Lesson from sales training

Marketing that focuses on the client, not the seller, is the most effective. The following story, told by Dave Dyer about his training as a rookie salesman supports this point.

The trainer said that you should assume that the prospect you are talking to is saying to himself “What’s in it for me?” during your presentation.  Then, we had a class exercise where each salesperson had to do a presentation to the rest of the class while all the other students interrupted him with comments like, “Who cares?  So what? What’s in it for me? Why should I care about that?”

As you can imagine, the students had lots of fun giving every presenter a hard time and the lesson sure stuck with me.  The product is not important; the prospect only buys what he thinks the product will do for him.

Before you brag about your firm, services, or products, you’d do well to consider this lesson.

If you like how Dyer tells stories, check out his latest book, Steel’s: A Forgotten Stock Market Scandal from the 1920s.