Powerful Insights From Salesmanship that Can Improve Your Writing
It’s helped me a great deal
I can bet you don’t like seeing salespeople and that you’ve met several of them in their bid to sell things to you.
Except you’re a salesperson like me you won’t like them because they annoy you while trying to make sales.
Those who get the craft wrong bump into your space uninvited and try to sell you stuff. Usually, those ones lose the sales and I apologise on their behalf if they’ve offended you so often. Well, some of them do a great job of salesmanship, and these are the ones who win the sales. They begin by discovering the problems of prospects they’re calling on with the hope of solving them.
Since you’re on the Medium platform you write stuff (even if you don’t agree you’re a writer) and I will reveal to you some qualities of adept salespeople that could help to improve your writing exponentially.
As a salesman, I’ve made several sales presentations and to get the best results we’re trained to begin by discovering the pain points of the prospects, grab their attention by setting an agenda-you to hook them in by allowing their cortisol gush for what you want to present to them-it’s best you check for acceptance if they wish to go along with you in the discussion.
You then show the features of your products or services. Here, use testimonials, data, facts and other proofs as support for your claims. This you can achieve by sprinkling in personal stories. As humans, you’d agree we’re all wired for stories and good salespeople are master storytellers. They engage with stories that keep oxytocin flowing. This is what holds listeners spellbound and stay glued to their presentations. But you know what? The stories are not what propel the people to make a purchase. What triggers them to buy your stuff is when you solve their problems by telling them what your products or services can do for them.
Everyone likes listening to the radio station WIIFM (What’s In It For Me).
Reward the customers by raising their dopamine levels. This they do by selling the benefits of their products or services to the customers. How are your products or services removing stress? Saving them money?Increasing available time for them to do other things? Or improve their productivity?
Tune in the frequency so they listen to WIIFM- their favourite station, so they know what's in it for them. This makes them want to buy your stuff -after the orders start rolling in and the bank account increases.
Just like great salespeople, this is what great writers try to achieve with their craft.
Wrapping up
Just as the salesperson has a goal of wanting to sell you should also have the sole aim for your writing which is to solve the problems for your readers through your writing. You can achieve this by hooking them in with your headlines and introduction, then engaging with
stories. Show them how your piece can address their pain points and let there be a call to action on what you want them to do. Be daring enough to ask them what you want of them.
Before I forget- it is best you begin the entire process by researching the pain points of your readers.
With this, you will be adding more value to your writing.
Good luck
If you found this useful clap for me a few times and let me read your comments.
See you next time.
Emmanuel
