The Art of Persuasion: Life is a Sale

Photo by Charles Forerunner on Unsplash

When was the last time you had a someone try to sell you something? You may not realize it, but it happens more often than you think.

Every day you are being sold. From the brands you purchase at the grocery store, to someone’s personality, or even an idea. It happens everywhere in news articles, advertisements, friendships, tweets, posts, and videos. This article right now is attempting to sell you the idea of your ability to trust me.

Selling is just the art of persuasion, you are trying to convince someone to do/want something you could offer/get. Something everyone does subconsciously, but never realize it is happening. This is a valuable skill in life, it could help you improve your relationships, understand when you are being manipulated, and could help you better achieve goals in life.

What Is the Art Persuasion?

To understand the Art of Persuasion, let us first analyze a traditional salesman then compare him to real life scenarios — breaking down the fundamentals of a “sale”.

A traditional salesman has one primary goal in mind, to sell you a product or service in order to get commission. This is how the salesman makes a living, with each product he sells; he will get a piece of commission. There are many different types of salesmen, usually for high-involvement products. A great career, if you can master the art of persuasion. I like to separate salesmen into 3 different categories:

Entry- Entry-level salesmen are hit or miss, they usually lack training to identify whether a prospect wants to be sold and attempts to sell them something anyways. They know the outline of the Art of Persuasion but fail to understand how to execute it properly.

Sleezy- Sleezy salesmen are the worst, they often make use of high-pressure sales tactics to make a sale as soon as possible, then ghost you completely after making a sale. They partially understand the art of persuasion, however they abuse it. Their only objective is your money. Think of most used car salesmen or telemarketers.

Professional- Professional Salesmen are the best salesmen, they are often vetted to address any concerns you may have when it comes to purchasing a product or service. These are types of salesmen you will not see selling to a consumer, but rather working on B2B projects (Business to Business). The reason they are the best is because they understand that you are not suppose to sell to everyone. If the solution or project is not a fit for a prospect, they will move on without attempting to sell them a solution.

All three of their goals are to sell you something. How they achieve this is a simple model/pathway. Pretend you are a salesman for a moment, this is the model most sale cycles follow when trying to establish a sale.

The Sales Cycle:

1. Identify- You will identify a prospect with an underlying issue or need. If the salesmen can solve the issue, they will approach them for a conversation. Usually, businesses will already have prospects identified through a Funnel to generate leads.
2. Qualify- Qualifying is the most important part of sale, if you are not qualifying a prospect you could be wasting time trying to sell to a brick wall right from the beginning. In this process, you will ask questions such as budget and objectives they are looking for in a solution. You will also look for painpoints that can be further elaborated on to build trust between you and a client.
3. Build Rapport- Rapport is that little friendship/trust you build right after qualifying a prospect. During this phase of a sale, you will want to establish yourself as an expert of the product or solution. This includes answering questions prospects may have or creating scenarios the prospect could face. Throughout this phase, your client should do 80% of the talking.
4. Soft Close- A soft close is when you attempt to establish a sale for the first time, this often includes asking if they are ready to start. 90% of the time they will hit you with an objection such as “I need to talk to someone”, “It is not in my budget right now”, “I need to do some more research”, etc.
5. Handle Objections- You will hand those objections by working on some of the painpoints and discovering new painpoints of a prospect. This is the phase that Sleezy Salesmen will create Urgency- often including bogus limited time sales or pressuring painpoints to create sales out of fear.
6. Repeat Steps 3–5 -Throughout this point you will handle the objections, build new rapport with the client until there are no longer any objections. Note: This process could take multiple calls especially in B2B environments, it is normal. It often takes 3–7 contacts with a prospect before closing sale.
7. Close- After you have built enough rapport and handled all objections a prospect gives you, then you are able to close the sale. At this point a sleezy salesman will continue to the next prospect, and never contact the prospect again. While a professional salesman will offer support, check in, and build a long-term relationship with a client.
8. Upsell/Ask for referrals (Optional)- After completing a sale, it is often good practice to reach out to a client to check in on the product or service. This will not only build rapport for any future deals but gives them the opportunity to ask for referrals. In sales, networking is key to your growth in career. Sleezy salesman only lookout for the short-term benefits, while professional salesman understands the long-term benefits.

There are many other key factors that go into a sales cycle that I overlook, such as tonality, mirror imaging, different types of prospects you will face. But for the sake of simplicity, I only covered the sales process to understand how a salesman persuades someone to purchase a product or service.

Sales in a non-sales environment.

Now that you understand how a salesman completes his job, let us examine how this happens daily without you noticing, and how you can use it to better help your career/life.

Ice Cream Scenario

Children are the best examples of salesmen because they can sell you an idea subconsciously, without realizing they are persuading you. They usually do this for their own benefits. My favorite example is my 4-year-old niece asking me to give them ice cream before dinner.

Below is an outline of how this conversation usually goes:

1. Identify- When my niece wants ice cream she will look to see if there is ice cream available, and someone around to give it to her. Her parents will usually say no, therefore she looks to ask her aunts or uncles.
2. Qualify- My niece can easily qualify who would give her ice cream based on past experiences; she knows not to bother asking her parents because they will say no. She will mention the idea of ice cream, asking questions such as “which ice cream is my favorite”, or “if I am hungry.”
3. Build Rapport- Throughout this phase, she will talk about what ice cream is her favorite and try to sell me on the idea of ice cream.
4. Soft Close- Here we have our first closing question: “Can we have ice cream?”. A simple question to hear my rebuttal.
5. Handle Objections- I say no the first time and then she replies “But…” in the form of questions that often include asking “why it will be good idea.” Often including benefits such as “I will eat all of my dinner”, or “I will brush my teeth before and after dinner.”
6. Repeat Steps 3–5
7. Close- Eventually I cave in, giving her ice-cream, but that is because she convinced me. I am sure your niece/nephew/or even your own kids do this to you, whether it is ice cream, a toy at the store, or watching a movie.

That is a real-life example of how a kid can sell you something subconsciously, it happens daily whether the kid knows they are doing it or not. It is programmed in our brain.

The Pay Raise Scenario

Once you understand a simple sales process you can use it in real life scenarios such as your career. Asking for a pay raise is a great way to showcase this art of persuasion. You are attempting to sell them the idea that your time worth more than they are paying for.

Asking for a raise is one of the most stressful things for some people, more often than not, it is because people do not know how to correctly value their time. Most cases it will get tossed out, or asked to be reviewed at a later time.

1. Identify- You approached your manager, or HR representative about a possible raise You get directed to someone you will be talking to about getting one.
2. Qualify- This usually occurs in small talk, when discussing your performance in the company and ensuring that the person you are discussing it with agrees with you.
3. Build Rapport- Often, unless you are an underperforming employee, they will agree with you about your performance.
4. Soft Close- This is where you (or they) throw out a number or refuse the offer. They will usually give out excuses such as “you have a performance review in XXX months”, or “it is not in the budget right now.”
5. Handle Objections- Here you handle their rebuttals often including details of a larger workload, or performance in the company.
6. Repeat Steps 3–5
7. Close- You agree on a raise because you sold them on your value of character/worth to the company.
8. Upsell/Ask for referrals (Optional)- Here you negotiate the raise, most companies can afford to give you way more than they initially offer. Depending on the mindset of the representative, you can counter-offer their initial raise amount and repeat the sales process.

How does understanding this cycle help?

I showed 2 different examples of selling an idea, a child getting ice cream, and asking for a raise.

That is a scratch on the surface of selling, because it happens everywhere:

• Interviewing for a job (Selling yourself)
• Making new friends and a first impression (Selling yourself)
• Convincing yourself to do something you have never done (Selling yourself)
• Convincing your spouse to go to vacation (Selling an Idea)
• Debating whether to get pizza or Chinese for dinner (Selling an Idea)
• Asking someone to invest in your company (Selling a Vision)

Many people do not realize that life is a sale, and it ruins the mindset of persuasion. If you realize that you are attempting to persuade someone, it will make it easier to follow through when you have a clear plan laid out.

That sale cycle we modeled above can easily be tweaked for any scenario, once you master it; you can learn how to persuade almost anyone.

Does that mean it work for everyone? No, because it is a learned skill you have to keep repeating till you getting better at it. Some people do it naturally, some people need to learn it. Now that you understand the principles behind it, try to notice it the next time someone is trying to sell you something. See what their cycle looks like.