The Law of being left behind

I did my sales apprenticeship with arguably Australia's most flamboyant and successful TV salesman - Big Kev.

I started working for Kev as a spruiker, selling products on stage with a microphone at shopping centres and trade-shows all over Australia. The trick to spruiking is getting just one person to stop! Not hundreds or thousands, just one. I remember standing on stage twirling my mop and saying hello to the passers-by politely, most people would just rush by and continue on their merry way.  This was of course unless until one person stopped!  

Just one is all you needed, and by virtue of human curiosity and heard-mentality, slowly one by one, more people would stop to see what was going on. Before you knew it, you had a crowd in front of you, which would then allow you to wind into your sales-spiel and create a show for the audience. And when you got to the end of your spiel, if one person buys - they all buy. Why? The Law of being left behind.

This law suggests that if someone else buys a products or service, it must be valuable enough to buy for ourselves. This belief transforms into a subconscious need to acquire the product or service, simply because someone else has it. And when you get a group of likeminded people together in a buying environment, all it ever takes is one person to buy to set 'The Law of being left behind' in motion. The converse is also true, if not one person puts their hand up to buy - no one else in the group will buy. Why? There is no leader, the pack isn't moving in any particular direction, therefore there is no need to move - the safest move is no move at all.

Think about how 'The Law of being left behind' works with your business? Is there a compelling reason to buy from you today as opposed to tomorrow, or never? Can you think of a way you can cluster like-minded customers together to enable them to compete for your product or service? By choosing your value-offering do your customers receive a sense of direction or confidence they are moving in the right direction? By not choosing your product are they being left behind? If not, they won't buy.

These are very important elements of your sales-process to think about. Always remember : No one ever likes to be left behind, ever!