Sell Like A Pirate

Over at Life Hack, I read a post about Working Like A Pirate, so I figured i’d adapt it to selling. As long as I give credit to them, I’m sure they won’t mind me using their idea.

Here goes, let me know what you think, do more/do it better on your blog or comment here. The exchange of ideas only works when there’s two or more people involved. I can exchange with myself all day and not learn a thing. Been there, done just that.

A Pirate Is Not His Ship – Your product or service is only the start. What you can do for or with the customer is the real product. Benefits are the reason we buy anything. I bought a new masonry drill bit because I wanted a hole thru my bricks for my Dish Network cable, not because I wanted the new drill bit.

Learn to sell the end result and not the features and you won’t spend as much time on each sale or worse, as much time lost on not selling.

Pirates didn’t always have the best ships, but they still stole a lot of loot. Even if you’re not the big dawg in your industry, if you’re smart enough, you can still make a boat load of loot.

Pirates Move Fast – They sometimes only had quick and nimble little vessels, but still managed to bring down the bigger ships loaded down with too much gold. If you’re up against stronger, more powerful competitors, you can still manage to get more than enough sales, IF you’ll be smart, be first and be precise.

You can’t wait around for the big boys to notice all the new trends. Either be the first to notice or create the trends yourself. I sometimes find new ways to market a product in my industry that the manufacturer doesn’t even know about. Several times I’ve gotten a call from the manufacturer wanting to know why I’m selling so much of their product and who I’m selling it to.

Pirates Are A Team – They ran their ship, to an extent, like a democracy. Think about it. 50 guys on a boat and one captain and you think he could control all of them if they wanted his hide ? No way. He had to let them have a say in the plans or he’d be swimmin’ with the fishes.

You’re only as good as your support team. If the customer service people break down, so does your sale. If tech support sucks, so do your sales. Be a people person at work, even more so than in the field and your sales will grow. Be an unfriendly coworker and watch the support team make your life a living nightmare.

Pirates Live By Results – They didn’t get paid to be wrong about an enemy ship or a merchant ship. When they underestimated a ship, they paid the ultimate price. If you underestimate a competitor, you may never get another chance to correct your mistake.

Be smart, do your homework, find a unique way for customers to use your product, use your whole team to win the battle.

And here’s the biggest tip of all – Like we said, Pirates sometimes took a vote, meaning everyone had a say in the planning of their next adventure.

You need to use your whole team to plan your next adventure or sale. When I was a customer service rep, A LONG TIME AGO, I sometimes had better ideas about who to try and sell to and how to go about it than the president of the company had. That’s how I got a sales job.

Brainstorm with EVERYBODY in the organization. Don’t dismiss anyone because of their previous work or their current job title. Ask for ideas and let everybody contribute…you never know where the next captain is gonna come from !

Related Articles:

1. 10 Reasons A Pirate Should Be Your Entrepreneurial Role Model Last year
2. Use The S.A.L.E. Method To Sell More ” On
3. Using Your Imagination Can Improve Your Power To Sell Next up in
4. What Does The Pressure To Sell Do To You ? I recentl
5. Stories Sell – Whether You Believe It Or Not Back in Ma

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