Don’t sell ice to eskimos
What’s one of the highest compliments a salesman usually gets?
You’ve heard it countless times: “He is so good at sales he can sell ice to eskimos!”
And yeah, that does sound great at first glance.
But on second thought….why would a good salesman waste time selling ice to eskimos? Why try to swim against the current?
If you try to do that, you:
-- Are not helping anyone
-- Are ripping them off
-- Make no money
Or do you make some money, even good money. But by conning people into buying stuff they don’t need that might even hurt them.
That reminds me of used car salesmen with slicked-back hair selling you a wreck on wheels for 30% above fair market value. Or custom-suit bankers selling complex financial instruments that are guaranteed to lose you money.
But hey….they’ll get a nice fat commission check at the end of the month, so who cares!
A good salesman (or marketer or copywriter or any related profession) finds a market with a problem, a solution to that problem and sells the solution to that market at a reasonable profit. Simple.
I wrote a tweet about this recently:
Okay, I may have gone a bit overboard here…
Because you don’t want to rip people off just because they’re desperate. But you do want to charge based on value.
That’s why vendors at sports venues can charge a lot for hotdogs and airlines can charge whatever they want on planes.
Let’s stick with the water example.
What’s a bottle of water worth inside of a convenience store? Basically zero.
What’s it worth outside of that same convenience store? The same.
How about on a 10-hour flight? $5, $10 or even more.
And to someone lost in the desert? It’s f*cking priceless!
That’s value-based pricing.
To summarize: The principle is simple. Don’t try to force useless stuff down people’s throats or try to rip them off.
Instead, find people who want or need what you’re offering and sell it to them.
Or even better, find a market with a big problem, find a solution to that problem and sell them that solution.
But remember, don’t waste your time selling ice to eskimos.
Tavvauvutit,
Filip Stanojevic – Looking for people lost in the desert