In a private and exclusive Facebook group I am lucky to be a member of, marketer Travis Sago asked the following:
“How do you respond to, ‘I want to think about it?'”
Travis was talking about doing one-on-one sales, rather than persuading the masses.
His question ties in nicely to my post from yesterday. That was about A-list copywriter Gary Bencivenga, and the failure he experienced when trying to sell in person.
So ask yourself. How would you respond if a prospect wants time to think about buying whatever you’re selling?
If you know online marketing, you might spike up the urgency.
“Only 72 left in stock!”
“The timer is ticking! Once it runs out, this offer will be taken down!”
“The price will go up after midnight!”
That’s not what Travis recommends. Instead, this is what he says:
“Take all the time you need. What had you considering this at all?”
That’s very clever and nuanced. It sums up, in two sentences, much wisdom that came from negotiation coach Jim Camp. Camp talked about things like going for the no… eliminating your own neediness… and using open-ended questions to get your adversary to paint a vision of his own pain.
Camp’s system was used in big ticket, multi-million dollar negotiations. Travis is using it to sell $5k and $10k and $50k offers. He says this approach has made him millions, and I believe him.
So now you know an effective way to deal with an important objection in one-on-one sales.
But what if you’re doing online mass marketing, or writing sales copy? Can you profit from Travis’s laid-back system? Or would using it be suicide?
After years of slow thinking, I have one or two thoughts on the matter. And maybe, I will share them some time soon, after the timer runs out. If you want to hear what I have to say, you can sign up for my email newsletter.