In marketing club, we don’t talk about resistance
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When we resist something, it means we want to stay away from it, to withhold. We run photography businesses and the logic would be that we would not want to have any resistance to sales, and yet many things we do each day to try to market our business are saturated with resistance. What do I mean by that?
I don’t want to bother people or be annoying.
Have you ever said or thought that?
We’ve all heard of the concept of sales objections. A sales objection is a buyer’s resistance to a sale. And what about another resistance to the sale — yours?
A buyer can only ever experience an objection or a resistance once they are presented with something to buy. Thing is, many people don’t actually have resistance to most purchases.
Truths about buying
People buy things all the time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that Americans spend just shy of $200 dollars every single day. Groceries, coffees, lunches, alcohol, cigarettes, etc. The world economy runs, and depends on, people buying things. The allergy it seems, is not to buying all manner of things, but of the process of being sold to. That’s what creates resistance. Let me ask you, did you have any resistance to upgrade your last iPhone? To get one in the first place? To get your Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte? To buy the props for your next themed set from Hobby Lobby or Target? Early adopters line up for hours physically or virtually to be the first ones to purchase innovative tech. People get into wait lists to buy concert tickets. The truth is that:
The resistance is to the selling process and not the actual sale.
We must remember this critical point. Buying is happening all the time and people want stuff and experiences. But it’s the selling that seems to get into the way of the sale! Imagine this. You walk into your favourite clothing retailer intent on buying something. You are happy to go in, browse to find the perfect item and tap your card. But as you walk in, a salesperson greets you at the door. Isn’t your back up right away? You know you want to buy, you will buy, but you don’t want this person interfering and trying to push something onto you that you may not want. It’s the selling process and not the actual sale.
Make no mistake. When you walked into that favourite clothing retailer, stalked Amazon for Black Friday deals, lined up outside of Best Buy on boxing day, drove through the drive-thru of Starbucks or Taco Bell or anywhere, when you bought anything without resistance, you were sold to. How could that be? How are we operating under the thought that our prospective clients put up resistance to our photography prices, and yet selling without resistance happens all the time, even most of the time? And to you too! Because of another truth:
Good selling is invisible.
Good selling is what had you running to the Apple Store as soon as you discovered that the new phone model is out. Good selling is what made you queue up for tickets and tech and a big screen t.v. Which brings us to the next truth:
Good selling is invisible intentionally to avoid resistance.
There is a reason why the Marketing field is a titan of an industry. Because people have developed expertise in selling without resistance. How? They make the selling process invisible, because a visible sales process — like those harder line sales tactics in dealerships or the salesperson in your favourite clothing store — is what triggers resistance.
Invisible selling
How do you sell invisibly to avoid triggering resistance? The answer is within us, because we are buyers ourselves. Why is it that you don’t have any resistance to buying your favourite products and services? Because you wanted them. How did you come to want them? Someone was presenting that product or service to the world through marketing and advertising and you discovered it. If Steve Jobs invented the iPhone and never put it out into the world through stage presentations and attractive lifestyle ads, no one would know the iPhone existed. In order to get something into the hands of the people, you need to get the message out to the people. But not shove it down their throats. Steve Jobs was a charismatic speaker who unveiled his genius invention and just like any authority figure — even cult leaders — resonated with people who spoke his language, who wanted to be part of the tribe. He put himself and his genius and his products out there, and people discovered him and wanted what he was selling.
We have this mindset that marketing is slimy and underhanded and fast-talking and annoying to people. If that were the case, then no American would be buying up to $200 products and services daily. People are buying because they want to buy and the sellers presented their wares in a way that was appealing and attractive. And even if the dealership puts a hard line sales guy in your way, or that clothing retailer hires someone to greet you and tell you about today’s sales, you work around them because we are still driving cars and still buying clothes! The final truth:
Most marketing is no longer push marketing, it’s pull marketing. They pull you in by being attractive, rather than pushy.
Why you have trouble selling your photography services
Your own resistance is standing in the way of your sales, because you assume that buyers have resistance to buying, which they don’t if the sale is invisible. We assume that people resist sales because they find us annoying that we put our ad into their feed, or made more than one post about our offer. We assume that people resist sales because the price isn’t what they want to pay. But if you can truly see that buying is happening without friction every second of every day on this earth, we can know that it is our own resistance to the sales process that’s hampering us. And why is that? Because your sales process is VISIBLE to you. And visible sales process triggers resistance! AHA!
Well, the sad news is that you cannot make your own sales process invisible to yourself; that just won’t work. But if you can come into the belief that the buyer isn’t having the same experience as you, you can free yourself from assumptions about resistance. Know that the sales efforts visible to only yourself are creating an invisible, seamless and lovely opportunities for others to buy.
The ultimate truth of all this is that there is no resistance until there is. Go, go and go until you hit a resistance barrier. And surprisingly, often there won’t be one, because of the fact that most buying is constant and friction-less in everyday life. That’s the issue with assumption of resistance; it prevents us from selling because we believe there will be resistance. Can you see how this can sabotage your efforts?
Be prepared for resistance by being able to demonstrate value of what you’re offering, but operate as if RESISTANCE DOESN’T EXIST.
Go ahead and post 10 times for your special offer. Go ahead and send emails to your list. Present your genius to the world like Steve Jobs did - honestly, authentically, eagerly. He was happy producing these innovations to make the world better and he shared it with us and we wanted to get on board. So go ahead, share away. Because in marketing club, we don’t talk about resistance.
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