Sales. Passing the pen test

If there is a ‘trick’ to sales it’s to reverse the roles and let the prospect sell themselves. Another trick is to not get in their way, instead make their path to purchase frictionless

I’m going to teach you the answer to the pen test and when somebody asks you to ‘sell me this pen’ you will always win and buckle their brain. 

Them: “Sell me this pen”

This is a dick’ly thing people who want to belittle salespeople will say to humiliate them in a dick’ly way. It is important that you respond in the shortest way possible because they are looking for reasons to do the dick thing, so don’t give it to them. Reverse the role. Be the dick

Sales: “Would you like to buy a pen?”

If they answer no you can thankfully stop the humiliation. But most likely they don’t see that you have just reversed the roles. 

Sales: “What type of pen would like to buy?” “What are its qualities?” “What are the features you would like?” ”How much are you looking to spend?” ”When do you plan on buying this pen?” “Is the pen a gift for somebody else?” “Tell me about them” “Are they a big writer using ink?” “What type of pen do they currently use?” “pens are an extension of its user, would you say that they are a stylistic person, or old fashioned, like Hemingway?”

Point is, you have to reverse the roles so that you are not selling them a pen, you are instead making them sell you the pen.

Once you have found the pen to their liking, make it cost 20% more than they had expected to pay in the role playing game. Don’t negotiate, don’t explain yourself, and if they decide not to pay it’s because they were never genuinely interested in buying the pen. And also remember that you can never negotiate against yourself – or against Amazon.