What does it take to be good at sales?
It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with essentials like clothes and food or something luxurious like an exotic holiday or a fine wine. You’ve got to work on your customer service and create moments of delight by partnering with the right people to help, much like Robert Graves writes in I, Claudius (also available on Audible):
The cleverest leader is one who chooses the cleverest people to think for him.
If you need more guidance, here are some of my favourite Seth Godin quotes from his 2021 blog posts, together with a recommended title from Blinkist.
The purpose of marketing is to cause change. If we’re trying to build a movement, raise money for a non-profit, sell a product, change lifestyles, build community–these are all marketing activities that exist to change the way people act. ~ Arguments and outcomes
Learn more: Suggestible You
Over time, you might get fancier or more skilled at the tactics of how you present each thing you hope to say, but what if we took a step back and used intention to come up with a strategic framework for the deck. ~ Strategy and tactics and PowerPoint
Learn more: The Psychology of Selling
When we decide what to leave out, we’ve made a series of decisions about the story we’re trying to tell with the parts we leave in. ~ The map is not the territory
Learn more: Narrative Economics
It’s more productive to offer directions to someone who has already decided to go on the journey. ~ Enrollment
Learn more: Subscribed
What you do isn’t how you do it. What you do is the promise you make to the people you serve. If the people change, then the specifics of your promise have to change as well. ~ To stay the same
Learn more: The Hidden Psychology of Social Networks
Jargon is a place to hide, a chance to show off, a way to disconnect. Lingo, on the other hand, allows us to feel included. ~ Jargon vs. lingo
Learn more: Global Content Marketing
People don’t say yes or change their minds because you persist. That’s because we don’t like to admit we were wrong. If we’re going to go forward, it’s because something has changed. ~ A new decision based on new information
Learn more: Neuromarketing
Technology keeps changing, but connection and trust are what still work. Ideas that spread, win. Ideas that stick are worth even more. ~ What’s new?
Learn more: Made to Stick
Showing tends to beat telling, and it takes a very long time to earn trust when you’re running counter to culture. ~ Yadda, yadda, yadda
Learn more: Captivology
Insisting on a bigger interruption is lazy. It’s lazy because if you really cared about solving the problem, you’d change the situation, not yell about it. ~ “Make the sign bigger!”
Learn more: The New Rules of Marketing & PR
Over time, the value of a uniform, a brand or a platform is defined by the worst people who wear it or use it. ~ The inevitable decline of fully open platforms
Learn more: Unconscious Branding
If it’s worth writing, it’s worth writing effectively. ~ Copy design
Learn more: Marketing Made Simple
Too often, we’re tempted to price things based on what they cost us to make. It’s more useful to price things based on what they’re worth to those that might want to buy them. ~ Labor and value
Learn more: Buyology
As soon as we try to manipulate behaviours to alter a measure, it’s no longer useful. That’s why you can’t believe social media metrics. Because they don’t measure anything except whether someone is good at making them go up. ~ Messing with Strathern’s Law
Learn more: All Marketers Are Liars
For many products and services, the middle is hollowed out. What you’re left with are the people who want a lot more or want a lot less of whatever it is you’re able to adjust. ~ The Goldilocks fallacy
Learn more: Hey Whipple, Squeeze This!
Permission–the privilege to deliver anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them, and the ability to work with customers toward something better–is at the heart of every retailer’s future. ~ A future of retail
Learn more: Top of Mind
There are very few things that ever rise to 1% of the market. You don’t need everyone, in fact, the act of chasing everyone is probably keeping you from reaching anyone. ~ Zero percent market share
Learn more: The Long Tail
Trust is worth more than attention, and the purpose of the work is to create meaningful change, not to be on a list. ~ Superfamous
Learn more: Manufacturing Consent
The single biggest marketing bargain remains a customer who chooses to recruit new customers. ~ Customer service is free
Learn more: Guerrilla Marketing
Sales have been around a long time. They’re not going away. But they work best when they are a transfer of emotion, an actual human connection and a dialogue. ~ Reading scripts and pushing buttons
Learn more: To Sell Is Human
It’s convenient to put people into groups and categories, and if that’s working out for you, carry on. But simply because it’s convenient to assume that people are the same doesn’t mean it’s true. ~ Snowflakes and fingerprints
Learn more: The Science of Selling
In most pyramids, the top gets all the attention, but it’s the foundation that truly matters. Marketing is no exception. ~ The pyramid of modern marketing
Learn more: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
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