Selling anything is hard. Forget the one liners about great salespeople selling ice to eskimos. I hate that line. Eskimos need ice to make igloos. Right?
Making buying easier is even harder. Why? Because we often spend all of our time trying to make selling easier. Raj talked about it before in his Paradox of Choice posting. Things will be harder to sell if and when buying is hard. Take a look at what Goodyear does to make tire buying easier. This is Goodyear folks. One more time ... Goodyear.
Try it next time. Anytime you need to sell anything (a product to a customer, yourself for a job, an idea to your spouse or partner, desired behavor to your kids, extra vacation request to a boss, and so on), try hard to get into this frame of mind and ask yourself how you can make it easy to buy.
I tried it myself to sell the idea of buying a LG plasma television to my wife. She said 'yes' to a plasma but didn't like the LG at all. I kept reminding her that she used a set of LG washer and dryer before we got married for a long darn time (reliability). I gave her a list of all the plasmas that were more expensive but had the same specs as the LG model (value). Ok, I admit it ... there were sets that were cheaper also but they never made my list. I don't feel guilty about it. My wife doesn't like buying the cheap stuff. I know that she just doesn't like to buy the most expensive thing on the list. So, I eliminated this concern for her.
I even told her how the LG plasma matches her black trench coat ... kinda like Matrix. She likes Trinity in The Matrix (a little kis a** never hurts). I pointed out to her that the LG has speakers on the sides and mumbled how it looked so unique ... and cool. I mumbled about it a hundred times (brand image). She loves unique things (personality).
It worked. She literally carried the plasma set out the door. I love our LG plasma.
That's the good news. Soon, my primary laptop got old and slow. She has a cooler, newer laptop. So, I asked her if I could buy a really cool laptop, too. Tablet PCs are really cool. I tried to sell it. Big mistake. I said the tablet function would be really important. She didn't "buy" it. At the time, I was going to a lot of meetings with VCs. I should've just said, "look, picture me walking into a conference room with big shot VCs. Now, picture me taking out my $200 Acer laptop and waiting 20 minutes for it to boot up. You can be sure that I'll be home early for dinner. Is this what you want?"
For added effect, my voice would've trailed off as I wimper into another room. I would've bagged the deal right there. I didn't say anything of the sort. Instead, I tried to sell. I'm writing this blog on an Acer. Nope, it's not a tablet. The only tablet in my possession is aspirin. Enough said.
- John
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