That may be a bold generalization, but it is a reflection of what most of us avoid: being sold to.
Whether it’s a salesperson directly in a mall, those who do it by door-to-door canvassing or digitally through emails, search ads and banners on newspaper or magazine sites.
People would rather not waste their time attending to what the inconsiderate salesman is only interested in: sell, sell, sell.
Most of the time it is usually because you don’t have the time or the quality attention to compare offers, but why give away time to someone who wants to use it for your benefit?
And this is aggravated by the fact that some sales tactics consist of giving a benefit that is difficult to understand surrounded by a paraphernalia of technical terms that are not very digestible.
We have created protection mechanisms
Nowadays, there is so much advertising and pressure from salespeople that we have learned not to give them our attention, not to wear ourselves out trying to understand offers that are confusing or simply do not interest us.
This does not mean that we all respond this way, but it is an increasingly widespread trend, where companies are having a harder time getting people’s attention for a short time to try to place their products or services.
It’s the weariness of hearing so many salespeople.
Let’s analyze: how many ads is the average person exposed to per day?hundreds.
From billboards on the side of streets and roads, to messages in every business, digital media banners, Google and Facebook ads, banks with “hassle-free” credit card offers, and blaring street vendors that take away the peace. Constant pressure.
There are studies that mention that people have learned to “disconnect” from advertising, and it is obvious, who wants to be processing dozens of ads and stop concentrating on their own life.
People don’t like to be sold to, but they love to buy.
The tendency to avoid vendors, advertisements, etc. was already growing before the covid-19 pandemic, and has increased.
This means that it is becoming more and more challenging to sell, especially using the most common methods.
Now, you have to take a breath, not all sales are the same.
There are products that are immediate: a pair of shoes, a dessert, a washing machine repair service; these are all examples of purchases that tend to take less time, and can be a straightforward and less sophisticated sales effort.
But the purchase of real estate, vehicles, industrial tools, and many others, requires further research and comparison, where the criteria is based on a certain number of variables.
What to do?
First of all, it is to consider making a sensible and flexible marketing and sales plan that allows to have a value proposition that differentiates the brand, that particularizes the company, that defines the unique space it wants to have in the market, and to have creative and digital assets that drive the messages.
Anticipate and be creative.
A sensible plan from the point of view that considers the client/prospect as the center of the project, offering them a clear benefit for their life or business.
Not only trying to sell, but to create a parallel strategy to the sales one, where information is provided in an organic way, that nurtures your criteria, that broadens the panorama of those who read it, that generates little by little a sense of trust.
Flexible from the point of view where messages, designs and platforms will be used in different combinations, experimenting to understand which are the most interesting, the ones that provoke more conversations or contacts, the ones that request prices and sales terms.
Today we have the advantage that advertising powers are no longer concentrated in television, radio or the press; but at the same time there is the challenge of knowing how to devise, define and program campaigns on a series of platforms, both traditional and digital, with a given budget.
