7 Steps on How to Sell Anything

Not so long ago, I had the bizarre misfortune to spend a whole, arduous Saturday sitting in a windowless hall in West London listening to conmen (and women) trying to sell me their get-rich-quick schemes for thousands of pounds.

The event erroneously sold itself as a motivational conference, but apart from the bonafide keynote speaker at 7pm, it was a long parade of spivs and tricksters pushing their wares onto impressionable audience members in a bid to prize as much money out of them as possible.

To be fair, credit where credit is due, they were good at it.

The first speaker took 45 minutes to whip the entire place into a frenzy. His presentation ended with him marching 200 excited people through the auditorium like the Pied Piper. He led them to the sales desk at the back of the hall where he dished out application forms for his course on how to get rich from home stock market trading. A £2000 course that promised riches - and quickly.

Being the steely cynic I am, I didn’t join in, only because I wasn't going to part with any cash that day. I came to be inspired, not to shop.

But I did get suckered in. I got excited. This guy was a master at the art of persuasion. And so was the next one. And the next one.

The thing is, each speaker, each purveyor of their own brand of snake oil, said the same thing each time. They all used similar tricks, spun similar yarns and pushed similar promises over and over again.

This meant that by the end of the day, even the most enthusiastic and impressionable audience member was looking battered and cynical. We had all stopped giving a shit. The law of diminishing returns was playing hard and fast for those last few unfortunate speakers and I suspect they got nothing.

Still, I want to share with you the sales pattern that each slippery eel followed so you can use it yourself or so you can avoid its charms.

It’s an easy to replicate formula that goes something like this:

1) They ask “What is life about?”

It starts heavy to immediately increase intimacy. They want to chat about the big stuff, the stuff that matters to you.

Why are we here, just to work? Hell no! We want to spend time with our loved ones, right? Right! We want to enjoy more holidays, right? Right! We want to be free to do what we want to do, and we want to get loaded (etc).

It’s all rather nebulous at this point to ensure whatever is said is inclusive of everyone. No one disagrees they want to be free. It doesn’t matter if one guy’s version of freedom is sitting on a beach whilst another’s is to run their own company, everyone wants to have the autonomy to chose how to live without interference. With this in mind, the whole room is on their side. Onwards to step 2.

2) They sell their lifestyle

Time to ramp it up a little. This is where they introduce the I-have-what-you-want concept. After establishing the pipe dream of personal freedom and no pesky boss breathing down your neck, lo! – Here is someone who actually has it. They do! Talk about lucky.

They will show bank statements to prove their income, they will show holiday photos of skiing trips that lasted 4 months to prove their freedom.

Look, you gormless idiots! Look what you can win. It’s the Bullseye-speedboat moment. Play your cards right and this is what you too can have. If only someone would tell you how. Let's gear shift to step 3.

3) The big promise

By an incredible stroke of fortune, for this one time only, for this one audience only, they’re going to show you how to get there. To your freedom. They’re here to help. After all, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You too can ski for 4 months of the year and only have to work one hour a week remotely, in an alpine lodge with decent wifi. The rest takes care of itself. We’ve already seen the proof so let’s get down to revealing the big "how" secrets.

Now with curiosity piqued, most people are hooked in. Even the cynical think it’s worth listening to what’s being said in case there’s a gem or two of information to remember. Sure it might turn out to be nonsense but there’s no harm in paying attention. Right?

To whet our appetites, the speaker rolls out a few, salivating facts. The stocks and shares Pied Piper guy showed us three or four slides about how the markets works and the four main stages of a boom and bust cycle. “It’s all about buying the right shares at the right time” he told us.

The social media make-money-from-Twitter guy showed us three or four ways to create a mass email database to spam people for free, just like he did.

The female property tycoon showed us how to help people buy their rented houses and how to take a cut from their purchase without ever putting a penny of your own money on the line.

These tidbits take up no more than ten minutes. A handful of slides. A couple of graphs. The it's-easy-when-you-know-how patter, and imagine how much they could be telling you if only they didn’t have this damn time constraint.

4) They explain the value of their knowledge

By step 4, we’re in the position where it’s been suggested they know everything you need to know to be rich and free.

Now they will explain in great detail the value of their knowledge. Not the metaphorical value, but the actual cold, hard, cash value. In pounds and pence. How can they do this? Why, they’ve charged this much to impart this knowledge before. So it’s all legitimate valuations (apparently).

They explain they regularly charged £10k for one day of private, face to face mentoring. They explain they charged £20k for a week-long course run by their highly trained padawans.

The prices at this point are always astronomical, not only to make them look like the real deal, but to make you feel powerless and unable to afford them. Ever.

5) They create scarcity

Alas, they will now explain, even if you plebs could afford the courses, guess what, they no longer teach them. You're bang out of luck. They stopped because they’ve got too much money or some other excuse. They wish they could help but the opportunity has gone. They’re just telling their story, not selling anything, more’s the pity.

Oh, wait, except for this one last course that is running next week but that’s it, no more. And even that’s nearly full up. It’s a shame because they’re the world expert in their field and that money you’d spent would have been the best investment of your life. Never mind.

6) Offers a one time deal at a discount

Step 6 is the u-turn. Now hang on. Since you’re all here, it seems like they’re going to change their mind. There’s one place left after all, one course left to run – whatever – and they need to fill it and you’re right here. So maybe let’s do a deal. They’re cutting their throats to do it but if you say yes, right now, you can have it. At a discount.

This is the bargain of a lifetime!

At this point, maybe they’ll even pick someone out of the crowd. God, I hope it’s me! Dammit, it’s not. So this gormless audience member stands there looking pleased and nervous as he’s told, in front of a packed auditorium, that he can have the course, and he can have the private one to one tutoring and he can even have some training guides worth £5,000 (apparently) thrown in for a mere £2500!

The crowd goes wild. What a lucky bastard!

But guess what. All that envy you now feel, don’t worry about it. Too many people are interested it seems, so (s)he is going to do more courses! Book now, today, right here and you can be as lucky as the guy who was picked out of the audience. Envy is the leverage and it forces people out of their seats.

7) They close the deal

Everyone’s pumped. A chunk of the audience wants to buy now. They’re jumping up and down with enthusiasm. So the con artist capitalises on this by shoving forms under their noses, collecting emails, collecting bank details, taking credit cards. They close the deal. It just happens you were lucky enough to catch them.

ABC. ALWAYS BE CONNING (sorry, closing).

Now you’ve got to sit in a classroom for a week with some trainee tutor for a mere £2500. Congratulations. You’ve just been sold anything. Expect buyer’s remorse.

ABC. Always be careful.

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And there it is. Every step I saw repeated again and again over 10 hours. Still, it taught me a thing or two. Leveraging urgency, the fear of missing out, scarcity, the feeling of landing a bargain. It's all there. Just follow the patter-patterns.

I didn't buy anything that day, though I have spent £3700 on coaching before and that was successful. If you're interested, you can read about that here.

Whether those courses that day turned out to be any good I can't say. I knew I was being sold to, but I can't tell if it was genuine or not. Perhaps that can be saved for a follow-up article, "7 steps to detect if a course is shit or not", but I'm hoping someone else will write that.

In the words of Homer Simpson “After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I’m gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!”