the art of selling

Table of Contents

Chapter 1:

The 7 Basic Requirements to Sell Anything to Anyone

Chapter 2:

The First Requirement – Sell Yourself, Use a Great Story

Chapter 3:

The Second Requirement – Creating the Undeniable Need

Chapter 4:

The Third Requirement – Stamping Your Authority

Chapter 5:

The Fourth Requirement – Creating the Sense of Urgency

Chapter 6:

The Fifth Requirement – Making Them Accountable with Free Gifts

Chapter 7:

The Sixth Requirement – Making a Commitment

Chapter 8:

The Seventh Requirement – Keeping the Interest Factor Alive

Chapter 9:

What You Can Sell and What You Cannot – Some Taboos

Chapter 10:

Quest to Become Perfect in the Art of Salesmanship

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Introduction

Getting into any business requires you to do one thing – sell something. It’s not

just about businesses though; even if you are just working for an employee, you

are selling our talent and your skills.

The best profits come in when you are able to sell things in the right way.

Here is how you can do that effectively.

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Chapter 1:

The 7 Basic Requirements to Sell Anything to Anyone

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Summary

You will be surprised at how simple it is, how easily we can lay down

what we exactly need to do.

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The 7 Basic Requirements to Sell Anything to

Anyone

Yes, you read that right. If you are trying to sell anything to anyone,

you can streamline the whole process into just seven important

requirements. If you use them in the right amount and at the right

time, you are certain to sell anything to anyone, probably even a

refrigerator to an Eskimo!

Requirement # 1 – Making the Right Background

Setting up for the sale is the most important. If you are able to pep

your potential customer up to their maximum, they won’t be able to

wait till they buy from you.

Requirement # 2 – Making Your Product Seem Important

People won’t buy things that aren’t important to them. So, you need to

harp on your product’s utility. Go all over town telling how undeniably

useful your product is, and a lot more people will be interested in it.

Requirement # 3 – Making Yourself Important

All right, so your product is useful, but why should they buy from you?

Why are you better than the competition? You have to tell your

customers that. You have to tell them why you and your product are

better for them than what the competitive market is selling.

Requirement # 4 – Setting Off the Alarms

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Make people understand that this is so great an offer that it won’t

persist for long. Ask them to act fast. Give them a limited time

discounted offer or something. This sense of urgency brings in better

sales.

Requirement # 5 – Giving Things Away

If you give away free gifts, it might set you back momentarily. But it

can be a great thing for you in the long run, ensuring continued sales.

Requirement # 6 – Committing Yourself

Make these people understand that you will be there for them even

after you have sold the product. This gives them a guarantee.

Requirement # 7 – Continuing to Hold Their Interest

You need to do that in order to sway even the diehard customers over

to your business. For some, a single sales pitch just doesn’t seem to

work.

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Chapter 2:

The First Requirement – ‘Sell Yourself, Use a Great Story’

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Summary

Everyone loves stories. Only, adults love stories that have emotions

and ring true. Use them to become a master salesperson.

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The First Requirement –

‘Sell Yourself, Use a Great Story’

It is a highly competitive world we live in, and we can say that again

without sounding clichéd. Even as you are creating your sales page,

you are at a loss to decide what to put on this page so that it does not

look as though it is merely ripped off from your competitors. You are

always on the lookout to find something special to put on your sales

page that will make the people sit up and take notice of it.

Now, what better can work for that than a great story? We aren’t

talking about Aesop’s Fables here, but if you could weave in a story of

how you came up with the product or how you started the business, it

could add great human factor to the sales page.

Don’t think that you don’t have a story. Everyone has. You just have

to dig it out. Was there some impediment in coming up with this

product? Probably you almost never made it. That’s a story. Or maybe

you got a single jolt of inspiration that suddenly put the idea of

building this product and getting into this business in your head. That’s

another great idea for a story. Or you could tell – and this would be to

your great advantage – how your product made a big difference to

someone, maybe even changing their lives for the better. Maybe you

could even get a testimonial from them with their picture and

signature and put it up on the sales page. Such things do work

wonderfully; there’s no question about that.

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Testimonials are also stories. They are stories of how other people

used your product and what happened when they did that. The major

plus point about testimonials is that they are said by someone else and

hence they strike a better chord with the readers. In any case, stories

work, whether they are your own or your users’ testimonials.

But remember that the language of the story is very important. A good

story written in a bad language does not appeal to anyone. You could

get a great professional writer from GetAFreelancer or ScriptLance to

write up a good story for you. You give them the idea and they make a

human interest tale out of it!

In the media world they would say, “This is what really sells!”

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Chapter 3:

The Second Requirement – ‘Creating the Undeniable Need’

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Summary

Your audience must feel they cannot do without the product. That will

make them queue up with their credit cards at your door.

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The Second Requirement –

‘Creating the Undeniable Need’

People don’t purchase things on a whim in today’s world. Everyone has

become quite conscious about money, especially because of the recent

economic problems that the world has seen. But it is still a good time

to start business. People have money, but they are only more cautious

about spending it. The frivolous spending habits of people that we saw

about three years ago have toned down miserably. But people are

people, they will start spending frivolously again, but until then you

have to make them see why they should buy something from you.

You can do this by making people understand why they should buy

your product, and that becomes your second requirement of making

successful sales.

Whatever your sales pitch is – the sales page, a television commercial,

a magazine or a newspaper advertisement – the focus should be on

what the product can do for the people. You have to tell them what

benefits they can get out of them and the more succinct you are about

them, the better it will be. Let people know what their money will give

them.

When people are convinced that they are spending their money on

something useful, they won’t mind spending the money. It should be

something that spells real utility to them.

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You must know that people don’t see things that you don’t tell them.

Now, you might be selling a steam iron, but until and unless you

actually outline the advantages of getting a steam iron, people won’t

think of buying. People won’t buy it just because it exists. However, if

you could make a bulleted list of its benefits and advertise that on

your sales page or even in the mall where it is sold, you will find

people buying it. You can actually hear people saying things like,

“Dolores, this seems to be a good thing. See, I won’t have to bend

when I iron clothes at home.” “Yes, Martha, and it doesn’t require

much power too.”

See what I mean? People talk themselves into buying things when the

benefits of it are outlined. They almost convince themselves to make

the purchase.

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Chapter 4:

The Third Requirement – ‘Stamping Your Authority’

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Summary

You have to make people realize that you are the person to buy from.

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The Third Requirement –

‘Stamping Your Authority’

This is actually where your actual sales expertise comes into play.

Making a list of the benefits is actually one of the most common things

to do. Everyone who makes a sales pitch for their product will do that.

But what you have to see is how you can make it special so that your

people can’t resist purchasing it.

One of the best ways to do that is to focus on how you and your

product are better than the competition.

In a way, you have started on this already, right in the first

requirement when you wrote the story. You are stamping your

specialness at that point itself. But now you have to put that more in

your readers’ faces. Make them see what’s so special about you. Speak

of your special expertise in the area. Speak why you are better than

the others – maybe it is the creativeness of your product or an added

feature that makes it unique or maybe even your better support

system.

Be as transparent to your public as you can be. In the baby boomer

generation, it was all right if companies kept everything about

themselves secret. People still bought and, in fact, in those days, the

more enigmatic a product was, the better it was – this was the general

feeling among the public. But today, with the great concept of Web 2.0

looming right in front of us, we need to be much clearer about what

we are selling.

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Use forums and blogs to sell yourself. If you don’t have a blog yet,

make one using Blogger or Wordpress. People can then interact with

you. They understand you are for real and that you have answers to

their apprehensions. They get more convinced about you as a person.

They don’t mind buying from you.

The best thing is that this helps you to come above your competition.

In today’s day and age, this is the most important thing you can do to

enhance your products’ selling prospects.

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Chapter 5:

The Fourth Requirement – ‘Creating the Sense of Urgency’

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Summary

People buy more when an apocalyptic scenario is created!

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The Fourth Requirement –

‘Creating a Sense of Urgency’

If you have seen any sales pitches lately – any at all – you will have

come across this doomsday mentality that they create. A great ad for

a great product for a great price will end with “This offer is only for 3

days. Rush!” The smiling blonde on Home TV will demonstrate a

product that you absolutely want for your house and then say, “These

prices are only till the next full moon” or something like that. Even the

nerdy geek who puts his picture on the sales page creates an

Armageddon scenario by stating that his prices have been dropped

from $127 to $27 only for the next 24 hours. The truth is probably

that his product was never anywhere above $27.

But when you tell people that they are getting a bargain, they are

always interested, even if the price after the bargain is more than the

original price of the product elsewhere. Humans are sticklers for

bagging steals and it panders our ego to understand that we have got

a bargain.

What really improves a bargain situation is the sense of urgency. The

feeling of get-your-credit-card-right-out-of-your-wallet-and-buy-thisschmuck

is what gets them every time. Of course, when you know

there’s just 36 minutes to buy something at half price, you will

probably buy it. Even if that thing isn’t useful to you right now, you

will justify yourself by saying, “If I have to buy this tomorrow, I will

have to pay a lot more.” Chances are that you will buy that thing and

it will keep gathering dust till the real Doomsday happens!

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But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t use this gimmick as well,

considering that even the big name malls and supermarkets are

putting ads for their hourly discounted sales. If you promote your

offers well, you will get a good number of buyers. However, there are

a few rules:-

→ Your product needs to be good.

→ The bargain has to be attractive. If you just knock 50 cents off

your price, it isn’t going to mean anything.

→ The time you give them should be short, even if they have a few

days on hand, they will procrastinate.

→ At the same time, the time shouldn’t be so short that they think

your offer is a scam. Remember people have become much more

discerning now.

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Chapter 6:

The Fifth Requirement – ‘Making Them Accountable with Free Gifts’

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Summary

Give and you shall receive. There’s no greater truth than that when it

comes to salesmanship either!

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The Fifth Requirement –

‘Making Them Accountable with Free Gifts’

When you give away things for free through your sales page or

wherever you are promoting your stuff from, you are doing several

things that directly benefit your prospecting game.

1. You are giving people a sampling of your quality. If your gift is

really good, people somehow think that the real thing will be

good too.

2. You begin a channel of communication with your people.

Because you have given them something for free, the ice is

already broken. You could now start making these people

interested in other things.

3. You stamp your credibility. People understand that you really

have some products that are probably made well too.

4. But the most important thing is that you are sending them on an

emotional trip. Giving something away is as good as telling

them, “You took something from me for free. Now, it is your turn

to pay back by actually buying something.” If the person was

thinking about who to buy a particular thing from, they will think

about buying it from you just because you gave them something

for free earlier.

When online marketers build their lists, they use this trick most often.

They set up a blog and give people away an eBook or a subscription to

a newsletter for free. In return, they ask people for their email ids.

This becomes their list which they starting tapping into. They send

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emails to this list about their products and state their offers if they

have any. When people are convinced about the quality of their

product, they are very likely to make purchases from them.

Give people things for free, but don’t do it without maintaining records

of whom you have given things to. That would break the

communication forever. Even if they want to get back to you, they

might not have bookmarked your site and will not know where to find

you. So, remind people to bookmark your site, use RSS feeds using

Digg and StumbleUpon, etc. so that they know where you are. Most

importantly, keep them on your list and keep promoting your stuff to

them.

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Chapter 7:

The Sixth Requirement – ‘Make a Commitment’

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Summary

Commit yourself to be there for your customer, always. They will be

more convinced into buying your stuff.

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The Sixth Requirement –

‘Make a Commitment’

People who want to buy from you want to make sure that you will be

there for them. They want to see your commitment. No one likes flyby

purchases in which they buy something and then lose all contact

with the seller. This might work if you are selling something for a

dollar, but for most things that people buy today, they want to see the

seller remain involved even after the sale has been done.

There is reason for that. They want to make sure that if anything goes

wrong with the product, there is some remedy for that. Only the seller

can ensure such a remedy. That is the reason people are promising so

many money-back guarantees on the Internet today. Take a look at a

sales page on the Internet – any sales page – and you will find that

there is almost always a money-back guarantee. Sometimes these

guarantees extend to up to 90 days. This is the period in which

customers are free to buy the product, use it and check whether they

will work for them or not.

You must also provide a good money-back guarantee. It should be of

an ample time so that people are convinced that could nicely check the

product and return it if they are not satisfied with it.

Most likely, they will never return your product. People are already

very discerning when they buy and if you make everything quite clear

on your sales page, they will know exactly what to expect. Be honest

there, and you will have no returns of your sold products.

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But what people want more than the money-back guarantee is a

support system that continues after the product has been purchased.

Most people aren’t technical-minded and if your product requires the

customer to use some kind of technical knowledge, you have to be

there to guide them. You have to promise your unstinting support

even after the purchase is done.

Be honest and upfront about these promises and deliver them. This

ensures long term selling prospects for your business.

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Chapter 8:

The Seventh Requirement – ‘Keep the Interest Factor Alive’

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Summary

Very few people will buy from you at the very first go. It becomes

highly imperative for you to keep them hooked.

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The Seventh Requirement –

‘Keep the Interest Factor Alive’

Not many people are going to buy things from you at the first instant

itself. Sales page conversions will happen but they will be very low. In

the offline world, it is much more likely that you have guaranteed

purchases when people walk into the store, but even so when it comes

to expensive things the rate of conversion is low.

So, what must you do to clinch the deal in such cases? The one most

important thing you must do is to keep the interest factor alive. Some

time back we spoke about building a list and trying to get it to convert.

It is for people like these – the drifters you might want to call them –

that you build lists. These people might purchase, but they want that

push to do so. When you have them on the list, you could keep

promoting to them through emails and newsletters. Remember that

you shouldn’t send them such material without their opt-in permission

because if you do so, you become a spammer, and there’s no dirtier

tag than that when you are trying to something on the Internet.

But send them quality material. Send them stuff that will really

interest them. Research on what drives this particular niche. They

might want to know more about how-to stuff, DIY stuff, or maybe

some tips and figures interest them. Whatever it is they want to know,

keep giving them such stuff at regular intervals.

The idea is to keep them hooked on. These people may have become

interested in what you are trying to sell when they first visited you,

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but now they might be losing interest. When one of your ‘meaningful’

emails comes into their inbox, their dwindling interest gets a shot in

the arm.

If things are going too long, you might even consider inviting them to

download another eBook or sign up for another newsletter subscription

for free. It works. Probably you could get another marketer to

giveaway things with you. Such collaboration works in mutual interest.

People who are selling offline could also do this by announcing offers

and informing people through snail-mail. But the Internet tops when

you are doing such recurrent marketing.

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Chapter 9:

What You Can Sell and What You Cannot – Some Taboos

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Summary

Yes, you can sell anything to anyone, or let us make that ‘most

things’. There are some things that you cannot and shouldn’t sell.

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What You Can Sell and What You Cannot –

Some Taboos

We have been speaking for a while about how you can sell anything to

anyone. Now, it is time to be upright and honest about that statement.

Can you sell anything? The point we are trying to make here is that

there are some things that you shouldn’t sell. But, even then this

works for you, because when you know what these things are, you

anyway won’t sell them.

Here’s the list.

Illegal Stuff

Our good governments have demarcated the legal things and illegal

things. We live in this society and want to prosper and become rich in

it, so it is most important that you don’t sell any illegal stuff. In fact,

people who sell illegal stuff are stupid. They take risks without reason.

You can make a much higher profit selling legal stuff because there are

more buyers who will be ready to buy it. You can market much more

openly. Your prospects can increase thousand-fold. The profits in

rightfully operated legal businesses are much more than those made

through illegal ones.

Plagiarized Stuff

Don’t sell anything that belongs to someone else. There’s the human

factor that you need to consider first. Someone probably spent blood,

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sweat, tears and money in developing that product. Passing it off in

your name is downright unethical. And it can backfire seriously. People

who have come researching for your product probably know of the

other products that exist in the market too, especially if they have

been looking online. One look at ‘your’ product and they will know that

it is infringed. Your credibility takes a serious knockout.

Failed Stuff

Whatever it takes, don’t rehash failed products and sell them as new.

People see through that easily. They will associate your name with the

failed products and that will not bode well for your popularity too.

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Chapter 10:

Quest to Become Perfect in the Art of Salesmanship

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Summary

Perfection comes through experience.

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Quest to Become Perfect in the Art of

Salesmanship

No one can call themselves a perfect salesperson because there are

always people who won’t buy your product, despite your best efforts.

There are many things that come into play here, and you need not

take your failures in this field personally – it’s not always about your

product or about yourself – but you can definitely keep improving your

sales skills.

That improvement comes through practice. The more you try to sell

things, the more you learn. You learn what works and what doesn’t.

You learn what type of customer you can sell to and what type you

can’t. You learn who will keep buying from you and who will just be a

drifter. You learn what you must open your dialog with to make the

maximum impact on someone who visits you.

These things are learnt through practice. Here, it is very important not

to let failures bog you down. If you couldn’t sell something to

someone, try a different approach. Maybe when you fail in a sale you

can clearly see where you erred. Or maybe you won’t. But the point is

to keep on with your efforts.

Remember these points:-

1. There is no guarantee that a person will buy from you,

regardless of the efforts you put into making the sale. However,

you can always increase the chances of them buying your

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product. You can do this by making your product more attractive

for them.

2. Remember that your product won’t have lastability, whatever it

is. That is the reason you need to keep improving it by bringing

new versions, updates and stuff.

3. Every failed sale teaches you something. With this education,

you can make better sales.

4. Always keep a lookout on how other people are marketing their

stuff. In fact, buy from them. See what convince people to buy

from them. The Internet is the best place to make such surveys.

5. Keep improving. Keep evolving. You will be a better salesperson

tomorrow than you are today just because you kept trying.

Selling isn’t difficult. You only need to know what ticks. Experience

teaches you that wonderfully.

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Conclusion

Selling is an art. And like other arts, it may not come naturally to

people.

But there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be a pro at it.

Now you have all the stuff you need to know to become a better

salesperson.

All the best to you!!!