Dale Carnegie is the author of one of my favorite quotes. "A customer likes to feel that he is buying," says Carnegie, "not being sold." It is a simple yet revolutionary idea that has been repeated by sales and marketing gurus in various forms. In Carnegie's 'How to Win Friends and Influence People,' the quote is within the context of how hard many salesmen work to convince customers to buy. What salesmen should be doing, Carnegie argues, is striving to 1) uncover a problem that the prospect has and 2) show how that problem can be solved by what the salesman is selling. Then and only then will the customer feel as if he or she is buying of her own accord and not being convinced to buy.
I read a blog article recently by one of my favorite sales experts, S. Anthony Iannarino. The blog entry was directed toward salesmen who, upon losing a sale, tend to say that they've lost the sale to such and such company. In reality, what has happened is that those salesman lost the sale to such and such salesman. Somewhere in the sales process, the salesman who won the sale was able to position the product or service more persuasively in the customer's mind than the salesman who lost the sale. Essentially, the successful salesman is always the most convincing salesman.
'But wait a minute?' You may ask, 'doesn't this strip away the autonomy of the consumer?' By attributing the outcome of the purchasing decision to the persuasive powers of the salesman, doesn't that eliminate the discerning power of the consumer? Well, the answer is both yes and no. Let me explain. Think of something you've purchased recently--whether it be your cup of coffee, your phone bill, or gas for your car. Yes, you probably showed discernment in choosing Starbucks over McDonalds, but was that really you or was it the sales and marketing of Starbucks convincing you of its better product? Were you showing discernment in setting up a contract with Verizon or did they simply convince you that their service was better? Did you stop at that gas station because it was convenient for you or because Speedway put its store in a location that was convenient for you?
It is really a 'chick-or-egg' type of questions. Do consumers buy because producers are convincing or are producers convincing because the consumers buy? In reality, the same thing is going on when a salesman is persuasive as when a customer is discerning. When a salesmen or marketer highlights to appropriate need and the appropriate solution to fulfilling it, it is the same exact thing as the customer making a wise purchasing decision. Customers may say that they don't care about the sales pitch or the marketing, but that is really all they care about. They may say they are only interested in the quality of the product or service, but there really is no quality except for 'perceived quality.'
I agree with Mr. Carnegie, of course. Customers don't want to feel as if they are being sold. They, want to feel as if they are buying. But, really, the same thing is going on in both scenarios. And there may be a word of caution for salesmen: don't resist attempting to 'sell' your product or service because you want the customer to feel as if he or she is 'buying' instead of 'being sold.' Sell with everything you've got, but make sure your pitch is geared toward solving the customer's problems. The customer doesn't want to 'feel like' he is being sold, but he certainly does want 'to be sold.' If you don't sell him on your solution, he will seek someone else to sell him on theirs. For all the sales-resistance engrained in customers today, I believe that deep down every customer is still saying, 'convince me.'
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