Maybe today’s article should have been titled, “Old Hackneyed Sales Tactics Debunked, Part 117,” but I thought the above was catchier.
What I’m talking about is an old tactic called, “Not Spilling Your Candy.” This tactic assumes that customers are simply talking to you to pump you for information before buying from someone else, and that your job – as a defensive selling strategy – is to avoid giving them important information at all costs while trying to lock them down into a purchase. Hint: It doesn’t work. Especially now.
Here’s the scenario. A client of mine was interviewing two Website developers. Both were very competent. One communicated the proposal bearing the “Don’t Spill” mindset at hand; he showed her the “what,” but not the “how” and the “why.” The second walked her through the proposal step by step. He showed her part of the “how” and all of the “why.” When I met with my client, she raved about his comprehensive approach to the business, and how she learned a lot about how a website can be used as a business tool. Guess who’s going to get the business?
You see, the second vendor tapped into a principle called Reciprocity. Reciprocity is the idea that, when you do nice things for other people, they feel that it’s appropriate to do things for you – which could include giving you a referral, a testimonial, or buying from you. It’s one of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s Six Principles of Persuasion, and in my opinion, it’s the most powerful one.
Further, he tapped into what I call the Brave New World of Selling: These days, the salesperson MUST create value for the customer through the sales call itself – not just the purchase. The customer – my client – walked away from the sales call better off, more knowledgeable, and more comfortable with Web marketing than she was before the meeting. He earned his place in her buying process. If you’re worried about “spilling your candy,” you’re not going to do that.
Here’s the Catch-22: The information that salespeople are worried about “spilling” is out there already. And it’s probably free, if you want to Google it. My client didn’t, but she certainly appreciated the fact that the information was communicated.
“But Troy,” you say, “What if I tell them what I know, and then they take that information and buy from someone else?” Simple, short answer – that’s your fault. If they buy from someone else, that’s because you didn’t give them enough positive and persuasive reasons to buy from you. What generations of salespeople have failed to realize is that customers have the ultimate control of their buying power and their money – and if they want to buy from you, they will – and if they don’t, they won’t. Successful selling is based on getting them to want to buy from you, not trying to keep them from buying elsewhere.
That’s the core of the whole “Spilling Your Candy” philosophy. It’s not focused on making the customer want to buy from you – it’s about preventing them from buying from anyone else; the idea is that if you withhold knowledge, they’ll “have” to buy from you. Again, it doesn’t work. It never really worked all that well, and it works even less in today’s information age.
Troy’s Truth of Selling: Today’s successful salesperson knows that he/she must GIVE value to the customer before expecting to GET value from the customer.
