Articles: Anthony Mora Communications

Why Fear-based Selling Is A Bad Bet
By Anthony Mora

1/15/09

Synopsis: If you've worked to make your product or service the best it can be, and you're still using fear-based marketing, shift your approach and see what happens.  People will want to work with you, not out of fear, but because they trust you; you solve a problem for them, you're reliable, you make them feel good about their purchase.  They want to work with you, or buy your product out of trust, not fear.

You know how annoying it is to go into a store and have a salesperson stick to you like glue and continually try to sell you?  And you know how that experience is even worse if the salesperson tries to convince you that you need to buy because if you don't something horrible could happen? Yep. No one wants to be sold, particularly with a fear-based pitch.  We want to purchase something that we feel comfortable buying; something that is going to help make our lives easier, better or more interesting.  The trouble is that many businesses and experts still feel that they have to sell fear and sell it big time; they're advertising, marketing and public relations is all based on trying to scare the hell out of you.

Now instead of the preverbal used car salesman, we have the Internet sales pitch.  The endless emails telling us how we have to order whatever it is they're selling “now” or we're going to regret it. Selling through fear can be effective.  It's been done since marketing existed.  Sometimes it's a part of the package.  When you think of it, when we buy car insurance, we're betting that we'll have an accident and paying the insurance company a monthly premium so that they'll be there, check in hand, when we eventually do.  But unlike insurance most other purchases don't so readily fall into that fear category, yet they're generally sold to us as though they do. 

The fear sales pitch is made to give us a sense of urgency, when there really is none.  But now-a-days, more and more people see through and are turned off by that type of pitch. So if you're not selling urgency through fear, what then?  Use the biggest motivator there is – TRUST. But, unlike fear, here you have to be able to back it up.  If you are going to make this shift, you can't sell smoke and mirrors.  Your product or service really does have to be top of the line.  You actually do have to give your customer value.  If you've worked to make your product or service the best it can be, and you're still using fear-based marketing, shift your approach and see what happens.  People will want to work with you, not out of fear, but because they trust you, because you offer a top-of-the-line product, you solve a problem for them, you're reliable.  Here they not only buy from you, but they actually feel good about the process. It's trust that builds a loyal customer base. It's not something you sell, but a promise that you deliver.
 
Copyright © Anthony Mora 2009

For further information visit:
www.AnthonyMora.com

« return to article list

home | about us | Anthony Mora bio | Ann Convery bio | media placement |
media training | speak your business | spin to win | articles | clients | contact us