You can learn a lot from a cat.
How to sell, for starters.
You see, cats and dogs are very different. We have one of each in our house, and if I want the dog to come over, it’s pretty simple – I call her over! 9 times out of 10, she jumps up and trots right on over, happy to see me!
The cat, on the other hand, is a different story. If you try to call a cat over, it will ignore you.
The harder you try, the more you will be ignored.
Totally opposite of the dog.
And guess what – sales prospects aren’t dogs. They’re cats, and if you want to get them buying from you, you need to learn and understand “cat theory.”
Cat Theory
Cat theory is simple: It states that it’s up to you to get the cat to come over. You’re the one taking the action. However, you must trick the cat into believing that it is the cat’s own idea to respond to you.
In other words, you’re really getting the cat to come over, because you want her to. But she believes it’s her own decision – that she’s doing it of her own accord.
Sales prospects are exactly the same way. That’s why direct sales approaches trigger an instant, subconscious sales resistance in people.
Think about it. When you’re walking through a shopping mall or other market place, and salespeople at those kiosks yell to you to come over and look at whatever useless trinket they’re selling, your first reaction is to shut down and either ignore them, or give a polite “no thank you.”
By contrast, an intelligently constructed store window, containing goods you would like to have, does the polar opposite: It entices you to draw nearer, take a closer look, and possibly enter the store to buy.
You may have thought it was your own idea to go into the store, but in reality, the store’s staff made you come in. They set things up to draw you in, while letting you believe it was your own idea to do so.
And that’s how cat theory works in the real-world of selling. You must create the ideal circumstances to get prospects to come to you, ready to buy, while letting them believe they did it all on their own.
Using This In The Real World
Cat theory applies across the spectrum of sales situations, from prospecting all the way to the culmination of the sale (enticing them to buy instead of “closing” them).
It’s in prospecting, however – or more precisely, lead generation – that it’s most effective.
When you create the ideal circumstances to get qualified prospects to come to you, much like that store window, they do just that – and the balance of power is in your favor, since the prospect approached you rather than the other way around.
By: Frank Rumbauskas
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