The Dance of Selling.

I was so embarrassed I wanted to leave the room. And yet I couldn't look away.

 

When I was in a training program for selling face to face in the insurance industry... (renowned for some of the best training and toughest selling environments), I was on a sales call with one of the regional trainers.

 

We sat at the kitchen table of the prospect, a woman who had just lost her husband of 40 years. She wished she'd had this insurance policy just two months before. 

 

She'd already purchased one of the company's products. This sales call was the one-two punch in the customer ascension model. Person buys one product, then the next salesperson comes in for the upsell.

 

Online, the upsell process takes a few minutes and some code. Easy, right?

 

In face to face selling, this process is a dance.

 

Of course, there are different kinds of dances. My trainer was no fox trot enthusiast. No. He preferred the tango... the most sultry and evocative dance of all.

 

He wooed the prospect like the master of the dance... I wanted to become invisible against the stained and tattered, floral wallpaper in that tiny kitchen. 

 

He leaned forward in his chair... she was on the edge of hers. He'd barely lean back in his chair a millimeter... she'd lean in that much more... Her body, revealing the burdens of decades of family and a lifetime of hard farm work, would slouch in her chair... He'd respond by nearly shapeshifting and covering her tiredness with his clean, pressed and suited body.

 

They never once touched... not even when he handed her his pen to sign the insurance contract.

 

Has there been anyone in history who was so persuasive... so incredibly convincing that there was simply no one on earth who could defend against their suggestions?

 

That's the goal of the ads you create for your wares, my friend.

 

The aim of every ad, in every campaign, on every platform and channel, is to create a message so enticing that your finely selected audience has no choice but to buy...

 

That every time your lovely prospect sees your ad she either buys or has to freeze her credit card in an 18-inch block of ice to prevent her handing it over to you.

 

This is our daily challenge as marketers... to daily (or even hourly where we have the opportunity) convince the public (our very carefully chosen segment of the public) that she cannot live another moment without purchasing your item, proffered at that specific time.

 

Our mission is to be so relentless in the wooing of our subject, that after seeing our messages once, thrice, or (where we must) more frequently that she's worn down... becomes satisfied... convinced and defenseless.

 

She must buy.

 

The September edition (on this exact topic, in magnificent detail) of the eCommerce Traffic Handler Monthly print publication goes to press in just over two weeks. In order to be on the receiving end... in order to be one of the chosen few in this vast world who receive this epistle by mail... you must subscribe here: