Archive for hard sell
Your Online Business As Spiritual Therapy
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No business runs without challenges.
And certainly an online business offers even more than its share – both internal and external. But an emotionally and financially rewarding shift takes place when you change your mindset to see your business online as a form of spiritual therapy.
The internal challenges — everything that rattles and challenges who you’ve been and how you experience and understand yourself.
Even if you’re fairly savvy in the world of business, due to the volatile nature of doing business online there can be even more radical
- wake-up calls
- major melt-downs
- leaps to success
just to name a few of the “adventures” that can leave you dazed and sleepless.
The external challenges — everything that comes at you from the outside world like all that Internet technology to manage and master.
There are those affiliates and joint venture partners who
- let you down
- don’t send out for you,
- may even refuse to pay you the affiliate commissions due to you for your good efforts on their behalf.
As a Heart-based, Soft Sell Marketer, have you tried to avoid developing the thick skin that allows Hard Sell marketers to disregard their conscience as you watch them make huge deposits generated from their online business accounts?
Instead, if anything, you may think you’re too thin skinned, and maybe you’ve even been told that “You’re kind of sensitivity wont’ work in business.” We have.
Well, you’re NOT too sensitive.
You are a wonderfully feeling-filled human who knows you are connected to all of life, and you ARE sensitive to what happens to your customers and to yourself.
That’s why it’s extremely powerful to understand your online business as a kind of spiritual therapy. Because that helps you respect and learn from every disorienting and disheartening experience you have — and this is not always easy.
We have, and more and more we feel those dark times as blessings for our spiritual growth and awakening. It takes practice, but you can too.
That way you build your business while you grow your Self, because your business and your Self are reflections of each other.
Because It’s All in the Connections,
Judith & Jim
So in the middle of those maddening moments, listen for Your Soul’s Calling. That’s the voice to rely on.
Hard Sell Swerve: Dead End
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Recently I read a blog post comparing soft sell with hard sell and I thought the writer’s conclusion, although well intentioned, swerved off into a dead end.
The writer wrote: “Initially along with foremost, [sic] attempt to attract readers with a soft sell approach that offers useful, fascinating [sic] coupled with timely details. Eventually, it could lead them towards a buy decision.”
This was my response:
Your conclusion that “soft sell” leads to “eventually” takes you into a dead end.
Soft sell doesn’t mean wait forever. It means connecting emotionally with your customer, even through online marketing, and working to achieve the customer’s well-being as well as yours.
Otherwise you become the customer’s lackey which is not good for either of you.
Soft sell is a different mindset not a different strategy.
The idea that soft sell is a strategy or tactic comes from traditional hard sell marketers whose sole intention is the bottom line. A sincere desire to create a relationship as part of the sales process is incidental if not an irritation to someone whose focus is wallet-based.
But connecting with your customer or prospect in a way they can feel allows for trust and emotional safety to be created. So your focus must expand from the bottom line as your primary measure of success to include leading the customer to see the truth — which is whether or not your product or service is truly right for him/her.
This is not an “eventually” proposition. It is right here and right now. It is neither desperate nor is it surrendering the process entirely to the customer.
Your customer came to you because they needed something they could not provide for themselves alone. So you are the authority. Lead them to see what’s right for them. Sometimes it’s what you have to offer. Sometimes it’s not. But the connection you create will pay off because of your credibility and trustworthiness.
For more on Soft Sell, heart-based marketing and selling check out our #1 bestseller — The Heart of Marketing.
Because It’s all in the Connection,
Jim Sniechowski
Prince Charming Hidden Behind Every Hard Sell
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Prince Charming is a well known and longed for character. He swoops into a girl’s life, rescues her from the drudgery and burden of her existence, whisks her away in a magical carriage, and they live happily ever after. A dream come true.
Just like hitting the Lotto, right?
Well, actually not. In a very real way, not even close.
The truth is we all secretly long for that Prince Charming moment, especially when it comes to buying things.
Buying things? That’s right, buying things —
And that’s exactly what many marketers aim at — your longing — so they dress their offers in a Prince Charming costume and swear that what they’re telling you is real.
Okay, so what’s the big deal? Read More→
Paradigm Shift – Soft Sell Includes Marketer AND Customer
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Focusing on the Soft Sell paradigm shift, we’ve been writing a lot about Soft Sell marketers — conscious, heart-based, aware of their emerging sense of responsibility to their customers, as well as their responsibility to themselves in every transaction.
And we have been thinking about and articulating the principles and tactics of Soft Sell, relationship-based marketing.
But what about the Soft Sell end user— the customer? What responsibility do customers have in the Soft Sell paradigm? That’s what this post is all about. Read More→
Hard Sell or Soft Sell – What’s the Difference?
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I came across this post today by Michel Fortin and wrote the following. You can see the original post at http://www.marketersboard.com/fry-customers-tactic/
Jim
======================================
Michel,
Ed Dale’s example misses the point entirely. There’s no conflict between Soft Sell and Upsell. As a Soft Sell marketer my wife, Judith, and I use upsells all the time. So it’s not the technique that is hard sell. It’s how you approach the customer that makes the difference.
In your piece you use words and phrases such as:
“Leaving an insane load of cash on the table.” What is insane about money? This is a term a lot of Internet marketers use as though it somehow describes some reality.
Yes it’s an image, but it’s also very hard in it’s point of view, to say nothing of a dreary cliche.
“Force a customer.” This has nothing to do with the technique of upselling. It has everything to do with the marketer’s dominant/submissive relation to the buyer. Any technique used with that relationship at its base is going to be hard. Instead of pointing to the technique, rather point to the marketer’s cynicism and lack or respect for human beings who happen, in this case, to be customers.
Several other example are — “churn and burn,” “hit them over the head,” “almost taunting you.” Why would anyone want to do business with someone who shows so little care and connection.
You also that you “believe that (the marketer) must ask for the order,” implying that asking for the order is somehow aggressive. That’s just plain wrong-headed. Asking for the order with respect and a sense of the emotional connection between you and the buyer is not aggressive, it is respectful of the human relation as fundamental to the transaction and that is NOT soft, but conscious and discerning.
How Does Soft Sell Differ from Hard Sell?
Hard Sell and Tyrannosaurus Rex
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Evolution is a very demanding task master. Either adapt to changing circumstances or follow in the footsteps of the Tyrannosaurus Rex – i.e. extinction.
The same process holds in every area of our lives. We either adapt and adopt or die — literally or effectively.
Evolution’s rule is now being felt in the area of Internet commerce.
—>>> Because customers have so much more access to information regarding the products they’re looking to purchase, and—>>> Because they can shop the worldwide Internet and have so many more outlets where they can buythe Internet has become a buyers-driven marketplace so that sellers have to be much more aware of the buyer’s needs.But it’s not just the buyer’s needs that have become prominent, but how the seller views the buyer and, as a result, how the seller treats the customer.Here’s what we mean. Read More→
No Mistreatment for Soft Sell Marketers
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday we were asked if we would consider having a speaker at our conference – “Bridging Heart and Marketing III” October 9-11 – who had a good training program to offer but was an abusive hard sell speaker – provided the speaker agreed to calm down the hard sell style.
We didn’t even let the question be completed before we both said, “Never.”
We will never allow our soft sell marketers to be mistreated – no matter what a good program someone may have. Never.
Will we make less money from our conferences than some of the big hard sell producers – sure.
Because our events will always be intimate, caring and spiritually safe events (as safe as we can make them for you).
And, at the same time, we are committed to helping you make as much money as you want from your business!
Soft sell marketing never means sacrificing your earning potential. Never. It DOES mean making the wealth you want from within your own integrity.
That’s why one of the books we are committed to writing is “Your Millionaire Self!” (We’ve got the domain already!)
So what does Your Soft Sell Millionaire Self need you to do today!?
Because Its’ All in the Connection
Judith & Jim
Soft Sell Marketing: One Hard Seller’s Point of View
Posted by: | CommentsAre you sick and tired of the hard sell online marketing tactics?
Online marketing tactics that hammer you until you either get out your credit card or you run away?
Well, look at this peek into the hard sell marketers’ mindset.
Because . . . well . . .my, my, my what you can find when you’re out surfing the search engines.
What follows is a fictionalized version of a snippet of forum dialogue that we discovered when researching the phrase “soft sell.”
NOTE: To protect the identities of those involved, we’ve translated the conversation into fiction but stayed true to the original intention that took place at the heavily hard sell forum site. .
