of initial communication by which the seller presents himself (or herself) as a person just like the buyer, empathizing, sincerely interested in helping the buyer solve a problem. And then showing willingness to stick around instead of disappearing after the sale is made. Thus the usefulness of guarantees, follow-up communication, and more.

Such ways of doing things may keep satisfied customers coming back. “Hey,” they might say, “I can trust this guy. He did right by me before.” If you’re the salesperson they’re talking about, you’ve got the sale!

Just keep up the track record. Build a reputation that you can be trusted, and your reputation will spread.

There we having it:: four principles behind selling that are knowledgeable, forthright, and honest. Can we do it? What’s stopping us?