No one likes a pushy salesman, but your close friends are allowed to be a lot more aggressive with you than a stranger. Bridging the gap between these two groups when you’re trying to persuade others is an art called “relationship selling”.
Picture: US Embassy Tel Aviv
Even if you don’t work in sales directly, most of us have a need at some point to sell someone on our ideas. The best way to do that, suggests finance blog Money Crashers, is to focus on “relationship selling”. Before you pitch an idea or try to promote a product, sell yourself. Establish trust and common ground. People are more likely to listen to someone they know and trust versus a cold caller or a stranger:
Not everyone is born with a personality that allows them to easily meet and captivate people. Some of us are more reserved, even timid, when meeting new people. However, even the shyest among us can build close and long-term relationships — not being what we’re not, but by being who we are. It is not a person’s ability to make people laugh, but their willingness to be honest and share themselves that enables a lasting, trusting relationship. These are the same traits that charismatic people practice.
While relationships can develop quickly, they rarely blossom overnight. Trusting relationships usually require face-to-face meetings since humans generally require visual cues before deciding how we feel about another person. For example, we are generally wary of telephone salespeople or email solicitations because we lack visual feedback to confirm their veracity.
While the idea is simple, it requires more effort than a scripted sales pitch or a rehearsed request for a raise. However, it also makes you and your ideas more attractive to the person on the other end of that pitch. Check out the source link for more advice on how to persuade others by building relationships.
What Is Relationship Selling — How to Be a Good Salesperson [Money Crashers]
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