How would you sell a comb to a bald person?
Great salespeople earn trust by solving your problems, not by selling what you don’t need.
Ask any person how they would sell a comb to you as if you were a bald person, and most of them will emulate a Glengarry Glen Ross attitude, and start saying things as:
“This comb is fantastic Daniel. It has 100 teeth with a patented design that lets comb air without breaking a sweat.
This is a multipurpose comb — you can use to comb your dog, your cat, your carpet and even as a musical instrument by tickling each one of the teeth.”
Now, let’s pause for a second. I don’t condemn the goofy creative ideas they used to make me see usefulness in this comb (on the contrary), but there are two very strong points that show how much their (our) instinct is wrong about doing sales:
The Glengarry Glen Ross attitude
First, it’s the attitude. The tone they use to sell you something is this salesly one, much because of the influence we have from the movies and old school salesman we have ringing on our doors and phones.
It’ s almost funny, but when you put anyone selling something, that’s the attitude they emulate by default.
“I guarantee you ma’am, this is the best comb I’ve ever used!”
(Read with an Alabama accent from the 60s.)
This shows how much people misunderstand what doing sales is about nowadays — the paradigm has changed, and people are actually not that receptive to anyone who looks and acts like Glengarry Glen Ross.
Not understanding the problem
The first thing she should be doing is understanding if I need the comb in the first place:
“Daniel, do you have a cat or a dog? Do you have difficulty combing their hair? Why do you think that happens?”
“Daniel, I saw you do radio as a hobby. Do you also like to make music? What kind of music do you make?”
She should seek to understand my problems in the first place. Understand if and how her comb can help me.
If she then realises the comb doesn’t assist me in any way, she shouldn’t insist on selling me what I don’t need.
In sales you need people to trust you, especially if you want them to come back in the future. So you should earn that trust and never break it.
When you’re doing sales all you need to think is: “How would my doctor behave?”
Be the Doctor instead
So, “How should I behave”, you ask?
The best and simplest advice I ever read about this was the idea of emulating a Doctor attitude.
Doctors seek first to understand. To understand your pain, your problem, your feelings. They make questions to dig further and find the root cause of the issue.
When did your feet start hurting? Does it hurt when you stand still?
They ask, and you answer. You answer because you know the doctor is there to help you, and because you feel they are genuinely interested.
And when he diagnoses your condition and prescribes a medication, you don’t say, “That sounds nice, but let me think about it.” or “Can I have a discount?”. You take the medication.
The Doctor attitude is simple to understand and to emulate — when you’re doing sales all you need to think is: “How would my doctor behave?”
That’s because, as great doctors do, great salespeople also seek to genuinely understand their customer’s goals and pains all through tactical questioning. Great salespeople earn trust by solving your problems, not by selling what you don’t need.
—
If you enjoyed the read, please click the clap button to recommend it to other interested readers!
I’m Daniel, Product Manager at Whitesmith. Paper Planes is a place where I reflect on my experiences and learnings on the craft of Product Management, and where I share them with my team and community under the form of short blog posts.
