101 Best Sales and Marketing Ideas
IDEA 40:
SELL IN COLLABRATION WITH SOMEONE ELSE
Sometimes there are significant problems in selling. One such is when the status quo is powerful. Customers are using something else that they find satisfactory, and it blinds them to the possibility that you are offering something different and better. However good a sales person you are, you may conclude that a sufficient degree of credibility can only come from cooperation with someone else.
Idea
A personal initiative from the vice chairman of Sony USA …
A dramatic example of the principle involved here occurred when technology in the music business first moved away from vinyl records with the invention of CDs. Record companies were wedded to the existing technology, and were intent on avoiding change and protecting their present investment in it. Given this block, the answer for these promoting CDs was to take a step back and ask who is likely to be interested in a new medium that improves the quality of recorded sound. The answer was the recording artists themselves – the music makers. They gave initial demonstrations to this group, with predictable results: the technology really was better and they loved it.
Subsequently approaches to the industry, backed by this feedback, persuaded the record company executives first to take a real look at what was being offered, then to adopt it. Not only did sales of recorded music switch quite quickly to CDs, huge sales resulted as people bought second copies of music they already owned in the new format.
In practice
- There are many possibilities here. Ask yourself, who could augment your sales pitch? Customers, outside experts, other staff in your own organization (technical people, perhaps) – all may have something to contribute and support.