| I
was pitching my consulting services to the
founder of a company that makes daily planners,
and like the good salesman he was, he turned the
tables and asked me how I stay organized.
After bumbling
around for a minute, thinking, “Hey, this is
MY sales interview!” I responded that I use a
miscellany of calendars and notepads and pocket
phone directories.
Shaking his
head, he responded, “Well that can’t last;
it’s too inefficient. Sooner or later you’re
going to transition into using a planner. It’s
all-in-one!”
Well, his
little recitation did it, and soon after our
little chat I was using one of his firm’s
pricey but useful systems, though I don’t
recall selling HIM anything!
Every masterful
salesperson inevitably learns one thing:
Inevitability sells!
By this, I mean
the argument, that “Sooner or later, you’ll
own Generals!” which that tire company made
famous as a slogan, is really at the base of
success in selling.
Change is
inevitable!
How do you
think zillions of companies made the transition
from using file cabinets to using computers to
store and retrieve data? Believe me, they did
not want to make the change!
They felt they
HAD to, that it was inevitable; that they
couldn’t resist the tide any longer.
And some savvy
salesperson, or perhaps an unrelenting legion of
them, made this argument, and like a shoreline
that is gradually eroded and washed away, buyers
came around and complied with the dictates of
INEVITABILITY.
Find a way of
getting inevitability into your sales message,
and if you can, get prospects to acknowledge,
aloud in your presence, that they’re going to
have to make a change, sooner or later.
Once this
admission has surfaced, you’ll find that
“sooner” comes around sooner than you ever
thought possible.
Plan on it! |