101 Best Sales and Marketing Ideas
IDEA 90:
A TELLING SONG
The idea here is important, but the example that brought it to mind is not strictly a sales one. First, some brief background: I have recently written a travel book (First Class – At Last!, Marshall Cavendish), which focuses on a journey from Singapore to Bangkok on the luxury Eastern & Oriental Express. This involved a visit to Singapore, where one evening I went to Harry’s Bar, a well-know jazz venue on Boat Quay.
Idea
From jazz singer Marina Xavier …
At around every evening, Harry’s bar presents live music. There is a resident band, but the right I was there a guest artist was appearing, Eurasian songstress Marina Xavier. (She had an album to promote, so she was selling, in a sense). Let I give her plug: she’s very good, and if you like cool jazz, the album is When the World was Young (available on Amazon, if Singapore is off your route).
One of the last things Marina said by way of introduction was, “What day is it today?” Someone shouted “Tuesday”. “OK”, she said, “let’s make it seem like Friday night”. And she was off into the first song. Wittingly or not, she did two things that every sales person should always do early in any sales encounter. First, she showed an interest in her audience (customers), demonstrating that she cared about how they felt, and wanted them to feel good. Second, she did this in a pleasant and light way, which (was one of the things that) put people at their ease.
In practice
- The two things above go together. No one will buy easily if they feel a sales person is not interested in them (or their product), yet this feeling has to be introduced easily and comfortably, and not in a way that is labelled, “Notice that I’m interested in you!” Sometimes a focus on the job to be done and the facts that must be put over allows this kind of finesse inadvertently to be omitted.
- Never forget that the feeling between a customer and a sales person contributes to the outcome of the meeting, and act accordingly.