INTRODUCTION. What Do We Sell and How to Sell It
What are we selling? Obviously, the goods. Or not? There is a version that we sell thin air, promises and expectations. That’s correct, too. Where is the truth? Somewhere between these extremes.
We will take as a basis that during the sale the parties exchange promises and expectations of something valuable. The buyer picks up the goods but does not yet know whether he will be able to use it the way he wants, as the seller promised. The seller receives money from the buyer but also does not know whether he will be able to use it as he would like. It turns out that while exchanging something tangible and tangible the seller and the buyer actually exchanged promises and expectations.
On the other hand, what we are selling determines how we sell. If a sale is an exchange of something tangible (goods for money, money for goods), the process could be reduced to a fight, who will benefit from this exchange. But if the sale is an exchange of promises, then it is quite possible to imagine a mutually beneficial exchange in which both parties feel like winners.
But in the contemporary world, “mutually beneficial sales” is a kind of oxymoron, isn’t it? We are used to businesses selling us unnecessary goods and services and making us pay crazy amounts of money for them. We are accustomed to businessmen complaining that it is unprofitable to run business under such tough conditions. We are also used to scamers stealing everything from us. But we did not see anything mutually beneficial in real life. Maybe someone is foolishly trying to trade honestly, but such fools are quickly overtaken by the “bony hand of the market.” Nobody ever heard of them.
So, read this book as “non-science fiction.” Well, there is such a genre. But there are eccentrics who believe that the future lies behind this fantasy. Probably, this future is just around the corner. We are tired of manipulation, deception, concessions and scams. Maybe it’s time to change something in this life. First, let’s imagine what we want, otherwise it will do as Chernomyrdin (former Russian Prime-Minister) said, “We meant it for the best, but it turned out the usual.” Let’s imagine together the mutually beneficial, win-win sales.
| 13 Dialogues on Win-Win Sales | PART I. Sales Technology Sells Itself