Selling with Fear vs. Selling with Opportunity

Both work, right?

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12 thoughts on “Selling with Fear vs. Selling with Opportunity”

  1. Bruce Budkofsky

    Great visual, Dan! Both are extremely effective. When evaluating a solution as a buyer, the important criteria to consider is how well your needs will be met and how well the product or service enhances your business, solves your problem and/or increases your revenue. Don’t let your fear or visions of grandeur be the ultimate determining factor.

  2. Both may work, but it’s not clear that selling with opportunity is a better strategy. If you tell me that by not doing X, my company is going to fail, that’s a much better motivator to take action than telling me that by doing X I can be a market leader. The reason for this is that humans are fundamentally risk-averse. There have been a series of great studies on this, but the bottom line is that telling someone that they stand to lose money has a greater impact then telling them that they stand to win money.

  3. Interesting, although I think I would feel like shit if I sold with fear. I also think buyer’s of “fear” will also feel like a bit out of sorts. Those are not feelings I’d want to build a relationship off of and sales is all about relationships. Although you might win the deal, you might put a blemish on the relationship.

  4. Maybe. It depends on how the client feels after the sale and whether they continue to believe the threat was real. You can sell someone life preservers by convincing them that they will drown without them, and I don’t know that you’d be putting a blemish on the relationship by doing so. The real danger comes if the client stops perceiving the threat, or if they come to believe that the threat was never there in the first place.

  5. It isn’t that simple – you need to investigate the Sandler Sales System – just ask Ari – he’s now Sandler certified …

  6. of course. it is definitely way more complex than my flowchart…but now I
    am certainly going to look into Sandler Sales System. Thanks!

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