Some people look at selling through negative lenses. Popular culture is full of cliches about salesmen looking to swindle old ladies at used car lots or fast-talk people out of their savings. The term “snake oil salesman” has become synonymous with profiteers and folks who sell products that don’t work the way they claim to.
Our culture gives selling a bad rap.
“Everything’s an Argument”
The truth is, we are being sold almost constantly. Television is stacked with commercials. Billboards dot the highways. People wear hats with soda logos. We’re surrounded by people and entities trying to convince us to change the way we think, feel, or behave.
One of the most popular textbooks in university Composition classes makes this same point early on. The authors of Everything’s an Argument understand that we’re surrounded by people trying to influence us. Their goal is to help students understand the techniques of argumentation so that they can see through the rhetoric and the evidence and come to solid conclusions themselves, and then enter into those same conversations with the tools they need to be successful.
When the ancient Greeks were describing the rules of rhetoric, the public square was a set of marble steps. Today the public square includes the digital and the physical. It means using good argumentation techniques is more important than ever.
The Secret to Selling
We take advantage of the modern public square here at TLC by ensuring that our partners and customers have access to our message in forms that everyone can use. We use commercials, mailers, web sites, and social media to make the argument that we have the products and community people need and want so they can change their lives for the better.
Even with all these outlets, though, we still find that the best way to get our products into the hands of the people who want them is the old-fashioned way: our business partners and Life Changers. Person-to-person advocacy is still the best way to describe how something can make you feel.
That makes each Life Changer very important to our company. His or her success is our success, and the secret to that success is simple: belief in the product and the company that provides it.
You’ve Got to Believe
I don’t want to buy a Ford from someone who drives a Chevy. I don’t want to eat at McDonald’s if that restaurant’s manager refuses to snack on Chicken McNuggets.
We know that people won’t try our products unless our Life Changers use them themselves. That’s why we recruit our Life Changers from our customer base. In fact, we count on our customers being so energized by our products that they want to join us as partners and start their own small business selling our products themselves.
Successful salespeople have a collection of important skills: personality, organization, communication, but none of these will truly be useful if you don’t believe in the product and the company behind it.
Like so many things in life, the secret to selling isn’t fast talk or slick brochures, it’s the genuine belief in what you’re doing. We believe in our products, the people who sell them, and the people who trust us enough to use them.
That’s the secret to success!
Jack
