People buy trust before they buy products.
Mark Stevens
Table of Contents
Badge of distinction
In the market where you operate, it’s essential to clearly understand what sets your company apart from others that may seem similar at first glance. The list of potential advantages is not exhaustive, and you can only speculate on some of them. This is your company’s business, and you should understand exactly what you will offer to your clients.
For example, the founder of a business is very smart and has come up with a brilliant idea. He has very little time before others figure out how he is making money and start doing the same thing. You might be producing a product similar to that of a monopoly. However, you are much more agile and can provide your service faster than the bureaucratic machine of the monopoly can get up and running. In the early days of the internet, the main providers were small private companies willing to operate in a nascent market where monopolies did not see much profit. These firms were agile in relation to their customers, competing and shaping consumer expectations for the product. However, once the market matured and substantial money began to flow, the concept of the product became standardized. At that point, large telecommunications companies entered the scene, leveraging their entire infrastructure. For smaller providers, it became a time to either exit the market or focus on niche and corporate solutions: providing server space for clients and hosting for client websites, organizing virtual private networks, and so on.
You may have an established supply channel for a product similar to what’s currently on the market, but at a different price and/or quality. Or perhaps you have, by chance, a “First and Most Important Client” (with all capital letters). You don’t have to go through the stage of searching for clients without any funds, and you can develop your company’s infrastructure while benefiting from at least a temporarily guaranteed cash flow.
Maybe your company is bold (or foolish) enough to break the law. The imports you organize might be smuggled; the goods you produce could be counterfeit; or perhaps, through some bribes, you have gained access to certain doors in regulatory, supervisory, auditing, or enforcement agencies. No one is advocating for breaking the law. However, winners are not judged, and as is well known, the first million cannot be earned honestly.
Or, for example, you have certain geographical advantages. Your pharmacy is most convenient for the residents of the nearby houses, or your notary office happens to be located in the same premises where real estate transactions are registered in the state cadastre.
An established business often has historical advantages. Traditions have formed a network of old acquaintances—people who trust you more than others, or those with whom you find it easier to connect.
Your product or service may be of higher quality compared to similar offerings due to either a new business process or new technology. For example, a courier delivery service is better than the postal service. Or your auto repair shop has equipment that is not yet available in the country, but is necessary for performing certain tasks.
Or you are the holder of a patent based on which you are offering a new or significantly improved product. And so on.
You should start selling only with a clear understanding of what makes you better than the rest. This distinguishing feature will form the basis of your offer to clients. Of course, you shouldn’t state it outright: your clients should “buy” your advantage and want to pay attention to it.
Help of the hall
Often, people running their own businesses do not have a clear understanding of what exactly they are selling. They claim to offer binders, furniture, transportation, or computers… But they forget that everyone else provides the same products. If the goods are identical across the board, customers will buy from the place that offers the lowest price. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to make money in such a business. At least, not more than what you would earn from a deposit if you sold all the goods, premises, and tools, and took the proceeds to the bank.
In fact, any business sells that subtle difference that sets it apart from its competitors. Everything that is essentially not tied to the act of selling is sold, but is related to it. It is this something that creates the economic profit that exceeds the “deposit.” The text for translation: [1]. business. It is precisely this that allows a company to push competitors out of seemingly hopelessly “wild” markets. Even more interesting is that few people consider: “What is so specific about my business that attracted my customer to me rather than to my competitor?” And even if they do think about it, they start coming up with answers like “reliability” or “speed,” or… well, “price.” As if everyone around always buys the cheapest option.
Why come up with something when you can just ask? Who? Existing clients, of course. Let them think and respond. Challenge them if they say “reliability”—you can’t assess it without trying. Challenge them if they say “price”—it’s unlikely all your clients drive a “Tavria.” Nothing bad will happen. The worst that can occur is that they might buy from you again, mentioning what made them stop and choose you in the first place. Ask and finally understand what exactly you will bring to the table as your trump card for the next client.
For White Sales, it’s important that the client feels satisfied not only with the purchase itself but also with the use of the item or service. After all, we need recommendations— we’ve been operating in a flat world for a long time, where there’s nowhere to hide and no one believes in television and billboards anymore.
Mountain system
Every seller can quickly answer the question of what they are selling. It’s quite obvious. “I sell pots” or “I sell air conditioners.” You might hear responses like “I sell comprehensive solutions in the field of…”.
Moreover, salespeople, trained in sales techniques, proudly claim that they sell themselves. However, they often overlook the fact that the buyer cannot try out the product before purchasing it, which means they will be guided by irrational motives. And where there is no rationality, there is always room for deception. After this, we wonder why people don’t trust salespeople and why it’s so hard for them to earn that trust. After all, throughout the history of sales, those who believed a salesperson just on their word have become as extinct as dinosaurs.
The correct answer to the question “What do we sell?” lies at the core of any company’s activities and the economy as a whole. However, a quick response is often not the right one: people think they are selling just a product—something similar to what competitors offer. “But at 10% less!” Unfortunately, such answers do not promise much success. And here’s why. In economics, there is a concept known as perfect competition. This is a non-existent mathematical model that helps to understand the workings of important economic laws. Perfect competition is an idealized state of the market where individual buyers and sellers cannot influence the price but contribute to it through their supply and demand. In other words, a seller does not set their own price for a product; they sell it at the market price. They cannot set a higher price (as the product simply won’t sell) or a lower price (as they would incur losses).
A situation similar to the one described above is possible: when the product is the same for everyone, anyone can enter and exit the market, all market participants have equal access to information about product prices, and the costs of acquiring the product (transportation and overhead expenses) are so low that they can be ignored. Under these conditions, the buyer will choose the cheaper option, and only companies that can offer the lowest price will remain in the market. However, by offering this low price, sellers find themselves in a situation where they stop making economic profits. In economics, unlike in accounting, gross costs also include the entrepreneur’s income, which incentivizes them to stay in the market. For example, if an entrepreneur suddenly realizes that they can sell their business, deposit the proceeds in a bank for interest, and comfortably receive rental income equal to their entrepreneurial income, they will do just that. They do not want the headaches and business risks associated with running a business, especially in a competitive environment with a tax burden.
Of course, from an accounting perspective, such a business is profitable. However, from an economic standpoint, a business whose accounting profit equals the rental income from a deposit is already on the brink of being unprofitable and does not generate any economic profit.
If a business is not generating economic profit, it means… it is not selling anything. After all, sales have always been the source of profit. In other words, if you are selling the same thing as your competitor, you are not selling anything. The answer to the question “What are we selling?” should be unique, different from what your competitor would say.
During my work, as I consulted numerous companies from various industries, I found that most of my clients struggled to clearly and succinctly answer the question, “What do we sell?” in a way that was unique to them and not applicable to a dozen similar firms. It often turned out that the company’s management simply needed to sit down and reflect on what exactly they were selling, so that other questions related to development or sales strategies could be addressed clearly and logically.
If we look at the market through the eyes of an economist, it becomes clear that a firm can only make a profit through something in which it holds a monopoly or something that competitors are unable to provide for the same price. This is the key distinction between the offerings of a specific firm and those of its competitors. All pharmacies sell medications, but each one is convenient only for a certain group of customers. All car dealerships offer vehicles, but each individual chooses one dealership based on their own considerations, seeing specific advantages in the one they select. The price of the product rarely plays a decisive role. Not many people make their purchasing decisions based solely on the price. Often, these advantages are quite trivial—proximity, personal connections, convenience, appearance, and so on. But even more often, these benefits are not even recognized by the sellers, even though it is precisely this “something” that allows companies to stand out in the flat landscape of a competitive market, as featureless as the bottom of a dried-up salt lake. And it is this that provides companies with the economic profit that exceeds the income from a deposit equal to the value of the company.
Once, there was an article in the newspapers about a chicken that runs like a penguin. Its owners claimed they would never make soup out of it. From the chicken’s perspective, that’s a complete success! If you want to avoid being “turned into soup,” you need to learn how to stand out from the crowd. It doesn’t matter whether it’s perceived positively or negatively. The point is to be special. Cheese with mold is essentially spoiled, but that’s what draws attention to it. Don’t be afraid to be “spoiled”; be afraid of being just like everyone else. And if you don’t fear the potential downsides of your own uniqueness, you’ll end up with something good.
The main secret is that in this flat world, it’s enough to be just a small hill or a bump to find a sufficient number of fans among the entire population of the country. Imagine that you start offering a service or product that will, for some reason unrelated to quality or usability… The text for translation: [2]. In terms of parameters, 95% of the population categorically rejects your product. However, the remaining 5% will fall in love with it and will be eager to get it from you. Compare this to a situation where you are just one of 100 or 1000 producers of a standard product that is in demand by 95% of the population. What market share can you expect under the same conditions? Will you be able to compete on equal footing with the giants that leverage economies of scale and massive advertising budgets? Will anyone be eager to get the product or service you produce? No, you will have to push it. By the way, it’s always easier to pull than to push, and there is an opinion that this is why most cars today are front-wheel drive.
“This” and the mission
We recommend that companies regularly do simple things—ask their customers why they chose them and what was important in their decision-making process. What the buyer thinks often does not align with how the company perceives itself. However, by understanding what the buyer actually purchased, companies can start selling exactly that. By the way, it’s likely much easier and more cost-effective to seek out customers with those specific needs as well.
In fact, a well-thought-out answer to the question “What do we sell?” is the company’s mission. “Most mission statements contain the right phrases like ‘people are our most important asset,’ ‘we will be the best in our field,’ ‘our goal is to exceed expectations,’ ‘our aim is to provide shareholders with above-average returns.’ A ‘lazy’ way to formulate a mission is simply to string all of this together in any order.” [3]. However, a set of such statements will not serve as a tool for strategic management and, even more so, as a sales tool. It may seem like a decent tool for propaganda or, as it’s now called, “public relations.” But customers are generally not aware of the company’s mission, despite the fact that formulating it takes up the working hours of some of the higher-paid employees.
If you run your own business, especially if your business is purely sales and you don’t produce anything tangible, you need to provide a clear answer to the question of what exactly you are selling. What makes your offering different from your competitors? Otherwise, you have no choice but to tread the old, worn path of price competition, discounts, promotions, and kickbacks. As mentioned earlier, this path leads to a point where you lose economic profit, a point where it becomes indifferent to you whether you continue running your business or sell it.
Let’s take, for example, a travel agency that sells products from other tour operators. This business is very close to a perfectly competitive market. Customers see no difference between agencies and have no particular reason to buy tickets and packages from just one company; they only respond to price. The travel agencies themselves believe they are selling tours and actively respond to calls from potential clients, helping them find trips over the phone. Once clients receive information about a suitable tour—knowing the hotel name, flight dates, price, and accommodation conditions—they call a dozen similar firms in search of a cheaper offer. Not understanding the criteria for choosing an agency, they turn the search for the cheapest tour into a sport, considering themselves winners if they manage to negotiate an additional 5-10 dollars off the price. The agency can only make sales based on the commissions paid to them by the tour operators. An agency that sells a tour with even a single dollar in profit is already in a better position than one that hasn’t sold anything at all. As a result, most travel agencies are not wealthy companies, content with meager earnings.
But if you talk to employees from several agencies, you’ll find that knowledge is the only thing that sets one travel agency apart from another. Experienced travel managers know the characteristics of each hotel, the nuances of different departure times, and whether a specific resort is suitable for a particular client. Agency staff go on promotional tours where they are introduced to numerous hotels, study customer reviews, and have a clear understanding of the product they are selling.
So if “this” is knowledge about tourist services, then why do agencies easily and confidently share it with people who may not necessarily book a trip with that particular company? On the contrary, any other agency, having received the technical details of a tour that someone else has already selected, and realizing that they won’t have to spend time identifying the tourist’s needs, will easily offer a discount to such a “price-shopping” tourist (the one who calls around to everyone). In this situation, the agency with experience and knowledge ends up at a disadvantage, as it has essentially given away its expertise to the consumer or even to a competing company.
If the agency realizes that it primarily sells its expertise to loyal clients who have once appreciated the quality of its tour selection and are willing to pay for it, it will no longer arrange tours over the phone but will invite the person to the office instead. After all, understanding the type of client, their values, and selection criteria is much easier in a face-to-face meeting. Moreover, it is also much easier to establish a trusting relationship and demonstrate to the client that the seller’s earnings are honest, and that the seller is guided by the client’s best interests while fairly earning their commission. Those who have already come to the office are less likely to go looking for a cheaper tour. Thus, a personal meeting serves as a tool for selecting the right clients.
The market for random sales
Most companies try to stay in the market without a clear understanding of “what” they are offering. They either have no idea what they are selling or are caught up in the hustle and routine. In any case, they show little interest in the reasons why customers choose their products over others. Unfortunately, in my experience, I have rarely encountered companies that ask their clients why they chose them.
Moreover, most organizations are even hesitant to ask clients such questions. They believe that doing so would reveal their ignorance and lack of confidence in their own abilities. In sales culture, it is customary for the seller to share, or as it’s often said today, “push” information about the advantages of their company or product to the client. Unfortunately, the sales culture we encounter has been shaped not by professionals, but by individuals who find themselves at the very bottom of the social hierarchy of professions. If you look at job listings on employment websites, you’ll find that while “sales managers” are one of the most sought-after categories of employees, their salaries are quite low, and their earnings are often illusory due to the predominance of variable pay. These are the people who “load,” “push,” and “grind,” who handle objections, win clients, and fight for contracts. They are fighters, not players. They are interested in victory, not affection. “Foolhardiness and bravery!” is their motto.
For some reason, no girl feels shy about asking her boyfriend, “Do you love me? And why?” A man who answers these questions is actually convincing himself of what makes his loved one special to him. Even if he hasn’t previously realized the reason for his infatuation and is driven by hormones, when caught off guard, he will start frantically searching for the most plausible answer. In the process, he also begins to form a set of values and explanations for why he should still be with this girl when the effects of the drug called “love” wear off.
Men don’t like answering such questions. They don’t even understand why they’re being asked. Women don’t always realize that by asking, “Why?”, they are using one of the strongest and most effective sales tools, aimed at getting the client to convince themselves of the necessity of the purchase. Neil Rackham referred to this type of question as “guiding” in his book “SPIN Selling.” In the original, this type of question was called “need-payoff,” which more accurately reflects their purpose.
The fact that sellers are hesitant to ask consumers for such information reveals their attitude towards their clients. After all, if we continue to compare sales to love, the question “Why?” is only appropriate coming from a beloved, not from a prostitute. If a seller views their clients merely as a source of money for work done without pleasure, then the buyer does not experience satisfaction from the purchase, but rather a kind of surrogate. In this view, the client could provide for themselves, which they often do: they refuse the seller’s services, find the product in price lists on their own, or scroll through dozens of web pages, analyzing the reviews posted there, and then make the purchase.
The seller’s ability to understand “Why?” should be established even before the sale takes place. The best sales are those after which the seller can ask such a question. To determine if a company is selling in the style of White Sales, one simply needs to answer the question: “Are our relationships with clients genuine enough for us to ask them why they chose us?” This typical “need-payoff” question allows the client to “buy” from the seller once again what has already been sold, and it paves the way for further discussions about referrals. After all, if selling in the style of White Sales, most clients will come to the company through recommendations, especially since intrusive “cold calls” are inappropriate and even harmful to the seller’s reputation.
Customer responses to the question “Why?” can reveal to sellers what is actually being purchased. The worst answer for a professional would be: “Price and only price.” This indicates that the seller has “given up,” accepted a loss for themselves, and has not found any other ways to attract the customer. A sale made solely based on the lowest price means that the seller is not willing to charge for the added value they create as an intermediary between the manufacturer and the buyer. They are either not ready to charge for “this” or do not know how “this” differs from similar offerings.
When a seller doesn’t understand what they are actually selling, they can only rely on chance or deception. A buyer, who is not given a clear reason why this seller is better than another, makes their purchase based on subjective criteria and values that were usually formed in childhood. This is how some people buy greens at the market: they make two or three rounds along the stalls, ask for prices, receive standard answers, and finally settle on a bunch of greens. They believe they have made a conscious choice, but in reality, this illusion of awareness is mixed with fatigue, the inability to choose one item from many similar options, and even the direction in which the buyer is moving through the market. In this case, the seller is merely a passive participant in the events.
At the eastern bazaar, sellers strive to participate in the selection of goods and begin to praise them. They may be telling the truth, but it comes across as a declaration of advantages supposedly absent in competitors’ products. Suppliers of sunflower oil do the same today when they write in large letters on the bottles “cholesterol-free.” While this is true, it is also quite misleading. Sellers may try to manipulate customers by giving them commands or directives: “Come over, buy” or “Don’t walk past.” However, such actions are usually perceived by customers either as excessive and off-putting nagging that distracts them from their shopping list, or as an inevitable evil that, after rationalization, turns into the “unique charm of the eastern bazaar.” Yet, this charm does not eliminate the factor of chance or luck, as everyone is calling out to customers, while the buyer makes a choice based on criteria known only to themselves. But, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, only weak people believe in luck, while strong and brave individuals believe in causes and effects.
The true reason why a customer not only buys a product for the first time but also returns for it again and then recommends the seller to their friends is trust. However, this can only be achieved by building relationships. In turn, relationships can only be established by getting to know the customer and genuinely caring about them, even loving them. When a customer’s choice is based on randomness, it becomes impossible to build a relationship. The customer does not value their purchase and believes that there are plenty of sellers like you. They are not interested in maintaining a relationship with you; there is no reciprocity, just as there is no love—a feeling of mutual dependence on each other. People who regularly buy meat or milk at the market from the same sellers understand that they depend on their supplier just as the supplier depends on them. If there is no sincerity and love between them, the outcome will be exactly the same as that of the salespeople who attended the first grade of sales school but lacked the strength to continue into the second.
There’s a joke about Lieutenant Rzhevsky, who asked the hussars for advice on how to attract a woman he liked. They advised him to first pay attention to the lady or her accessory, then talk about the weather, followed by music, and only after that gently transition to the topic of a date. After that, Rzhevsky encountered Natasha Rostova walking her dog, approached her, kicked the dog, commented, “Looks like it’s going to rain,” and immediately declared, “I have a drum, come to bed with me!”
The touts along the promenades of Luxor and Aswan operate in a similar way. They are very eager to take you for a ride on their felucca (a boat with a triangular sail) across the cool waters of the Nile. If you sit on the promenade enjoying the view of the river, you will inevitably experience 3-4 quite friendly encounters that consist of phrases like “Hello!”, “How are you?”, “Which country are you from?” (after which there’s usually a complimentary, formulaic comment about your country), and “I have a felucca over there, would you like to go for a ride?” For example, if you respond that you’re from “Nagonia,” you might hear back, “Wow, I actually have a cousin who married a girl from Nagonia!”
So, what’s happening? These guys have mastered the skill of making contact, but their fiery temperament doesn’t tolerate long digressions from the topic they’re interested in, so they get straight to the point about the drum and everything else…
Yes, that’s progress too, as the poorer and therefore more naive cab drivers simply shout “Keles.” [4]. By the way, upon hearing the answer “no,” both sides naively assume that there’s room for negotiation and ask, “You know how much?” with a tone that suggests the price should pleasantly surprise you.
The most interesting thing is that riding a horse-drawn carriage across the city costs up to 5 pounds. [5]. The cost of a felucca ride is £25 per hour. So we’re talking about amounts that aren’t critical for tourists. Ideally, they should agree to this service, even if they’ve used it once before. So why do they all say “no” in unison and wave off the touts like they’re annoying flies? Meanwhile, tourists are more than willing to spend money on freshly squeezed juice, which is also a “sight” in Upper Egypt and costs £1-2 per glass, depending on the type of juice and the seller’s greed.
The thing is that salespeople don’t even try to uncover the needs of their clients and skip from the “introduction” phase to the “presentation” phase, bypassing the stages of problem identification, development, and guiding towards a solution. They disregard the very steps that all well-known consultative selling techniques emphasize, from “SPIN” or “Top Gun” to “Strategic Selling” or “Solution Selling,” including the White Sales technique, which this book is about.
To be a monopolist
A monopoly does not mean that a product can be sold at any price, no matter how high. The price of a product offered by a monopolist must meet only one criterion: to ensure maximum profit for the producer. On one hand, there is an interdependence between supply and demand in the market, meaning that the higher the price of a product, the fewer people will want to buy it. On the other hand, there is a relationship between production scale and the cost of goods. A monopolist, by producing more, is forced to lower the price to ensure demand. Therefore, they will never operate at full capacity but will choose an equilibrium state that allows them to achieve maximum profit.
This means that, unlike in a competitive market, a) the monopolist earns economic profit, and b) this profit is maximized.
The situation in which there is competition, but each supplier or seller is different from the others, is called “monopolistic competition.” In marketing, this is commonly referred to as differentiation, and the well-known marketer Jack Trout even titled his book “Differentiate or Die.” As shown above, this is pure mathematics. Economic profit can only be achieved by selling goods whose added value is formed, in part, due to unique competitive advantages.
Jack Trout discusses classical marketing perspectives when it comes to mass sales, entire markets, and large production volumes. His recommendations are useful in situations where the cost of informing consumers about a company’s competitive advantages is relatively low when compared to each unit of product produced.
But if we go down to the level where ordinary sellers operate, and the world is made up of many small companies, we will find that these companies not only lack the funds for mass advertising, but it is also not beneficial for them at all. After all, if we assume that one billboard, which costs the advertiser $300 a month, increases sales by 0.1%, then sales volumes would need to exceed $300,000 for a rational businessman to even consider placing a billboard.
Is differentiation important for small and medium-sized businesses, or is it more relevant for large businesses with infrequent sales? Let’s consider a simple example. Suppose you bake bread. You have two options — to bake regular bread or to bake… green bread. Yes, by offering green bread, you would be a monopolist. But what is the level of demand for green bread? After all, if you pursue a monopolist strategy, you would want to sell green bread at a higher price than white bread, which means you should anticipate a corresponding level of demand. Is it worth the risk to allocate the company’s resources to focus specifically on producing green bread if there is no demand at all until someone starts offering green bread?
An obvious strategy for a baker would be to sell white bread. It’s a safer bet: the demand is clear, the market is clear, the consumer is clear, but so is the competition. You won’t be discovering anything new by starting to sell your bread to the residents of nearby houses. They were already buying it somewhere else before you arrived. This means you’re entering a competitive struggle, as mentioned earlier. In finance and investing, there’s a golden rule: the more reliable the option, the less profitable it tends to be. Green bread is a riskier product, but potentially more profitable as well. To determine whether it’s worth starting its production, you need to identify who might actually want it.
For sellers of green bread, we have good news: the demand for knowledge and information is being met better every day. People are increasingly skeptical of the news and more trusting of blogs. Pie recipes are discovered on “Odnoklassniki,” and travel agencies are chosen after reading reviews about them on online platforms. Out of 7 billion people, there will always be a couple of hundred thousand “nonconformists” who will specifically want green bread. That’s just 0.003% of the population. Even if only a fraction of these people is physically reachable for you, you can still produce 200 loaves of green bread a day. And they will buy them only from you as long as the price for “greenness” remains reasonable. By the way, customers will seek out unusual bread because they learn about you: through word of mouth, Facebook posts, or bloggers’ notes. If they need green bread, they will open a search engine and, with a couple of clicks, find your website. You won’t need mass advertising with billboards; you are already capable of being more successful than large producers who previously relied on economies of scale to bombard consumers with expensive advertising for their brands and products. Moreover, if these large corporations realize that there is interest in green bread and start mass production, you can switch to baking red or blue bread. But the most important thing is that such corporations simply won’t find it interesting to produce green bread, as the actual demand for it is lower than the minimum production volume required to make it profitable.
It is precisely the move into niches, where your slice of the pie becomes inaccessible to large competitors, that allows small breweries, artisanal bakeries, and furniture stores to survive. The high production costs are more than compensated for by the relative monopoly on supply. Of course, this is contingent on having demand for that supply at such a price.
Copy-paste
For sellers of green bread, we also have some bad news. The fact is that right now, the issue of copying has become more relevant than ever. Any competitive advantage you have will be instantly copied as soon as your competitors realize that selling a product similar to yours is profitable.
The problem of copying has always existed. But lately, it has become incredibly easy to replicate what others do. Any technical solution, any process, any approach is not only easily copied but also becomes known to the entire world as soon as you use it for the first time to attract customers. The day after someone tells their friends about a restaurant that offers service in complete darkness, the same idea will “visit” the minds of hundreds of entrepreneurs. At the very least, the monopoly will shrink to a single city or even a neighborhood, and at most, in response to this concept, a dozen alternative and equally appealing ideas will emerge. If in the past it took years for an idea to reach those willing to copy it, now consumers receive alternatives in just six months.
Institutions that restrict copyright and intellectual property rights are going through tough times. Society is currently experiencing a paradigm shift. It’s not without struggle, as monopolies fight for their profits, but change is happening nonetheless. Patent protection for ideas comes at a high cost, making it accessible only to large corporations, and even then, it doesn’t show much effectiveness.
Small and medium-sized businesses are completely unprotected from copying. Winning a lawsuit against one copier will not lead to victory, but rather to notoriety. Tomorrow, the one who defended themselves will attract an army of those who will adopt their idea. In practice, especially in countries with poorly developed intellectual property institutions, a small company cannot even protect itself from those who shamelessly use the same company name, even if it is trademarked.
In such conditions, businesses can only develop a strategy to stay one step ahead of their competitors, being ready to launch a new idea just when the old one has lost its monopoly. This is very costly, and not every business is capable of doing this at all. Moreover, it is not accessible to sellers or businesses focused solely on sales. They can only hope that their unique approach to customers will not be copied too quickly.
Add yourself.
However, sellers have another opportunity to succeed: to incorporate themselves as part of their unique offering. Everything can be copied, but not personality.
Why did Samsung, despite making products that were even better than Apple’s, struggle to compete with Steve Jobs until his death, at least in terms of consumer affinity and loyalty? It was easy to imagine an Apple fan, but completely impossible to envision a Samsung fan.
Before Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company was rapidly losing its market position. In an effort to stay afloat and manage the burden of software and hardware development costs, it tried to do what others were doing—license the production of its computers and components. However, this did not help, and the licenses were revoked. Then Apple began using off-the-shelf hardware instead of custom-made components for its computers and adopted a Unix-based operating system, making it much easier to write programs for both Mac and Unix/Linux simultaneously, and even to run Mac OS on a regular PC or install Windows and Linux on a Mac.
With the release of the first Mac OS X, the issue of non-copyability became irrelevant. Attempts to stand out through device design still did not justify the high prices of computers, for which 100% functional compatibility could be achieved for less money.
This was a turning point for the company. Mac OS X, warmly welcomed by the company’s fans, was essentially a swan song for the world of Apple. Something had to be done, as the battle in the personal computer arena had been lost. Yes, there are still Mac OS and Apple computers, but they are practically compatible with the rest of the PC world, and choosing a platform is no longer a “life choice,” but rather a matter of fashion. If you don’t like Mac OS, you can always install Windows. And vice versa. Therefore, the company decided to venture into new markets while there was still time.
The first player to appear was the iPod. An unremarkable gadget that allowed users to listen to digital music. The key point is that this idea could be copied. From the outside, it might have seemed like a desperate move. However, it marked the beginning of a new success. Apple’s turnaround from decline to rise is often attributed to Steve Jobs, who had just returned to the company at that time. But upon closer inspection, it turns out that Steve Jobs’ influence on technology or business was minimal. This is mentioned in his biography, and even the dry information from patents shows that all the inventions implemented by Apple only mentioned Jobs’ name as a co-author. Everyone understands what it means when a leader is listed as a co-author…
Why did Apple need Steve Jobs? It’s unclear whether it was intentional or accidental, but Apple used him as a key element of its uniqueness. Everything can be copied, except for a person. The mass propaganda techniques honed in the mid-20th century were employed to create the image of a guru, a genius, a prophet. This is something that cannot be replicated. All Apple needed was to create and maintain the image of a prophet. Who would take on that role? Naturally, a legendary figure. How do you find one? Dig through the archives. There he is—the legendary founder of the company. His role was public presentations and maintaining the image. That’s it. As a result, people who bought an iPod or an Apple computer were essentially buying the confidence that they would possess technological perfection handed down to them directly from the hands of a genius and a prophet.
With all else being equal, the choice of buyers was predetermined. Therefore, it was no longer scary to start investing in innovations again: the iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air were born. Yes, ultrabooks with specifications far superior to those of the MacBook Air appeared on the market. But who would pay attention to them when it comes to prestige or confidence in quality? After all, other devices don’t carry a piece of Jobs.
Why has no one yet replicated Apple’s success? After all, this tactic has long been used by booksellers who create the image of a legendary fake author with a complex and interesting biography, promoting this persona under whose name books are sold, actually written by hired writers. These books are quickly turned into second-rate but box office hit films. Fashion houses and, even more so, politicians use the same trick. You can write better books, create better clothes, and pour the best perfumes into designer bottles, but you can’t replicate a name.
As we can see, the idea of embedding a brand in a person is by no means new. It was just that Apple was the first to try it in the information technology market. And once again, it’s unclear whether this was intentional or accidental. Shareholders may have simply noticed a rise in sales when Steve Jobs returned to the company and supported his continued presence there. If it was done intentionally, it was at a time when the company had nothing to lose—either it would succeed or fail. By choosing a new strategy for a tech company, its owners made a smart move.
The same can be said about sales. Salespeople who copy the techniques and methods of their colleagues automatically become second-rate. They doom themselves to failure by trying to apply magical “formulas,” “tricks,” and “tactics” to their work. Brilliant and convincing techniques that motivate customers to buy become clichéd, and “sales techniques” turn into well-known and ineffective nonsense, as customers eventually develop immunity to any “technique.” The more appealing a particular tactic seems, the more actively it is used, leading customers to encounter typical behavior patterns more frequently, and the faster they reject such sales models—they feel that the product is simply being pushed on them.
The only successful tactic a seller can have is to incorporate themselves, their personality, into the sales service. You are the one thing in this world that cannot be copied. And you should take advantage of that. Find those who are particularly drawn to you, those who need you specifically, and offer them yourself.
So, is the slogan “sell yourself first” actually correct? Yes. But now it’s clear why and how it can be used. You need to first understand who needs you, and only then try to “sell yourself” to those people. After all, selling something unnecessary is not just pointless, but also harmful to the company.
A company decided to test the idea of mass recruiting sales agents. It was assumed that an army of sales agents, who would receive only commissions instead of a fixed salary, could offer a product that households need, and that sales would not require extensive advertising support. This is a tried-and-true tactic used by many companies operating on a multi-level marketing model.
As part of the project, I, as an invited consultant, wrote scripts for the phone conversations between the company’s contact center employees and potential agents. The goal of this communication was to recruit them for a job that offers no salary and no physical workplace. Moreover, the role of a salesperson is not perceived by society as requiring serious qualifications or skills. This was clearly not an attractive offer. Therefore, the scripts were designed with carefully crafted phrases and questions to filter out individuals who might be interested in these conditions right from the start. I anticipated a significant, yet manageable, number of rejections from unemployed individuals who did not have an active approach to life. We were interested in every tenth person in whom it made sense to invest time and resources for training, support, and tracking their activities.
However, just a week later, the client came back with the information that the scripts, which initially produced the expected effect, were not working at all, and people were refusing to come for interviews. From my experience, I knew that the issue was likely not with the scripts, so I arranged to visit the contact center and listen to how its employees interacted with potential agents. After just two calls, it became clear what the problem was. My expectations were confirmed: the women were communicating with clients in a very formal manner, completely devoid of emotion, automatically reciting prepared lines, and responding coldly to the questions posed by the callers.
Then I took the call script, picked up the phone, and called the first number I found. After a brief conversation with the candidate, an appointment was scheduled. The stunned contact center manager began to object, claiming that the conversation hadn’t followed the script, and therefore the meeting shouldn’t have been set. However, after analyzing the recording of the conversation, it became clear that she was mistaken. The script was followed down to the smallest details.
The difference was that, in addition to the text itself, I conveyed much more information over the phone. It is known that words convey only 7% of the information. Another 38% is received by the listener from the speaker’s tone, intonations, and accents. The rest is communicated through facial expressions, gestures, and physiological reactions. When we rely solely on words and intonations without the ability to use gestures, those 38% turn into 84%, and the 7% into 16%. It is possible to convey the notorious 84% over the phone, but they cannot simply be written down on paper. The intonations I added changed the essence of what was said so dramatically that witnesses to the situation refused to believe that the same script was used in the conversation.
To understand how my speech differed from that of the contact center employees, one must first grasp what people potentially willing to accept such a job offer need. These individuals, who found themselves unemployed, were in need of attention, recognition, and love. Sales agents are often viewed as “disposable resources,” participants in an unfair deal where the employer wins, indifferent to the agent’s personality and fate. For such an employer, it is important that the agent sells a product for a certain period, but they are neither willing nor planning to provide the agent with any guarantees—such as a job, salary, or benefits.
At first, the girls in the contact center understood the intonations they were supposed to use while working with the script. For example, the question “Are you still looking for a job?” should be asked with a caring tone. However, after receiving numerous rejections (it was expected that 90% of all conversations would end this way), the employees became detached from the people they were calling. They started communicating not as individuals, but on behalf of the company. It was easier this way—rejections were not personal, they were directed at the company. They braced themselves for refusals and stopped infusing their responses with the right emotions. The intonational component of such calls, the very 84% of information, conveys: “Nothing personal, it’s just business. Today, I need to call 200 people, and the sooner we finish this conversation, the better. Yes, my call is being recorded, so I have to stick to the script. But if you hang up early, it will benefit everyone.”
What did I do? I simply added myself to the script. I added love. Those 84% were made up of the confidence that the person we were communicating with was dear to us. We cared about their fate, and we were ready to accompany and support their difficult but right choice—to work for themselves rather than for a salary. There are many successful and independent people in the world who don’t even understand what a salary is: dentists, plumbers, lawyers, tilers, plasterers, foremen, taxi drivers, electricians, consultants, writers, and movie stars. All these people work for themselves and do not suffer from the lack of regular fixed rewards from an employer—a salary. What’s even more important is that they do not suffer from the lack of attention and recognition. It was these two components that made up the 84% of the information I conveyed through my intonations while talking to people on the phone. And they believed me!
It may seem surprising, but there are many stories where calls made using scripts I wrote fail unless a lot of love is added. In most cases, when calls didn’t work for employees who had memorized the script, I was able to schedule a meeting or achieve another necessary result on the first try. This always left a lasting impression on clients. Simply adding love, a genuine belief that you are bringing good and benefit to the person, and understanding the needs of the conversation partner can increase the success rate of cold calls from 1-5% to 70%. However, there is one small caveat: you shouldn’t call without realizing how you can be of help to the recipient. Once that understanding is in place, such calls can no longer be considered “cold.”
Chapter Summary
Main ideas
Sales are a socially necessary activity upon which the progress and well-being of society depend.
To give something, you need to understand what exactly you are giving.
No one but your customers will tell you why they buy what you’re selling.
It’s important to stand out from the crowd. The more standard your offering, the lower your profit will be.
No matter what you sell in the 21st century, it will be copied within the first six months of your operation. Moreover, if you’ve just started doing something, there’s a good chance that someone else has already begun doing the same thing.
In sales, there are two paths: either move forward by constantly offering something new, or ensure that copying is impossible by adding personality to the business.
Exercises
– Clearly define what you are selling in a way that your competitor cannot say the same about themselves.
– Formulate what your competitors are selling, ensuring that the explanation is unique for each of them.
Where to start?
– Meet with existing clients and ask them why they chose you. What do they like about their relationship with you? What were their expectations before entering into the deal, and what did they actually receive?
· Take a look at your company’s mission. How well does its wording align with what you are actually selling?
The text for translation: [1].From the perspective of economic theory, an entrepreneur will remain in the market as long as the profit from their business exceeds the passive rental income from the money received from selling the business. In other words, from an economic standpoint, but not an accounting one, the profit that the entrepreneur is willing to accept for their work is included in the gross costs. For more details, see “Economics” by Campbell R. McConnell and Stanley L. Brue.
[2].Usability, or ease of use (from English “usability” — literally “the ability to be used” or “usefulness”) is a concept in microergonomics, describing the ergonomic characteristic of how convenient an object is for users to achieve specific goals in a certain context. The term is related to the concept of “ergonomics,” but unlike the latter, it is less associated with technical aesthetics and appearance, and is more tied to the utility of the object.
[3].Philip Kotler “Marketing from A to Z: 80 Concepts Every Manager Should Know” (2003).
[4].The name of the traditional one-horse, four-wheeled tent cart from Upper Egypt.
[5].At that time, it was approximately equivalent to one US dollar.