The stereotypical salesman is usually perceived as “slimy”, “pushy”, or “aggressive”. A lot of sales courses teach one how to act this way or how to trick the customer into buying your product. An article titled “6 Psychological Tricks That Will Make People Buy Anything”. These “tricks” include: “Find Common Ground”, “Know your opening gambit”, “Spotlight your best feature”, “Draw strength from your drawbacks”, “Nix competitors from your pitch”, and “Scarcity sells”. While the reasons behind these “tricks” partially align with proper sales techniques, the attitude and intentions are incredibly misleading.
“Finding Common Ground”, according to the article, is a way to trick the customer into liking and trusting you. The opening gambit is a way to figure out how trusted your brand is. In real sales, the opening gambit should be a way to learn more about your customer’s needs. Highlighting your best feature is centered around updating your company’s lading page. In real
sales, your best feature should accentuate the customer’s needs and properly fix them. Drawing strength from drawbacks, according to the article, only discusses how to rephrase your shortcomings to make yourself sound better. There is no intention to figure out the best solution for the customer. Another tip is to completely disregard competition. This may sound like a solid and helpful tip but it actually leads to the salesperson looking under-prepared and incredibly selfish. The final trick is to put a limit on the deal to, again, trick the customer into buying your product or service.
Basically, every tip that the article presented goes against what a good salesman should do and leads to more salespeople acting like the stereotypical slimy salesman instead of a trustworthy one that is selling the best service to the perfect customer. To read the full article, click here.
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