Category Archives for "Soft Sell"

In Soft Sell Sales, Questions Are to Understand

By John Aberle | Prospecting , Sales and Marketing , Soft Sell

About twenty years ago, I attended a sales training class that has ever since stood out as the classic example of hard sell. This former vacuum cleaner salesman taught us how he sold 90% of the homes in this small town in Nevada or Arizona. He told us to just develop a series of questions that everybody would answer yes to. Each yes was like a degree on a thermometer. Eventually you had so many yeses that the temperature reached a point where — that’s right — where they couldn’t say no. Degree by degree he built his closing momentum.

I left that training really disappointed that I’d wasted my money. Talk about manipulation. Long before I heard Judith & Jim talk about soft sell marketing and their Soft Sell Marketers Association, I was a soft sell salesperson and soft sell marketer. My spiritual convictions are such that I’m responsible for my actions. If I control people subconsciously so as to take away their freedom to choose, I will eventually find my actions come back on me.

The irony is that when you use the soft sell approach and ask questions to better understand your prospects’ situation, Continue reading