What Modern Marketing Can Learn From Old-School Sales

Continual development, improved techniques, newer platforms, different language, higher speed, more requirements, greater revenue — that’s the world of sales as we know it. Sales now is very different from how our fathers and grandfathers sold; we’re not using the door-to-door technique any longer, we don’t rely on strong talk anymore, and what TV used to be to advertisers 30 years ago, Instagram and YouTube are to us now. But the old-school sales techniques shouldn’t all be thrown into one bag and labeled as out-of-date. As intimidating and as some of them were, others have withstood the test of time. Many of those salesmen of yesteryear have refined the basic ideas and techniques of selling in ways that we should learn to incorporate in our daily practice. Our whole lives revolve around selling, whether we realize it or not: we sell our skills, our ideas, our time, our knowledge and experience — only the price and platform varies. Really understanding the old, proven methods of selling means really understanding life. And learning to use them now, in 2021, means we’ve done just that. Here are a few to think about:

FITD Approach

Foot in the door essentially means getting a prospect to agree to a few small requests in the lead up to closing the whole deal. Agreeing to smaller things makes the prospect much more likely to agree to something bigger later on. It’s a simple technique to slowly build the relationship that develops a bond between the potential buyer and seller You can start by asking for their e-mail address to send a newsletter. The next request can be a LinkedIn connection or a Facebook like. After that, offer them a free e-book download or invite them to join a webinar. And if they respond positively, you’re halfway there.

DITF Approach

In other words, the “door in the face” method. This approach aims to get the proverbial door slammed in your face after making a ridiculous proposal — only to open it again with something more realistic that will be hard for them to refuse. Specifically, your first offer is something huge that you know your prospect won’t be even remotely interested in. Then, if you follow up with the normal offer, it looks advantageous compared to the original one, and the prospect will be much more likely to accept, or at least give it more thought. It’s easy to use this approach online. If you’re offering a service, your first e-mail offer can be a five-year-long subscription for a significant amount. Not interested? No problem —how about a two-week free trial? If they say yes, you can slowly move to the FITD method.

The 80/20 Rule

If you’re not familiar with the 80/20 principle, it basically means that 20% of your customers produce 80% of your sales. Following this rule is not an easy habit to build, because it forces you to concentrate only on the few hottest prospects while ignoring the tepid majority. We’re trained to try to please everyone, and are tempted to work every lead that comes our way, but that often results in wasted time and energy. Start by going through your customer list and look for the people who purchased most recently, most frequently, and those who spent the most money. Pay close attention to the geography — where do most of your customers come from? Find out what your best customers have in common, and then begin incorporating it into your online advertising. Don’t be afraid to let problematic customers go. I know, the customer is king, but set that aside. It's one of the phrases that only holds us back.

The Finiteness Approach

Also called the scarcity method, the finiteness approach is one of the oldest and most effective techniques out there. Limited availability, time-sensitive offers, today-only discounts, last-minute deals, etc. Putting a time frame on anything will motivate prospects to respond. They see that unless they decide soon, they may never get such a great deal again. In many cases, this makes the decision process (and the sales process) considerably easier. The scarcity approach is fueled by the common fear of missing out (FOMO in modern parlance) — the same construct that makes us check our Facebook feed ten times an hour or open our work e-mail at 11PM. Offer a limited space on your webinar, make deals that will only last through the week. Give the prospects a unique chance that they just won’t want to miss out on.

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There is a lot we can learn from these old techniques. Keep them in mind when you’re working with prospects and let me know if you’ve found any novel applications.

If you’d like to talk more about old-school sales methods, or if there’s another matter I can be of assistance with, please reach out. I’m always happy to set aside time to connect.