People are Dumb
Posted On: 2006-10-26
The proof is definitely out there
If there has been one major mistake I have made in the time I have been selling things it has been to think (perhaps 'wish' 'hope' and 'pray' might be more appropriate words here) that people are basically intelligent when it comes to life. So whatever I have been selling - whether it was me in my days as an escort, a membership at a sponsor's site or some mainstream product - I have always approached the sale from the point of view that people use their brain and that has colored my sales pitch.
But yesterday I saw incontrovertible proof that people are dumb. People don't think, people make stupid choices and to make your sales pitch at any higher point than a person's navel is a complete waste of time.
As you may or may not we are now involved in a small way with a computer shop. Not only do we share office space but I am also involved in the day to day running of the business. The computer shop not only repairs computers but it also custom builds the best machines in the State and we include the best parts and the best software with every computer.
When a new computer leaves the shop you can guarantee that it's delivered in perfect operating order and has the best anti-virus program installed. For my money that's a program called Kaspersky and don't bother arguing with me that PC-cillin, AVG, McAfee, Nortons or any of the others are better because they aren't - I know because I see computers loaded with that software riddled with viruses coming into the shop almost every day of the week.
So yesterday a computer that the shop had built came back. It was running slow and the owner had no idea why. He didn't bother telling us that as soon as you turned it on web pages from all over the planet started opening up and didn't stop till the computer froze. NO, for him it was just running slow. When we finally managed to reboot and not launch all those pages we found that someone had turned Kaspersky off and installed the free copy of AVG.
Now why would you turn off the best anti-virus software you had paid for and install a free program that is worth what you pay for it?
Recently the shop built a high end gaming machine for a customer. When it left the shop it was an absolute work of art; when it came back yesterday it was on the verge of becoming an expensive collection of junk. Sometime last week it developed a minor problem so the owner took it to a backyard repairer he knew who fiddled with it.
One of the 'adjustments' the backyard repairer made was to change the wiring on the fan that sits over the CPU. It seems he wired it backwards and from that point on the CPU was on the verge of melt-down every time the computer was turned on. The machine was still under warranty so why on earth would you take an expensive computer to some backyard repairer when the shop you bought it from was only just down the road?
So now you see why I have finally accepted the truth about people. I now accept that people don't think before they act and so sales pitches that are based on a person's ability to think and reason are not going to be as effective as sales pitches that appeal to a person's vanity, greed and stupidity.
So think about the way you go about pitching your products to the people you sell too. Some of them may think, some of them may reason and think logically but a whole lot more are just plain dumb. Tell them that the product you are selling is right for them because of the product's technical advantages and some will buy. Tell them that the product is right for them because it makes them look good, shows they are better or smarter than everyone else or that there is something given away free with what you're selling and many more will buy your product.
Just the other day I was reading an Australian technical message board that is supposedly inhabited by people who actually think and one poster was complaining that a local online retailer had dropped it's free shipping policy. Quite a few more came in and joined in the free-shipping chorus and complained bitterly that free-shipping was a thing of the past.
Finally a company spokesperson arrived to try and do some damage control. He admitted that the company had indeed dropped free shipping but at the same time they had increased the discounts on a huge range of items so basically the price the consumer paid remained the same or had even decreased in many cases.
That line didn't impress anyone. Even though they might have to pay more for the products they purchased many people still wanted free shipping.
See my point here? People are definitely dumb and reasoning seems to be beyond a large proportion of the market place. Pitch your sale at the dumb level and you stand a good chance of making far more sales than if you pitch your sale at those who might think and if it works for mainstream then you can bet it's going to work for adult too.
But you know what the really sad thing about all this is? Many of us become just as dumb when we cross over from being a seller to being a buyer.