C’mon, dare me – say I shouldn’t buy it.
December 23, 2011 by Halfagain Team
Something curious happened to me the other day. We were having connectivity issues and, in talking to the Comcast (my isp) guy, he mentioned cable ‘insurance’. Basic idea is this – if there’s a problem with your internet and they send a tech out to your address, one of two things will happen:
a) the tech will find out the problem is their fault and fix it free of charge
or
b) the tech will find out the problem is your fault and you pay a $50 service fee.
However, there’s an insurance policy. So, if I have the insurance in place and the tech comes to my place of business and finds out the bad connection is my fault, I’m not charged the $50 – it’s free.
Long story short, the tech/salesperson on the phone told me he didn’t think I needed the insurance. Contrary to what I would have assumed should happen, this instantly piqued my interest. Here was a guy specifically telling me NOT to buy the insurance, so I stopped, hesitated, then proceeded to weigh the cost (which was low) and benefits of the insurance and ended up buying the insurance plan.
I later thought about this peculiar transaction. If the sales guy had given me the ’sell’, told me about all the benefits of having insurance, etc etc, I undoubtedly would have said no. Is this because I hate to be pitched? Possibly. But more than likely, the ‘pitch’ itself is what devalues the service. If you have to ’sell’ me on the product, it’s probably a piece of crap. However, as in the case of the cable insurance I purchased, the fact that I was told NOT to buy the product opened me up to wanting to really scrutinize the offer. Something that, had I been given a regular sales presentation, never would have happened.
I’m so numb, so jaded by sales pitches, that someone has to literally tell me, “Don’t buy my product“, to get me to take a look at their offer.
The lesson here is this. If you’re trying to sell people something, they’re wise to your ways. This is old news, yes. There’s talk everywhere of banner blindness, drops in ad effectiveness, etc, etc and this scares a lot of people. It shouldn’t though. If anything, I believe it’s a good thing. It means that those individuals and companies that shoot straight, tell it like it is and whose mission is to simply and completely meet the needs of their customers/traffic/audience, win. Do that and do it well, and your sales will reach heights that no amount of fluffing could achieve.
Image courtesy of PA Pundits
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Nice one. Me too like you will never buy anyting if anyone trying to pitch his sales tactics and sell his stuff to me but if he says ‘you don’t need this’ then I always try to explore why he said that to me?
Its our human nature that if anyone tells you that ‘you don’t need this’, ‘This is not for you’, ‘You’ll never buy this’… then we start think about it and try to know why its not for me.
Nice idea to market things too.
Now, THIS is excellent advice! I can tell you that getting, on average, 30 hardcore pitches a day has turned me into someone who only buys products based on his own searching. VideoStacker was un-pitched to me, and that is how I am reading your story today.
The truth, and the real wisdom of your advice here, is that most, as in the VAST majority, of products that are pitched through affiliate marketing are either outright scams or nearly useless. They require this selling because they are, on their own merits, useless and wouldn’t be wanted.
Things like Cheney’s AdSense videos, and StoreStacker are the real rarities out here in the void of affiliate marketing.
Thanks for being one of the good guys.
Russell…