Do People Want To Be Sold To – The most pointless debate in sales?

I recently received a comment on one of my blog posts from a uk sales trainer which was basically a rant about the difference between Push and Pull selling and the death of ‘80,90 - BS!’.

To be honest I wasn’t sure of the point of the rant and what he was taking offense to. The post was one on persuasion. The post was a quick quote from Dale Carnegie about human nature. The rant took offense to the terms ‘Influence, persuasion and convincing’ and essentially (I guess) tried to make the point that no one like to be sold to – they like to buy.

I would like to open this up to debate, especially to the sales training, sales consultancy and sales coaching industry.

My take on this is:

•I am a proud sales professional and would never, ever feel uncomfortable telling people this

•I am a consumer and a business to business buyer and I love being sold to. Some would argue that this is only bevcause I am in the Industry. What do you think?

•I love it when I see someone professionally show interest in me, ask me timely relevant questions and show/tell/demonstrate relevant features, benefits and outcomes that I was unsure of or better still did not know of.

•I am aware of bad practice and can detect BS a mile away. Sometimes I may even buy from bad salespeople but it is on my terms and only ever is it a one off transaction.

•I hold a high level education and have an MBA specializing in Buyer behavior and can argue the semantics of certain words with many of the ‘sales specialists’ around.

I do not, however, lose sight of the fact that many of the people that go through my sales training are young, have never been on a sales training program before, have very little awareness of open questions, could not draw up a one page feature and benefits list on their products and services and are looking for the sales skills needed to help them sell.

They would be cheated if I stood up and told them that it’s simple – “Go back to the company and create an environment where people want to buy but don’t sell to them.” That’s best left to sales consulting with the company itself.

I am an avid user of ‘PULL’ marketing and sales techniques such as social media, information giving, blogs and video but that doesn’t make me lose sight of the fact that people do like to be sold to regardless of the words we use to make it fit with our 2008 conscience.


Selling in 2008 is about transparency, information, guarantees of quality to reduce buyer risk, follow through, integrity and honesty. Don’t lose sight of the fact that the people who attend our training courses need us to mould them and shape them in the best way possible. Don’t blind them with semantics.


Give them the platform to be the very best professional salespeople they possibly can be.
Your comments would be appreciated………… you can respond via my sales blog listed below....


Do People Want To Be Sold To – The most pointless debate in sales? - To learn more about this author, visit Peter O'Donoghue's Website.

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