This post is created with the hope that all of you, the crowd, participate. And since most of you are--or soon will be--crowdfunders, I hope to share tips, ideas, and the psychology behind my "day job" as a retail salesperson. I pitched the idea of a Sales section of this forum to Sal and he suggested I create a thread or two and see if anyone participates.
If non of you do, that is fine. The amazing thing about the internet is that the words I am typing now may be read--and maybe help--creators years later. I am confident in saying that I believe 2014 will be the Tipping Point for Kickstarter and crowdfunding as a whole. It was not long ago that a grandmother in Kansas had no idea what ebay was, let alone become addicted to it; nor was it long ago that a middle aged florist from Derry, New Hampshire had never heard of Twitter, let alone start tweeting 56 times a day. . . . .
Every day on the floor, since I discovered this amazing world, I slip in crowdfunding or Kickstarter as my own field test. I do not say I had a live campaign--that would get me fired! I just slip it into the conversation, to try to gauge how many people heard of this universe. I have found one.
Just one person.
Before I start, I would beg everyone of you to read, either as an actual book (ya know, the homes of silverfish?) or a file trasnfered to your media device, the work of three people. First, anything by these two is a great start:
Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin.
And if I won the lottery, I would send the following book to anyone of you who reqested a copy--it is that good. It will change your life if you wish to make a living in marketing, advertising, sales or crowdfunding.
The book is: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert B. Cialdini, PhD http://amzn.to/1ipafZq
There is no need to get into why. I just beg you to order it NOW. Every page is mind blowing. Have any of you heard of how powerful using the word BECAUSE is when you ask someone for something? Well, imagine that I said, "There was this study they did." Exactly who are they? Well, this book does not do that. It cites the actual study. Because I know many of you will not order the book, but I want to help, please at least read this article> > http://hbr.org/2001/10/harnessing-the-science-of-persuasion/ar/1
(sorry, I had to do it. Hope some of you caught that)
Also, after reading that article, if you still do not want to buy the book, PLEASE read this interview. I mean--maybe some of you will not read the above link and some will not even read this next link>> http://hbr.org/2013/07/the-uses-and-abuses-of-influence/ar/1
Now, some of you still have not clicked anything and I am about to lose you. Maybe you are one of those people who refuse to drill down when you are reading something on the net. Ok, let me give those people this:
HBR: I’m going to run a few scenarios by you to explore how people can influence others more effectively at work. First, imagine that you’re an employee trying to behave entrepreneurially. You need resources to jump-start a great business idea. How do you get people to help?
Cialdini: It requires prework. People will help if they owe you for something you did in the past to advance their goals. That’s the rule of reciprocity.
Get in the habit of helping people out, and—this part’s really important—don’t wave it away when people thank you. Don’t say, “Oh, no big deal.” We’re given serious persuasive power immediately after someone thanks us. So say something like “Of course; it’s what partners do for each other”—label what happened an act of partnership. With that prework done, a manager who subsequently needs support, who needs staffing, who maybe even needs a budget, will have significantly elevated the probability of success.
I hope you are starting to see why I feel reading Cialdini will help you in all aspected of your business life, rather at your day job or in the crowdfunding world you have discovered.
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I also wanted to design this post as a demonstration of sales techniques. The above is something I do everyday. The more I type, the more I realize the hubris and audacity of my pitch to Sal. I am Nobody. I sale led flat televisions and bluetooth speakers. But there is more: I have been a salesperson for a decade. It is like trying to explain how I bend a note playing blues harp, or the exact muscles used in my ring finger when I phrase a note on guitar. I did not plan on constructing this post as a sales pitch. It is just something I do when I am trying to persuade someone. Persausion, in my world is positive. I am trying to transfer knowledge and skills I use to survive on what is oftena brutal sales floor inside a forum post. But what I did was a technique that everyone of you can employ in your campaign.
I call it Tailoring.
Or Fitting.
Maybe that is the actual name. I have read many sales books over the years, phychology books, academic to light reads (a good light read is "How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer>>>http://www.amazon.com/How-We-Decide-Jonah-Lehrer/dp/0547247990) and sometimes the source material is lost in the basement of my mind. But the idea is often peeled away and studied in many sales and NLP books.
It is simple. There are different types of people. Someone who is visual will "phase out" when I talk about the hertz of a new LED 60" television. Someone who is visual may buy one television over the other SIMPLY BECAUSE IT LOOKS SLEEKER. That should be crazy to you. Your mind should revolt at the notion. But let me ask you this: How many cars have you bought, where the color influenced the sale? In fact, how many of you filter CAR COLOR when selecting a new car? How on earth would the color of a car matter to what it will do for you as a vehicle? You are mostly IN THE VEHICLE and can not see the color 98% of the time. But, as you walk out of the grocery store--the sunlight slants down and makes the new paint glitter in such a way it makes your heart resonate. You congratulate yourself on picking such an awesome color and beautiful car.
The above paragraph was to illustrate how important trivial features can make or break a buying decision. As a salesperson--that is really what you are when you launch a camapaign--you need to study why people buy, what makes them buy and what types of buyers exist. Since crowdfunding is an online marketplace, it should be part of your job and my job, to try our best to understand how people behave and buy online.
And one thing I know--from years on reddit--is that the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, could be at the end of this post and nobody would ever find it. Why?
tl;dr
Some folks refuse to read a Wall of Text. Since the goal of this post is to impart knowledge, the quickest way most of you will get the maximum return is to buy Cialdini's book and study everything he has to offer. I had to fit the post to as many people as possible. In a one-on-one sale, this is done by studying the responses the client has by your demo--this is impossible to do in a project platform. Now, some of you "know" your target demo and tailor your pitch to them. . .but maybe that is faulty logic. Do we really know our potential backers? It is a beautiful buying space. Think about it. . . The backer is alone and online, inside their own head and focused on your project and that pledge button, social proof is stripped away.. Maybe the "most popular menu item" effect factors into viral campaigns--but having a runaway train project is often a fluke and if you ask the creators how they did it, they shrug and say. "I don't know, it was like magic."
Magic can be learned.
I felt that no matter how compelling I could make my plea, some of you would never EVER click one of those links, to capture ("close") those people, I just copied/pasted something in the article I found most could relate to, from one of the articles. This is tailoring. Your project can be designed in such a way, to try to resonate with every type of customer type. I have developed my own buyer type, and you one day will do the same. Many project managers, being creative types, my hate salspeople. But in reality, this is the world we are in on Kickstarter. It may be called a pledge, but it is money. And "getting" people to part with their money is one of the hardest skills you will learn. You must be ethical. At all times. But once you learn how to HELP people make a buying DECISION you will feel a sense of accomplisment that is as addicting as a drug.
I am obsessed by sales , because I have been paid on a recoverable draw situation for 4 years in my previous furniture sales position and recoverable draw is the commisison structure of my new role as an electronics salesperosn. What is reciverable draw? Let's just say--in a way that frightens new salespeople--I pay for the privalege of talking to the customers who walk onto my companys showroom floor. Being under that kind of preassure caused me to focus all of my energies on not building my draw bank up. . .
I have survived. I have done well. Very well, by many standards. I think a big reason why is because I feel a great salesperson is a broker of information, filled with passion and not afraid to hide it, who helps others make the right choice that benefits the both of us. It is strange that I found myself miserable.
Life is complicated. In fact, certain personal things happened in my "day job" that led me down the path of crowdfunding. I do not know how long my goal of being a full time artist will take. Maybe none of you have a bad feeling about "selling" and are fine with directly asking friends, families and strangers to pledge their money so you can take an idea and try to make it a reality. For those of you who find it difficult, I hope to share as much as I can and maybe even make you love sales the way I do!
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The answer? Why 42 of course!
. I just added this thread to buffer to be tweeted out.
