Internet Marketers can teach regular sales people a lot about selling – about how to do the job badly. It isn’t their fault. They have their own business model, and a strategy to go with it. It’s all about volume, and pilgrims.
There’s nothing sophisticated about “wham bam, thank you Mam” selling. The concept relies on numbers, and outrageous propositions. Propositions which thinking buyers would see through. But if enough people come through the door, and enough of them are hungry for the secret to instant success, the marketer makes money.
Some punters buy on the first pitch, others on the second, and still more on the third. And if they don’t? Who cares? There’ll be another punter along in a minute or two. There is no conversation. No dialogue. No customer experience, at least not until the disappointment sets in.
You’ll know from your own experience people like to buy stuff, and especially when a professional helps them understand the various options available, and choose the most appropriate. But they generally don’t like being sold to. And definitely don’t like being pitched at.
Internet Marketers pitch, and pitch again and pitch again. In their game it’s impossible to strike out, so they just keep doing it.
One of my all time favourite sales stories comes from the most successful life assurance salesman ever. He was so successful he even made another fortune writing a book about his secret.
To cut a long story short, here’s the red meat section.
Starting out as a newbie, management told him to go to social events and pitch everybody he met.
His favourite market place was the social scene – cocktail parties and dinner parties.
Every time somebody he’d just met asked “and what do you do?” he’d reply “I sell life assurance”. Invariably his new contact would wince. The eyes would glaze over, and start looking around the room for a more interesting conversation.
After several months, now deep in debt, and avoiding calls from his bank, our hero decided to make a change in his pitch. That’s when his career took off, and he never looked back.
His was a simple change.
When asked in polite company that polite question “and what do you do?” instead of saying ” I sell …….” he said “I buy life assurance for people who are interested in securing their future. I find out about their circumstances, and their aspirations, and then help them select the very best package of opportunity and risk to meet their goals.”
The value in this story is so mind blowingly obvious there’s no need of an explanation.
But it does give rise to a question.
Why do so many self proclaimed sales coaches adopt Internet Marketing techniques?
