How to Sell Without Selling

how to sell without selling

If there is one thing I hated, and still hate doing – in fact can’t do… it’s the hard sell.  In fact my first email campaign went a full 21 days without mentioning the “S” word.  Well I have discovered that it doesn’t have to be like this at all….  and where did I learn this?  When camping in a field with no internet access!

But before I spill the beans, just think about both the best and worst buying experiences that you have ever had…

For my wife and I, our worst experience was when we literally had to evict a double glazing salesman on Christmas Eve – after no less than four hours of hard sell.  Nightmare…and no sale!

Enter – “the complete opposite”.  Imagine, if you will, a camping experience where everything has been laid out before you to perfectly “match” your need and to enhance your experience.  When we arrived at the campsite to check in, we were helped by some lovely staff, who showed us around and pointed out all the facilities.  We then selected our preferred pitch (we found just the right one… to get both the sea view and the evening sun – perfect) and returned to the check in desk to notify the campsite of our selection and to pay.

Both my wife and I were surprised by what we heard next?  “would you like a croissant or a pain-au-chocolate, or a French loaf for tomorrow morning?”….. errr, “that sounds nice, yes please”.

Without even a… “how much will that be”.  And so it went on.  Everything had been thought out to offer you what you would need next.  Newspaper if you wanted it.  Ice blocks for the cooler box… and yup we got through plenty of these.  Or even a fridge if you wanted to hire one by the day!  Chips on the lounge decking if you wanted them, or perhaps a cappuccino?  Any food?  Home grown veggies? Even home grown sausages! It was amazing…

So, I took away some major lessons from this amazing camping trip…

When is selling not selling?  When you are offering something to help somebody at just the right time that they need it or they would like it.  By solving problems for people – they will readily and happily part with their pennies.  All of these things I am talking about at the campsite were very reasonably priced and were over and above what we had ever been offered at other campsites we had stayed at.

Price elasticity. This may be a bit of a stretch from this scenario, but I know it to be true from other cases I have experienced, and that is that offering somebody something at just the right time gives you some “price elasticity”, i.e. you can charge more with less resistance – and still be offering your customer a product / service that that are pleased with and that they will rave about.

Let me ask you this – if you had just crawled out of a dessert and were literally “dying” for a drink… how much would you pay for a glass of water?  Having had that thirst quenching glass, but still quite parched… how much would you pay for the second glass?  And now pretty full and not really needing any more… how much would you pay for the third glass? – you get the idea.  Offer something at the right time and you don’t have to sell it. It sells itself and at a higher price!

The power of a captive audience.  Anybody that has been to the cinema will know about this as you get charged over the odds for a drink, a bag of popcorn, well just about everything.  But in this campsite is wasn’t like that – prices were very reasonable, comparable to those in the shops… so you didn’t feel “ripped – off” and you would happily come back for more!

The power of repeat sales to one customer…. In the morning, when you went to collect your croissant… guess what?  “Same again for tomorrow?”…. “yes please!”.  So buy giving great value – and helped by having a captive audience – plenty of repeat buyers.  This has a huge effect of extending the “lifetime customer value” (the amount that each customer spends with you) which is an important factor in business.

So, I have seen a great real life, non-internet marketing, example of “selling without selling”.  So I will now be trying to apply this across my internet businesses and I hope that you can see the benefits of this approach and that you will apply some of these lessons too.

Hope this helps you – let me know your experiences… how can you apply this in your online business.  Please leave me a comment to let you know your experiences.

Cheers for now.

Chris.