Would You Sell Ice to an Eskimo?
Daniel Disney
CEO @ The Daily Sales (LinkedIn's BIGGEST Sales Community) LinkedIn Influencer (Over 1 Million Followers) - Award Winning Keynote & SKO Speaker - 4 X Best Selling Author - Advisor & Investor - No.1 Social Selling Trainer
If you're amazing at sales you can apparently sell ice to an Eskimo! This obviously refers to the ability to sell something to someone who doesn't need it. An Eskimo is surrounded by ice, so why would they need to buy ice. A sales person would have to be pretty amazing to convince them to buy something they already have.
This raises the question, would YOU sell ice to an Eskimo?
On the one hand, you will have sales people who wouldn't sell something to someone who doesn't need it. They would rather support the customer into buying what they need or what would benefit them, even if in the worse case, it is with a competitor. Instead of selling ice to the Eskimo, they would look at what the Eskimo actually needed. Assuming the Eskimo didn't need ice, and that's all you were selling, you would instead support them to buy what they need and then work on getting referrals for someone who does need your ice.
You'll then have the sales people who will sell anything to anyone, they understand that they have targets to hit, and to achieve that they need to sell sell sell!! They would convince the Eskimo that whilst they live on and in ice, that the ice is contaminated and that your clean filtered ice is a lot safer for them. Your ice is the best on the market and if they buy today, they will get a once in a lifetime discount. They will push and push until they buy, and then swiftly move onto the next customer.
The customer would obviously prefer the first sales person, who supported their needs.
The business or ice company would probably prefer the second sales person, as they will most likely sell more.
What would you do?
Inbound Manager at Reliance Retail | Delivering Operational Excellence and Shaping the Future of Supply Chain Management
9 年Nothing is impossible in the world. I think that strong determination and practice can convert it into possible.
IIM Kozhikode | Dublin Business School
9 年Do a neutral marketing campaign creating a need that he might have never realized.. i.e. "How important is it to have ice in living a healthy life"..then slowly build a campaign "Our ice has Fluoride - An ingredient for healthy skin and long life"...& "Why the naturally found ICE is bad for your skin if not used in proper form " ..and bingo ..you got yourself an order... PS: Just added fun element !
Creative Content for Brand Building - strategies and frameworks to attract audiences at scale
9 年The eskimo may need ice, you never know until you find out. I also believe that the business or ice company would prefer the first sales person...lifetime value of a customer is way more important than selling more in the short term,
Senior Digital Marketing Specialist | B2B & B2C Client Acquisition | UX | SEM | Analytics
9 年Depends on what type of ice.
Commercial Manager @ Spaero | Revolutionising procurement within aviation
9 年with the effects of global warming and all the publicity surrounding the subject, ice may be in demand soon.