I’m willing to bet that some point in life you had to sell something. Maybe it was a physical product, maybe it was yourself in a job interview or trying to persuade someone into liking your idea.

What would it look like if you had a formula, a master key in your back pocket that you could pull out, put into the locket and it would work every time?

I’m going to write about the 4 P’s of selling big, the concept I’ve picked up from Mike Del Ponte while he was giving an interview for the Social Triggers podcast.

In fact, what you’ve been reading for the last 30 seconds or so has been that very formula. If you’re still reading, and I’ve got your attention – it works.

So, without further ado, let’s jump into those 4 P’s on how to convince anyone to see the value of the product/service you’re trying to sell.

Promise

Advertisers have spent millions of dollars on a simple 60-second commercial saying if they can’t hook someone within that first 5 seconds, they might as well not even filmed the next 55.

This one was first for me – in movies, the opening scene directors stress about months on end getting it right because they know that sets the tone for everything else they’re about to do. Whatever you’re selling, product, service, job interview, ideas – set the tone with that first one sentence.

This is called the promise, a shorty, punchy, little one-liner.

That sets the tone for what’s about to come. You know it’s about selling, you have an idea what this article is about.

Picture

Mike Rowe, the guy from Dirty Jobs, told a great story on Tim Ferriss podcast on how he got into television. He went on a bet with his friend to an audition to sell for QVC. Do you know those late-night infomercials where they’re trying to get you to buy jewelry no one needs and no one would actually wear? He was that guy selling it at 3 am.

So he walks into this job interview, and they didn’t ask him about his background or experience, they just handed him a pen and told him to sell it to them. Pretty classic, huh?

What Mike did at that moment, got him the job. He didn’t talk about pen, nor trying to sell it directly, he went after emotions, and he said:

‘I want you to imagine you just closed a business deal. Everything went as planned, it took you 2 months, you’re ready to sign, you reach into your pocket, and you pull out an old pen that’s been chewed on and cost you 4 cents. What impression does that leave on a person? What does that say about who you are?

Now I want you to imagine this pen that’s perfectly designed and engineered, writes like a feather and you give them that to seal the deal.’

What Mike did, which eventually got him a job, he didn’t go after the features of the pen, he went after the emotional sight by putting a picture in their minds of using that pen.

You might be asking shouldn’t selling be logical? Shouldn’t you try and convince someone that your deal is better than the others? The answer is no, you don’t want to do that.

We actually buy with our emotions, and after that, we justify it with logic.

Proof

I heard a great story Andrew Stone from Pixar was giving in his Ted Talk. He said he had a graphics arts teacher early on during his college career. On the first day of class the teacher storms in writes on the board ‘APPLE’ and draws a picture of an apple, and then say: ‘This is a no. 1 rule of graphic design – don’t do this’. Then he took out a piece of paper, covered an ‘APPLE’ (written), and said: ‘Do this.’

What he meant was, rather show me than tell me, and never do both.

We can get up and talk about how great our company is, how great we are as entrepreneurs, or how great we are in the job interview, we can talk about it all day long, but what people really want are specific examples, moments, and stories of the times you made that happen.

Show them, don’t tell them.

Pitch

Now, this is where the majority of people that want to sell something focus their 90% of the time, missing those first 3 P’s. What’s the problem?

If you don’t master those first 3, this doesn’t even matter. In other words, if you have a video where you lose people in that first 5 seconds, why even film the next 55?

Let’s say you get to the Pitch phase successfully, what do you do now?

I’m not going to spend the time on psychological triggers of why we buy things because I could write about that for days. What I want to write here is my biggest tip.

There’s this notorious gem study, where they have gems in Supermarkets, and they presented people with 34 gems. What they noticed is that more people stopped, but fewer people bought. But when they reduced the gem display to 4-8 pieces, the conversions went through the roof.

In other words, when we’re overwhelmed with decisions, we won’t do anything. What I find most effective is a single call to action. When pitching, don’t give them 5 or 20 things to act on, give them one thing you want them to do at the end of your talk.

So here’s my pitch to you guys.

If you liked this article, and/or you learned one thing that’s new to you, hit the share button on the upper left and share it with anyone who you think could benefit. That’s the only call to action I want – just share it with someone that you’ve talked to about sales in general with.

Until next time, thank you for reading.

Marko Sliskovic