During the 2016 election, Donald Trump made use of several sales tactics he knew from sales to win the 2016 election against an opponent with more than double the resources. Whenever you are asking for someone to do something for you or give you something, like a vote for you, sales tactics apply to the situation. He used many tactics from his time on reality tv, but in addition to those he also used many tactics from his time in business and sales. Most notably, the idea of subverting expectations.
In sales, if you say things to the potential customer that they did not expect you to say at all, such as saying that you will tell them if you think that your product and the problem they have are not a good fit for each other, makes that potential customer surprised and interested, and also makes them much more likely to go from being a potential customer to being an actual customer of yours. Trump was doing that masterfully during the 2016 election.
Every line he said was not what anyone expected from politics, everything he did brought him attention and because of Trump many, many more Americans pay attention to Politics.
In addition to that, his habit of saying all of those things during the election gave him the reputation of being honest and saying what he thinks. He was not trying to paint anything in a different light, he did not come off to voters as a manipulative politician who tried to look nice to the voters. While he faced criticism from the mainstream media, they ran headlines criticizing him in which they said, at the time, nothing but how this policy or that idea is or was horrible and should never be implemented. His critics assumed everything he said was literal, that everything he said was what he believed, and that everything he said was what he was going to try and do after winning the election and becoming President.
BoweryJE22
Haha I love it! I totally agree with you. It is something that people tend to over look that they are being sold to by the running presidents. I think that is one of the main reasons why Trump was able to win that election, because he has so much experience in the business world.
People find him being unscripted and non-scripted attractive. It is new and refreshing. Trump is almost like a comedian because he says things that will get people riled up and keep people talking about him.
I never thought about sales and Trump but you’re spot on! People find his improv to be trust worthy as opposed to a sleek, prepared politician. I also think he uses the tactic of trying to agree with his opponent as a way to sell them on his policies. Think of Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin. People were confused why he was so kind to them but it’s just a negotiating technique. And I think it’s genuine too.