Learning to sell--any tips on getting people to emotionally engage... "feel the need"??

[Jeff Widman]

I just rewatched the video of Paul Kenny from last year. He had some great point about salespeople are often useful for following up on busy customers, and good salespeople build long-term relationships:
http://network.businessofsoftware.org/video/paul-kenny-on-how-to-le...

And I agree that 80% of selling is emotional.

But how do you get people to feel to need??

(Not in a manipulative way, but he talks about doctors who just need to be reminded of their patients needs, etc. How can you more effectively do this?)

[Paul Walsh]

It's not deep and complex, but the chapter on sales in Po Branson's "The Nudist on the Late Shift" is still a good reminder ten years on about the gap between the Geek view of the world and the Sales view. There's a couple of good examples there about the way that good sales people keep their nerve on field calls, how selling is about listening, and being prepared to cut the conversation short as soon as you have closed. It requires getting into character to do this, and a lot of people prefer not to. That's why hiring a really good salesperson can be the #1 difference in startup success.

[Daniel Kuperman]

People buy from people they like. I think that sums up most sales situations.

I also agree on the emotional part, which means you need to create rapport with the buyer, and that means understanding his or her needs and communicating clearly your value proposition and how it fulfills those needs. Get the buyer to "feel" that you are the best solution and you are now closer to making the sale.

The best resource for doing that is actually practicing it and also seeing how others do it.

There are many books out there on sales you could look up. I like Gittomer (www.gitomer.com) for his no-nonsense approach. Sometimes is overly simplistic but good tidbits of sales ideas nonetheless. I will leave up to the sales folks in this group to chime in on other resources.

Completely agree with Paul's comment that a good sales person can make the difference in your startup. You don't need to have the best product, but need to be the best at selling it.