How To Sell "This Pen" To ANYONE

"Sell me this pen" is known for two key reasons.....

One it was in the film "Wolf of Wall Street" with Leonardo DiCaprio in which he played famed salesman Jordan Belfort. In one of the standout scenes he challenges a group of colleagues to sell him the pen to prove a point.

The 2nd reason you will know it is because if you've ever interviewed for a sales job there is a high chance the interviewer asked you that exact question! Many recruiters and sales managers sit in interviews asking applicants to "sell them this pen".

Why do people ask it?

The purpose utlimately to see how you sell and what you see selling as. It tests how you react on the spot with no preparation to get a feel for how you would sell in real life. A lot of hiring managers and sales managers believe it will help them know whether you can sell or not, although most of time it doesn't matter how you respond they will often just accept your answer and move on.

What is the most common response?

Most people/sales people will respond by listing made up features and benefits to the pen to make it sound so appealing that you want it.

Suddenly the pen becomes THE MOST AMAZING pen in the world that does everything and will solve all your problems.

Now the reality is, that actually IS THE WAY to sell "this pen" to ANYONE!

If you really want to sell the pen to anyone ultimately you WILL have to lie. You will have to make up features and benefits and just talk about how amazing the pen apparently is. Why? Because not everyone wants or needs a pen, so if you want to sell them one you have to make up a way to do it.

Is this right though?

In the film that's exactly what most of his friends do, they start reeling off features and benefits to which Jordan swiftly moves on knowing this ISN'T the right way to answer.

The reality is you CAN'T sell everything to everyone, that's not the way successful sales people work and it's not the way people want to be sold too.

Whilst this may be the only way you can possibly sell the pen to ANYONE the reality would be you wouldn't actually win the sale. The ability to sell anything to anyone is only another way of saying you can "talk the talk", it doesn't win sales. Just because you can reel of benefits and talk really confidently about something isn't the only thing you need to sell and will not work on it's own as a strategy.

You shouldn't want to sell to anyone and everyone, you should want to find people who are more likely to actually buy because they do want or need your product.

How SHOULD you sell the pen?

You start by asking your customer (or interviewer) questions. What pen do they currently use? What do they use it for? How often do they use it? What do they like about their current pen? What don't they like about their current pen? When do they need a pen for? What have the got coming up that requires a pen?

Once you've got to know their situation, built rapport and identified whether there is an opportunity to sell the pen you can then start talking about how your pen could solve a problem for them.

In the film the guy takes the pen, asks Jordan to write his name down to which he replies "I don't have a pen", he then boasts "You see, supply and demand"!

A slightly more entertaining way to sell the pen, but again perhaps not a realistic way of winning sales in real life! The principle that Jordan Belfort does identify is the need to create urgency, the need to find and build the problem that your product can solve.

Here is a REAL example of how this works.....

Let's say that I asked you to sell ME this pen....

You would hopefully ask me the questions I mentioned earlier in this blog.

You'd find out by doing so that I write a lot, I draw doodles as part of my online social content and I'm often losing pens to friends and family (which really does get on my nerves as I can never easily find a pen when I need one!).

You could then demonstrate how good this pen in is, perhaps draw a little doodle yourself but flatter me by saying it's probably not as good as mine and you could then offer a bit of advice and suggest I name this my work doodle pen to put off anyone from taking it.

Whilst this certainly won't help you sell to EVERYONE, you'll stand a much higher chance of selling to me, and in this situation I'm your buyer. If you were to just list me features and benefits, I'm unlikely to buy.

I hope this helps! I have no doubt if you're working in sales you will be asked this at some point this year! Hopefully this blog will make you think twice about how you answer.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog! If you enjoyed this post please click LIKE and click SHARE to share it with your network. Please also take time to read some of my other recent posts.

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The 10 Films You MUST Watch If You Work In Sales!

About the author: 

Daniel Disney is the UK's leading sales writer and social selling expert and is alsp the Founder and Owner of The Daily Sales. With over 180 sales blogs written over the last couple of years read by millions, Daniel has become a source of knowledge, motivation and inspiration for sales people all across the world.

Daniel is now delivering his world class Social Selling Masterclass, the first one is running in Portsmouth on Friday 9th March and tickets can be booked here. Let me show you how you could sell the pen on social media!

If you'd like to know dates for future locations or to enquire about me coming in to deliver this for your team or company contact [email protected].