Mindshare Marketing

Everyone loves baseball.  It’s a great sport - fun to watch and play with friends.  It’s also a great way to build meaningfull analogies about many different things.  Land a big sale, and you “hit one out of the park.”  Have a big project riding on your shoulders and you know it’s “tie game, bases loaded, bottom of the 9th, with a full count).  It’s also a great way to talk about sex.

First base: Sex - kissing, sales - meeting the gate keepers.

Think of first base in your sales model as meeting the potential customer’s decision makers for the first time.  You’ve already had your “first date” with the customer, but now you’re meeting his or her dream team back in the office.  Is there a “spark” between you and the men in ties with the checkbooks?  If there is, start leading off to second base.  If not, you’re ooooooout!  Head back to the dugout and regroup - spending more time with this client might land a sale eventually, but it will not give you a long-term customer.

Second base: Sex - copping a feel, sales - negotiation.

You’ve met the decision makers, made your sale on that end, and convinced them of the value of your product.  Now you need to convince them of the cost.  You’re beyond the meeting at the front desk and have made it all the way to the conference room on the 3rd floor.  Now is where the selling begins - you know the price of your product, your customer knows the value of the product to them.  This is where you start talking about features on your end and pain points/solutions on their end, trying to match things up as best you can to bring their “worth” in alignment with your “cost.”

Third base: Sex - ****/**** (yeah, still a PG-13 website), sales - trial run.

They like you and want your product, but probably aren’t 100% sold on it yet.  Give them a feel for how things work, help them learn more about your product by giving some kind of limited trial (free or otherwise, at this point it doesn’t matter).  The point here is to prove that the game you’ve talked up to this point is legitimate.  Everyone can have flashy product advertisements, but a good salesman can back that up with an equally flashy product!

Home plate: Sex - sex, sales - closure.

You’ve done it; you’ve gone all the way and collected your fee.  Now you’ve also built a customer who will be around for a longer time than the one-night stand we talked about earlier.  Make sure you take a little time to celebrate with your team mates (your customer is now one of them, don’t forget that!), but don’t boast too much.  No one likes a sore winner.

A colleague of mine once sent me a fantastic article comparing company sales processes to bad marriages (the original article can be found here).  Using sex as a sales model teaches the same thing.

When men (or women) are trying to meet members of the opposite sex, they often put on a facade.  They dress a bit nicer, talk about things they think their potential partner will be interested in (rather than things they are interested in), and they act just a little more politely around their potential partner’s friends.  

After they “seal the deal,” though, they revert back to their everyday selves.  Slacks and a nice shirt change to blue jeans and a beer-stained hoodie.  Personal interests evolve from “making a mark on history” to “finding a way to keep ‘you’ happy so I don’t have to talk as much.”  Polite behavior transforms to hung up phone calls, no shows at dinner, and rude gossip behind people’s backs.

In sales, we see the same behavior.  From the article referenced above, we see a great example of the difference before and after a sale - in marketing collateral.  Advertisements and product brochures are glossy, well put together, easy to understand, and fun to read.  User manuals and other post-sale collateral, on the other hand, is boring.  Black and white print on flat paper with painfully few images.

If this kind of bait-and-switch behavior is frustrating and difficult in a sexual relationship, why do we put up with it in a sales relationship?  If using a facade to get laid is upsetting and disrespectful, what does that say about using a facade to close the sale?

The only way to defeat this problem is to remove the facade.  Take off the mask and figure out what your real personality assets are.  If you dress like a slob, make a conscious effort to rebuild your wardrobe.  If you’re real interests lie not in world peace but weekend keg stands, take some time to figure out why and discover other (more meaningful?) things you might develop a passion for.  If you’re a sarcastic jerk around other people … then this book might not be for you.

Figure out who you are, then you can see the gaps preventing you from becoming who you want to be.  It takes work to move from point A to point B, but if you can manage it you’ll eliminate much of the risk in dating AND in making stellar sales.  It’s all about being someone attractive without having to don a mask.

One of the most important lessons of both sales and sex: don’t kiss and tell.

You’re going to be proud of your accomplishments.  You’re going to want to brag, tell all your friends and colleagues, and shout your own praises from the mountaintops.  I can almost guarantee that, if you do, your success will stop right there.

First of all, bragging about how easily you made a sale will undoubtedly upset your customer.  Maybe not this time and maybe not next time, but eventually you’ll have a customer who will feel used after you talk about them as ‘just another conquest.’

Secondly, bragging about past sales will make it more difficult to close later sales.  In a sales meeting, no one wants to hear how much the other guy bought your widget for.  They want to know what unique discount you’re giving to them … not how much it actually costs or how much profit your boss wants you to bring in.  Your customer will always want the best deal, and being able to compare what you’re offering with what the last guy accepted will do one of two things:

1. They’ll feel pressured to accept the same deal as one of their competitors - never put a prospective buyer on the defensive like this.
2. They’ll want a discount that’s more generous than you’re willing, or able, to actually give.

In the same way bragging about sex will hurt your chances at meeting someone in a bar, bragging about sales will destroy whatever chance you have of bringing in the next customer.

Think back to your buying experiences.  What did you know about the salesman before he started his pitch?  If he was a braggart, were you more or less enticed to listen?  Were you more or less apt to actually buy?