I used to hate selling.
Take a vacuum cleaner. Sell it to someone. How? I’m thinking, who wants a vacuum cleaner? Nobody likes to vacuum, so no one is going to want to buy a vacuum cleaner. At least I don’t.
So in that state of mind, I’m not thinking which vacuum cleaner cleans my floor the best and the fastest. I’m wondering how in the world can I get another human being to want to spend their money so they can push a vacuum around their living room, a job I myself want to avoid like the plague.
That makes persuading someone to pull their wallet out and give me money for a piece of metal and plastic that you can only push back and forth across the floor extremely difficult.
Selling under these circumstances is torture, to say the least.
Now take ice cream. I love ice cream. It’s creamy. It’s refreshing. It comes in an endless array of flavors. You can put all kinds of toppings on it, like that chocolate shell that hardens, or M&Ms, peanut brittle, Reese’s Pieces, caramel, or you name it. You can get it in a cone or in a cup…or you can put it on top of a warmed up brownie and let a spoonful melt on your tongue…
You’ll take some? Wait, I haven’t started selling yet.
Or maybe I have and didn’t notice it.
We forget that selling is just a transference of feeling. If the have that feeling, the words will flow with the emotional force of pure desire. You feel it and soon your audience feels it.
And that sells, doesn’t it?
You’ve no doubt heard that before, but the difference is that people will tell you to take a piece of paper and write down the benefits of your product. The problem with that is that it becomes an intellectual exercise. My feeling don’t kick in and the words lie lifeless on the paper when I try that.
Instead of searching for the right words, I prefer to sit and get excited – really excited – about a particular product or service, and then sit down and let those feelings come to life in the form of words on the page. Like the ice cream, get all the senses involved, mix in some positive emotions, bring it to a boil and pour it over the page.
How do you feel about selling now?
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