Secrets from the World's Greatest Salesman - Joe Girard

I would go with "How to sell anything to anybody".

My personal thought is this, people already basically know what they want and how much they want to spend. What you are doing is making a friend. Once you have a friend then you can sell them, because they trust and believe you.

I honestly don't know how applicable it is to internet marketing, but here goes.

I owned a company selling in home (with a dozen or so salespeople) until 1981. The recession hit (this one is way worse), and all in home financing stopped. So I switched to selling Life Insurance with New York Life in Canton Ohio.

I bought several books by great insurance salesmen, and started to work.
I can't remembner where I initially got this idea, but here is what I did.

I got one client. He worked at a factory in Medina Ohio. I went to the factory, saw the treasurer and said '" I have a policy holder that works here. Would it be alright if you deducted his premiums out of his weekly paycheck?" Amazingly he said OK to that.
I then asked "If I find other policyholders in this company, would you do the same for them?" Amazingly he agreed to that as well. If not for this one guy, I would have given up on this idea.

Well, all the employees (there were about 100) knew each other. So I would get referrals from each one, and just drop by their homes and say "Joe asked me to stop by and show you a program that you can get through your company. Would you mind if I take a few minutes to explain it to you?" Most said OK.

I sold a standard life insurance policy and showed pre-made proposals with premiums in $20 a week chunks. In other words, one unit has a premium of about $86 a month through payroll deduction.

I only got referrals from people who bought. After a few months, I even asked them to call a friend or two who they worked with, while I was still there, to help set the appointment (with me helping) for the next client. The number of people who I saw per week shot through the roof. But I really only wanted to see one or two people a day. I want from 6 hours selling (or prospecting) a day to about two hours total. I would normally sell 6 policies a week and then take off the rest of the week. I visited people at their homes in person. When I got a huge backlog of prospects, I started calling them, and that wasn't as effective as just showing up.
The exception was referrals called from a co-workers home. That worked extremely well.

Of the people who would talk to me (word soon spread about the insurance guy coming around), nearly all bought at least the $86 a month plan. That's $86 a month for life insurance...in a recession..in 1981. Pretty big money then. Some bought more. Most of that year, I worked about 2 hours a day. Only seeing people that wre 90% already sold on buying insurance from me....mostly because most of their work friends did, and because there was an implied permission to sell by the company.

I ended up with about 12 companies allowing me to see their employees (two during regular work hours at the factory), and I sold most everyone I talked to. Almost nobody cancelled the first year because it was so convenient to have the money taken out of their paycheck.

I made a tad over $200,000 in 1981 selling a boring life insurance policy that every agent in the world sold. The reasons it worked so well was;
1) I only talked to friends of people who baught from me, not nonbuyers. Everone I talked to knew several people who baught from me already. This developed strong social proof that buying from me was the right thing to do.
2) Even though I was selling a commmodity, the approach was unique (or at least I thought so at the time).The method of approach to the prospect was what set me apart from any other salesman.
3) It was almost like I was sent from the company to explain an employee benefits package. In fact, after several months I arranged to do just that and at the same time show optional insurance coverage. The normal sales barriers weren't there usually.
4) Because the company gave me permission to see their employees, I had authority in their eyes. I wasn't a salesman, I was an advisor. This was the first time I saw how important that was to selling.
5) Sometimes I could get several couples in one home to see them all at once. This forced me to learn how to do group selling. Far harder than one on one. One unhappy participant can ruin your day. This really came in handy when I started speaking to business groups seling loccal online services.

The district sales manager even went with me for a day to see how I generated so many high dollar sales. He was baffled when I just went out visiting small companies asking if I could deduct premium from paychecks. I always saw my prospective clients in the evening. Everyone worked during the day, it seemed.
To him it seemed like a waste of time, so I dropped him off at his car and went to see a new prospect on my own. He wanted me see clients to replace the policies they already had. At the time many agents made a living this way, but I thought it was slimy and not benefiting the client. I learned that not everyone who manages is actually smarter than you.

Anyway, at the end of 1982, my financing was re-instated, and I could return to a business I enjoyed more.

I'm not sure how to translate that to internet marketing, although I used all I learned owning a retail store and in selling local clients an online marketing program.
I hope somebody got something out of this.

Anyway, sorry about hijacking the thread. I would absolutely recoimmend How To Sell Anything To Anybody. Also, The Feldman Method, and Selling Retail (if you are in retail). These books are by Giants in their field who share what they know. If you're in sales this is a no-brainer, I think.

Well, I didn't mean it as a deceitful activity.. maybe "tactic" would be a better word for it.