Pushing To Business Success

Of course most of us, as salespeople, never use any type of con, no matter how small, how limited, or how modified. But we're all too aware of the potential negatives, the imperfections, the skeletons that our products and services have. And many of us, perhaps most of us, are not as sold on those products and services as we believe we must appear to be to make the sale. Many of us do our best to steer our sales calls away from potential negatives or try to slip those negatives by our prospects unnoticed. We live in fear of objections, of the prospect saying, "Well, Jack, Consumer.

Reports says that your wheezle-what zits are not only more expensive than the competitions' but they're also a lot less reliable." The beauty of making the skeleton dance is that it can make dealing with a product's skeletons, a product's potential negatives, as easy as dealing with its strongest selling points. In fact, as I've said, it's a strategy that's designed to turn those potential negatives into selling points, even bragging points. Most skeletons like price—are impossible to keep in the closet anyway. Others have an annoying way of popping out at the least opportune moment. Personally, I prefer to bring my skeletons out dancing, the way Helen Daniels did.

"Are our prices expensive? Absolutely. And why do we chargeso much? Because we can." By the time Helen was finished mak- that particular skeleton dance, more expensive had become a pos-
itive—strong evidence that her company must deliver superior results. Why else would her clients be willing to pay those high prices? And less expensive had become at least slightly suspect.

Would those other companies really charge less if they were good enough to charge more?
If you've got a potential negative the customer has a right to know about—or one that's bound to come out sooner or later whether the customer has a right to know about it or not—why not get it out there and get it out there loud and proud? Why not deal with it on your terms? Why leave it hidden away for the customer to discover later when you have no control over the situation? And once you can make the skeleton dance, once you can turn those potential negatives into selling points, there's no longer a temptation to try to hide them or try to slide them by a customer unnoticed. There's no longer any reason not to sell with full disclosure. As we'll see in upcoming chapters, making the skeleton dance allows you to sell your product or service by detailing everything that's wrong with it and by explaining to the customer exactly what it won't do.

Truth: Bragging about a negative is much more fun than apologizing for it. It's also much more effective.