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Why Fearbased Selling Is A Bad Bet

Written by: Anthony Mora

Article Overview: If you’ve worked to make your product or service the best it can be, and you’re still using fear-based marketing, shift your approach and see what happens. People will want to work with you, not out of fear, but because they trust you; you solve a problem for them, you’re reliable, you make them feel good about their purchase. They want to work with you, or buy your product out of trust, not fear.

Why Fearbased Selling Is A Bad Bet

You know how annoying it is to go into a store and have a salesperson stick to you like glue and continually try to sell you? And you know how that experience is even worse if the salesperson tries to convince you that you need to buy because if you don’t something horrible could happen? Yep. No one wants to be sold, particularly with a fear-based pitch. We want to purchase something that we feel comfortable buying; something that is going to help make our lives easier, better or more interesting. The trouble is that many businesses and experts still feel that they have to sell fear and sell it big time; they’re advertising, marketing and public relations is all based on trying to scare the hell out of you.
Now instead of the preverbal used car salesman, we have the Internet sales pitch. The endless emails telling us how we have to order whatever it is they’re selling “now” or we’re going to regret it. Selling through fear can be effective. It’s been done since marketing existed. Sometimes it’s a part of the package. When you think of it, when we buy car insurance, we’re betting that we’ll have an accident and paying the insurance company a monthly premium so that they’ll be there, check in hand, when we eventually do. But unlike insurance most other purchases don’t so readily fall into that fear category, yet they’re generally sold to us as though they do.
The fear sales pitch is made to give us a sense of urgency, when there really is none. But now-a-days, more and more people see through and are turned off by that type of pitch. So if you’re not selling urgency through fear, what then? Use the biggest motivator there is – TRUST. But, unlike fear, here you have to be able to back it up. If you are going to make this shift, you can’t sell smoke and mirrors. Your product or service really does have to be top of the line. You actually do have to give your customer value. If you’ve worked to make your product or service the best it can be, and you’re still using fear-based marketing, shift your approach and see what happens. People will want to work with you, not out of fear, but because they trust you, because you offer a top-of-the-line product, you solve a problem for them, you’re reliable. Here they not only buy from you, but they actually feel good about the process. It’s trust that builds a loyal customer base. It’s not something you sell, but a promise that you deliver.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2009

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Article Tags: advertising marketing, big time, car insurance, car salesman, customer value, endless emails, fear, glue, hell, insurance, insurance company, internet sales, motivator, pitch, public relations, salesperson, sense of urgency, top of the line



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Re: Kevin's Case Study #10 - When to become an entrepreneur? - When the bug bite you. A lot of successful entrepreneurs started in their teens or at school. Selling sweets to fellow students or lemonade to firends in the neighbourhood.
Re: This is Marketing Warfare! - Hey GT, I guess this was from a while back, and it'll test your memory a bit but could you possibly elaborate on Unique Selling Proposition? Can you give us some examples of good USPs?
Blog pinging - Thanks Martin - yes, I do ping and it has been very effective. I'm currently on the first page of Google for Mastermind Group and on the second page for Selling to Small Business.
Business magazines - Fast Company is pretty good if you're into technology although it can be very on the edge. Entrepreneur has become one giant advertisement and I cancelled my subscription. Selling Power also has some useful content if you're looking at improving your sales skills / presentations.
New Guy Here - Automobile Industry - Hi Everyone, My name is Ray and I work as a sales trainer in the automobile industry. I have just completed a new training curriculum for automobile salespeople in the industry. It is called The Baby Steps of Selling Automobiles. I am beginning my marketing efforts through press releases and seminar formats. I joined the community due to my continued desire to work independently creating my own happiness and growth. Thank you for having me and I look forward to more correspondence in the future.


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