This is my son, Jack. He’s ten, and he wants an iPhone.
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The geek in me is as excited as a kid in a Chuck E. Cheese ball pit. The father in me screams “no.”
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For context, I bought my own cell phone when I turned 24. In a land of sleek and sexy Motorola Razors, my flip phone was pretty lame. Now my son wants a handheld computer with an App Store, 1000 times more power than my first PC, and a constant connection to the worldwide horrors of the Internet.
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So I told him, “if I’m gonna buy you a cell phone, you’re gonna have to sell me on it.”
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Hence began my sales lesson for ten year olds—the most relevant aspects of selling anything to anyone that I’ve ever learned—captured here for posterity and as a reminder of how the pros, the books, and experience taught me to do it.
1️⃣ Don't talk about features of the phone. I don't care. Oh, and I already have one, so I probably know about them and will be bored listening.
2️⃣ Instead, tell me how on God's green earth those features will make my life better. Then, illustrate me (the buyer) using those features. Show me a vision of skipping off happily into the distance to live a better life after my purchase.
3️⃣ I know you want one, I know your friends have one, I know you can play Fortnight on one. Ask yourself if I actually care about that. Yep, I don't. Tell me how buying you a phone will solve my problems, not yours.
4️⃣ Think of all the objections I could ever conjure up during your sales pitch and build a response showing how and why my objections are wrong.
5️⃣ Get inside my head before you sell me. Ask yourself, what conversation am I having with myself right now? Then, figure out a way to weave my conversation into your pitch to solve my biggest problems.
6️⃣ Make it pretty, make it interesting, make it entertaining. I run an App company, a coaching biz, a blog, and have a full time job and a family. Oh, and I shuttle you and your brother to baseball 73 nights a week. If this pitch gets slow, I’ll be napping.
Next time you sell anything to anyone, even if it’s just to sell an idea on IG, try these tips for results.
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Happy selling! And wish my son good luck selling me; I’ll be the toughest buyer of all :)
About the Author
Michael Mehlberg
HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE
I help high-achieving entrepreneurs organize their brain and schedule so they can organize their life and business.
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