Persuasive sales techniques
Most of the techniques below have been applied using “Influence. The psychology of persuasion” book by Dr. R. Cialdini. Neither the author of the book or I are encouraging the use of psychological persuasion.
Relate to the person.
Research the person you are trying to reach. 2 minutes on google might give you some great information about the person. Any relation that you will bring up in your conversation will increase your chance of selling or making a connection.
Do not sell! Help them!
A hard sell to a person that does not know you might kill the possible sale.
“I have came across your website and I thought that we might be able to help you to boost your online sales”.
Scarcity Theory
“We only sell to big agencies. However we have decided to try selling to the end clients for a month. If it will not work we will carry on selling to the agencies directly.”
Make them aware that this is the only chance they might have to get a cheap quality product.
Reciprocity Theory
Offer them to buy a product of you. If they reject it – offer them a free trial, because you are confident that it will work for them (not because you need to sell something).
If you manage to relate to them and to like you, by rejecting your first offer to help them, they will feel like they owe you. After this, a free trial will be a simple pitch requiring not much input from them and possibly bring them potential clients.
Also after rejection you might ask them whether they know someone else who might be interested in your product. If they do give you a name of the person and the contact details you have a 50% chance of sale. Call that person saying that Mr. X gave you his contacts and said that he might benefit from your offer.
Consistency
If they are keen to talk ask them about their marketing strategies. After they finished:
“as I understand you have been very successful at your direct mail campaigns so far and in the new year you might want to consider trying out other advanced marketing strategies to stay ahead of your competitors. I think that your company would benefit from Email marketing… Lead Gen… (a spontaneous comment) If you want I can have a word with my manager, I might be able to arrange you a free trial”.
It is a no brainer for them. By saying that they are not interested will mean that they don’t want to be ahead of their competitors.
Saying that you will negotiate a free trial with your manager will mean that you are on their side.
Social proof
Let them know that you already have a client working in [Business Evaluation or whatever] and they have been overwhelmed with the results. You think that they can easily get some new clients this way.
Authority
Give them as much advice on email marketing as you can.
If you give them some sound advice they will become dependent on your advice and see you as a first person to contact in any email marketing projects.
