Nancy and the Seagulls

Nancy was an eight-year old student in the public school system in California (US) back in the 1960's.

One day, during art class, Nancy painted a picture. Considering her age the picture of a house and the setting sun were pretty good. Nancy was understandably pleased with her work.

However, the picture was unbalanced. Nancy had painted the house and the sun to the left-hand side of the canvas, and there was just blue sky on the right-hand side.

Nancy's art teacher observed the picture and said "Nancy, this is a lovely painting, but, it need something on this right-hand side." And with that, the teacher picked up a brush and painted a seagull in the upper right-hand corner of the picture.

Nancy was mortified! she quickly became very upset and began to cry.

Later that evening Nancy was still very upset. Her father asked her, "what's the trouble Nancy?"

Nancy showed her father the painting. He admired it and said enthusiastically, "this is very good, Nancy. Aren't you clever! I particularly love the seagull."

Nancy immediately burst into tears and ran off to her room.

After Nancy's father learned that the seagull was causing all this unhappiness, he complained to the art teacher, who in their defence, explained the reason for their actions and their professional credentials.

Getting nowhere with the teacher Nancy's father tried talking to the school principal, and got short shrift.

Eventually he decided to contact an attorney. A long, drawn out, trial followed, with many hours of testimony about freedom of expression, the role of educators, etc. etc.

Having listened to both sides, the judge finally turned to Nancy and asked, "Nancy, why were you so upset about the seagull?".

Nancy replied, "because I did not see it there."

Case closed! Decision found in Nancy's favour.

What's Nancy's story and the picture-bombing seagull have to do with selling?

Your prospects have a clear mental picture of their needs even before they meet you.

Every change or addition you make to their picture may cause the prospects to become uncomfortable, even unhappy. Just like Nancy did.

If it's necessary to make a change in a prospect's mental picture, you would be well advised to help the prospect "discover" the need for the change.

You might believe that a brilliant feature or benefit of your product or service is guaranteed to help you close a sale.

But, that will only become true, if your prospect knows about that feature or benefit, and can already see that it fits their picture.

It is a mistake to paint seagulls in your prospect's picture.

Instead of 'painting seagulls', we suggest you "dummy up."

Ask a few more questions.

Questions that are designed to find out if your prospect would like a 'seagull' 'painted' in their picture.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/davidwdavies_sandlertraining-sandlerworks-sandler-activity-6801099486694387712-OGuc