What is successful sales? Reflections on a Small Detail in The Wolf of Wall Street
At the beginning of Leonardo's role, he recruited some friends to start a company with him and earned a high commission by selling junk stocks over the phone. At the dinner table, he taught his friends how to do a good job in sales. He took out a pen and asked his friend to try to sell it to him. I was thinking together at that time. If it were me, how could I sell it to him? Should I praise how well this pen is done? Or should I say that this pen was used by a famous person? Just a few seconds later, the movie gave me a seemingly unexpected answer. His friend said, "Can you sign it for me?"
It only uses one sentence, and this sentence doesn't mention the pen at all, and it doesn't mention the word buying and selling at all. I thought at that time, this guy is a genius! Then I began to think, why can't I think like him? Is it really that simple to sell things? What is the essence of sales? The following are some of my whimsical views, which I will write down and share with you.
I think there are three levels of sales.
The first realm is to explore demand. Let us take the sale of a pen as an example. If we want to sell this pen, we must think, who needs such a pen? It may be a teacher who needs to correct homework, a writer who needs to write an article, or a designer who needs to draw a blueprint. Then we will have a target group, and we will find our key promotion targets with this pen and recommend our products to them. However, in such a highly competitive market, almost everyone knows how to tap the demand, which has become a necessary skill for a qualified salesperson. It's hard to stand out just by mastering this. Then there is a second realm.
The second realm is to create demand. This is the way to sell this pen in The Wolf of Wall Street. Maybe you are not a teacher or a writer, so you seldom use pens in your daily life, so there is no such demand. Well, since you don't have one, I'll create one for you. I want you to sign my name. You need a pen to sign it, so that we can have a legitimate reason to sell it to you and you can have a legitimate reason to consider it. Of course, the real situation is a little more complicated than the small example in the movie. You'd better not let the buyer know that you created the demand.
The third realm is to guide demand, taking selling pens as an example. Maybe this time we will sell pens to a primary school student, and he may tell you that it is unnecessary. My father bought me many pens. Indeed, although he has this demand, this demand has been met by others. So what should we do? At this time, first of all, our products should be excellent enough, and then we need a little patience and flexible thinking. We can say to the child, don't sell it, give you this pen! In this case, most people will choose to accept it. It is human nature to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages. Next, we will continue to send them until he has no other pens bought by his father. They are all pens we gave him. When he gets used to them, we should start making money. Habit is terrible, and it affects our every choice unconsciously. In fact, this method is also very common in today's society. For example, in the past, Didi and fast taxis gave red envelopes to drivers and passengers. Now ofo and red envelope bicycles, all kinds of bidding 1 cents, and then earned money by annual maintenance. It is a mode of investing first, guiding demand, accumulating user stickiness and then making money. However, the shortcomings of this model are also obvious, and a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources need to be invested in the early stage to accumulate users.
Finally, I don't think it can be counted as sales. We can inspire amazing energy with infinite wisdom, and make your sales behavior an art and a wonderful performance. We still want to sell pens this time, but our target is beggars! He doesn't need to use this pen, and he won't be created by you, let alone guided by you. Even if you give him this pen for free, he doesn't have to, and he will give you a big black eye. What should we do at this time? We should put aside the appearance of the problem and find the essence. What is the purpose of our sales? Make money! Why do beggars have no demand for our pens? Because he has a more basic need, that is, the need for food and clothing, he must first live and eat. All right, we'll give you a pen and 200 yuan money. Do you want it? He will definitely want it. It doesn't matter whether this pen is needed or not. The key is 200 yuan, which is what he needs most now. However, we have requirements. You can't take money for nothing. We need you to use the pen we gave you and practice on the ground for an hour every day in the most crowded street. Then we went to the news media, and there was a story that we thought was fabricated. "Old beggars are not lacking in ambition, and they practice calligraphy in the street every day." After attracting public attention, we will follow up the report. How can a beggar have money to buy pens and paper to practice calligraphy? It turned out that someone gave it to him, not only with a pen but also with money! After that, the pens in our hands have been known to the public, and we will sell more pens and earn more money. Let's not discuss moral issues for the time being. Is it successful marketing only in terms of methods? We sold this pen to the person who least needed it, and made twice as much money from him as this pen. Is the magic this pen? Is this the beggar? No, it's our brains, it's our wisdom. Wisdom is the most important gift from God. If we make good use of it, we can do more powerful things than we thought.