How to sell a fridge to an eskimo...

I used to hate salesmen...





I'm sure a lot of you do as well. I've told myself that I will never go into something such as sales, but will work hard to be a professional so I won't have to be a salesman. I was wrong...

Whatever job you end up doing, you need to sell. Be it your products, your skills, your expertise.

I came across a very interesting article quite some time back when I was in KL. It is from the book 'Tipping Point' by Malcolm Gladwell. I know...its a long read. Trust me, you'll learn something at the end. Ted is not all about crap only you know...

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A large group of students were recruited for what they were told was a market research study by a company headset and and told that the company wanted to test to see how well they worked when the listener was in motion - dancing up and down, say, or moving his or her head. All of the students listened to songs by Linda Ronstandt and the Eagles, and then heard a radio editorial arguing that tuition at their university should be raised from its present level of $587 to $750.

A third were told that while they listened to the taped radio editorial they should nod their heads vigorously up and down. The next third were told to shake their heads from side to side. The final third were the control group. They were told to keep their heads still.

When they were finished, all the students were given a short questionnaire, asking them questions about the quality of the songs and the effect of the shaking. Slipped in at the end was the question the experimenters really wanted an answer to: “What do you feel would be an appropriate dollar amount for undergraduates tuition per year?”

The answers to that question are difficult to believe. The students who kept their heads still were unmoved by the editorial. The tuition amount that they guessed was appropriate was $582 - or just about where tuition was already. Those who shook their heads from side to side as they listened to the editorial - even though they thought they were simply testing headset quality - strongly disagreed with the proposed increase. They wanted tuition to fall on average to $467 a year. Those who were told to nod their heads up and down, meanwhile, found the editorial very persuasive. They wanted tuition to rise, on average, to $646. The simple act of moving their heads up and down, ostensibly for another reason entirely - was sufficient to cause them to recommend a policy that would take money out of their pockets.

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SO, did you all learn anything? Well, if you're going into a place and trying to resist from buying something (new camera gears,etc), either don't move your head at all or keep shaking it.

BUT, if you are the salesman, your goal should be to get the potential customer to nod his head as much as possible as you are giving your sales pitch. Very interesting.

I didn't buy the book anyway coz I'm kiamsiap...