5 Things You Didn't Know About Pre-Selling

I subscribe to almost everything (for research purposes) and I usually check out what people sent out that day before I go to bed.

Today, I snoticed some common suckiness in today's crop. And maybe it was because I sorta had a discussion about this earlier today on the forum, but whatever it was, I noticed it a lot more.

Pre-selling is something a lot of list marketers and bloggers TRY to do, but they're either not very good at it, or they're leaving a lot of opportunity behind. Here's my attempt to fix it and make my inbox more interesting.

The biggest issue is that I think gurus and marketing teachers haven't done a good job of explaining what pre-selling actually IS and what it's supposed to be FOR.

Here are 5 things you didn't know about pre-selling.

1. Pre-selling is NOT "selling before the sales letter" - it's what you do BEFORE you do ANY selling. It's about getting people to WANT what you will eventually sell them BEFORE they even know it exists. In fact, it's BECAUSE they don't know your product exists that we need to pre-sell them.

Giving the hard sell to a cold prospect sucks. It's sleazy. And for people forced to do business in that position, they often have to resort to pretty harsh tactics like...

2. Using pain and distress to agitate the prospect - this is a BAD pre-selling tactic. Don't get me wrong, those things are great to use when actually selling, but remember, pre-selling is NOT selling.

The number one thing people do when encountering pain or discomfort is to AVOID it, which means they will walk away from your message before they even hear about your product and its solution. But that's okay because...

3. We can co-opt and USE this inherent human desire to avoid pain. We do this by using the pre-selling phase to introduce and detail the emergent problems that the prospect will face as they travel ever deeper into the niche.

By pointing out the problems, pitfalls, and potholes, we provide a valuable service WITHOUT needing to actually SOLVE anything. We leave them with nothing to do, so they will be free to buy something later...

4. The secret of pre-selling is in appealing to APPETITES. There are desires common to all humans that are insatiable and bottomless. Learn them, and harness them to your message so that even when you've given them exactly what they want, they will still come back for more.

A very important one to note here is our insatiable desire to acquire secret knowledge of shortcuts. Our ancient drive for survival causes us to constantly be on the lookout for competitive advantages. We're always interested in new ones.

Consider that what we've done is simply fill the prospect's head with potential problems for which they have no solution, but are on the lookout for. They like us, they trust us, and they are going to pretty much already be asking for our opinions on how to solve their pressing problems, which is great.

But at this point it's important that we don't make a final HUGE mistake...

5. The prospect has to jump the gap between pre-selling and selling BY THEMSELVES. We can't shove them. The whole point of the pre-sale is to get them to walk right up and ASK us to sell them. And they WILL. But you have to be patient. You're giving them a bunch of puzzle pieces, and leaving them all out but one.

When you present your product, you can simply put it in front of them, and in their eyes, they will SEE it as the missing piece of the puzzle... THEIR puzzle. By this point, they've internalized the problems you introduced, and they misremember their desire for a solution as being their own idea, driven by their own subconscious desire to have an advantage over everyone else.

That's what I think pre-selling is all about, and that's how I do it. So in reference to the title of this post, was I right? Did you know these things? How about OTHER pre-selling tips? I'd love to hear yours!