There’s always someone who asks a questions similar to this:

“Are there some fields where your methods just don't work, don't apply, or are appropriate? What about selling business, us to business, for example, to professional purchasing agents or to top executives?"

And I'm often challenged about most of my methods working in consumer sales and marketing, but being somehow inappropriate for business-to-business marketing. But actually, more than half of my life is involved with business-to-business, not consumer marketing. And my suggestions apply here equally well.

For starters, we really ought to get the entire term “business to business” out of our minds because businesses do not buy anything - people inside businesses buy things and people are people. The talented actor, Wesley Snipes was asked, “Do you consider yourself an actor or a black actor?” He answered “I guess I'm a black actor. When I get outta bed naked in the morning, I'm black first, then I go to work where I'm an Actor.”

Well when your prospect, whether he's a CEO, an executive, an HR professional, an engineer, or a purchasing agent, when he gets out of bed naked in the morning, he's a person, a human being, a big skin-bag of emotions first, then when he goes to work he's also a CEO or a purchasing agent or whatever.

Consider the professional purchasing agent or mid-level executive or department manager, the individual who may authorize purchases to a certain level when the rubber meets the road. There are only two factors that will finalize his decision and inspire him to act for or against your proposition: Personal Gain or Fear of Personal Loss.

Note the word Personal. Sure, you and he need to cover all the other ground, the savings to the company, the increased productivity, the faster service, and the response time. But ultimately this individual is putting some percentage of his own career capital on the line. If he is switching to you from some other vendor, he's risking personally. If he's doing something new and different, he's risking personally. So you must address personal issues.

In the “Gain” category, this individual must see the opportunity of increasing his career capital, of getting favorable recognition from his superiors, of getting approval from peers, of making his own job easier, of being freed from some worry or aggravation, but all of this is rarely enough.

There's also the “Fear of Loss” category. What might this person lose personally, by not acting? For example, if the bandwagon effect guarantees that some key competitors will soon be using your product, your product will be getting lots of publicity, your product will be seen at major exhibitions. The buyer who procrastinates will lose a timing advantage, lose the prestige of being one of the first in this industry to implement, and lose introductory discounts and incentives.

I was involved in marketing a very sophisticated, innovative software to certain programmers, and the company salespeople had made me aware of the huge importance in this market of not getting behind the innovation curve by not showing up at a meeting and being unable to discuss the latest, the newest, the hottest. This fear is important to the advertising, marketing, and selling of this product.

You may have noticed a term I've used several times, Career Capital. I believe I’ve coined this term. It means roughly the same thing as political capital. It’s said that each president has a store of political capital, which he either uses wisely or squanders.

Once you can learn to speak person to person and look past the categories you’ve built in your mind, you can look back on any time you’ve ever made a sale and realize you were speaking person to person. And there are multiple keys and levers that break industry ideals and notions that we discuss in “Midas Touch for Selling”, one of 6 products available to NO B.S. Newsletter subscribers as a free gift.

If you’re not a NO B.S. Letter subscriber yet, claim “Midas Touch for Selling” plus additional 6 courses for free to help you craft your perfect pitch, no matter what niche you’re selling to.

Dedicated To Multiplying Your Income,

Dan Kennedy
Magnetic Marketing

P.S. Don’t forget, whoever can spend the most money to acquire a customer wins.