Fwd: dashboard data concept

["Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Convincing people with reasons may not be the best approach. You 
might as well try to convince someone to love you with mathematics 
and a return-on-investment pie chart. (note that I said "love," 
not "marry.")

The only way to sell someone on an idea is to find out what motivates 
them, and speak to that.

Knowing why the harmonica appeals to existing players is valuable, 
not as a sales pitch as in "you should buy (play) this because . . " 
but instead as a way of predicting (always chancy) potential reasons 
someone might find the harmonica attractive. This can assist you in 
discovering what the motivation is for the prospect, then amplifying 
on that in helping them to decide to take the plunge.

The kind of selling where you want to convince someone to part with 
their cash as quickly as possible is useless in if you're looking for 
a long-term involvement, not a quick turn.

The kind of selling where you're asking someone to make a large 
investment on a big-ticket item that will impact both their finances 
and their lifestyle isn't appropriate either, because the investment 
is small and the lifestyle impact, while potentially large, is not 
obvious and could actually scare the prospect away.

The kind of selling where you pencil out benefits vs. costs isn't 
really appropriate because most harmonica players won't make money at 
it, or at least not significant amounts, and the costs aren't 
particularly large (though the low cost of entry is a benefit worth 
mentioning).

Assuming that the prospect has taken the first step in deciding to 
buy or inquire about harmonicas, myabe mention a few broad 
categories. Based on the response you get on this list and elsewhere, 
try to boil the responses down to a small number of categories - 
three to five. Mention these to the prospect - not in 
technical "category analysis" language but in everyday language, 
possibly by using an illustrative example. See what the prospect 
responds to and go from there.

This is very different from a sales "pitch" where you deliver a 
performance designed to dazzle the prospect into pulling out cash. 
Both approaches can get product sold, but the "pitch" method will not 
create harmonica players, and I sense that this is of primary 
importance to you (moving units may be a stronger motivation for 
Hohner, at least in the short term).

Winslow


- --- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "dfwhoot" <dfwhoot@xxxx> 
wrote:
If you were trying to sell someone to why they should play the 
harmonica, what would be your 

sells pitch ?.

Easy to tote , health reasons, cool way to express your music , 
easier than toting around a set of drums.......

This is a new Dashboard data concept to train salespeople on how to 
sell harmonicas. It's a new co -op program with Hohner and a music 
company in Texas. I'd appreciate any comments....

Jerl Welch
- --- End forwarded message ---