When your customer wants a chicken.

The art of selling parallels the skill-set of theater, illusion, persuasion, negotiation, and manipulation. Sometimes, unsavory souls practice the profession and the reputation of a sales career gets maligned and stereotyped as detrimental and harmful to the unsuspecting.

A study of the skills necessary to become a highly effective sales person reveal that people almost always make buying decisions emotionally and then justify their purchase to themselves and others logically.

A successful sales situation then boils down to a skilled selling craftsman intently listening to the customer and responding by creating a new perception through acts and conversation to satisfy the needs, wants, and capabilities of the customer. This demonstration of the sales pro’s skills is where you create in the mind of the customer a “chicken” which is really a “duck”.

Is this manipulation? Or, is this providing a service of needs satisfaction?

If you are giving the customer what they need in their mind (remember that perception is reality in the mind of the believer), are you really helping them get what they want and are you being ethically honest?

That depends on your character. Do you rationalize away your presentation with “someone will provide it for them; it might as well be me”? Or, do you know when to “draw the line” and refuse to “make the sale” in the best interest of both your customer and your company.

Mastering the art of sales can be dangerous if you do not fully understand and practice a high degree of ethics. Otherwise, your resulting legacy can become one of being a benefactor or a fraudster. Which will you be?

What is the difference between an un-skilled used car salesman and a politician? Not much. Their words don’t seem to matter at all. They both make lots of promises, but you usually end up getting a lemon. The un-trained car salesman does it out of ignorance and the politician does it out of design.

It’s a sad state of affairs that examples like this have caused the sales profession to suffer the stereotypical association with politicians.

I am not suggesting that you sell ducks to people that need and want chickens. I do suggest that every dedicated sales professional should be actively engaged in regular study of good books and sales training-coaching along with study of ethics and the building of a good character.

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