
‘Sell me this pen:’ The real answer to The Wolf of Wall Street’s challenge - karterk
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/sell-me-this-pen-the-real-answer-to-the-wolf-of-wall-streets-challenge/article17946810/?service=mobile
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Killah911
It sounded a lot to me like SPIN selling. A quick wikipedia search turned up
Solution Selling (from the makers of SPIN selling).
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution_selling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution_selling)

In all seriousness, while I found the book to be a really hard read, the
tactics described are highly effective, not just in sales, but also in
thinking about solutions that you're building. In hindsight it seems like
common sense stuff, but is truly the wisdom of sages.

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ZenPro
>> _Most average or newbie salespeople think that they’re supposed to sell you
the pen, when a really seasoned salesperson will actually turn it into a
qualifying session to find out what you need. That’s the truth of it. It’s
like trying to sell someone a house and you don’t know if they’re in the
market for a house, what kind of house they want, how many kids – so how can
you sell someone a house? That’s the point._

Probably the best distillation of customer development I have heard in one
sentence.

Every sales pitch is a qualifying session. If you listen well enough your
customer might just tell you something you want to hear...

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moron4hire
That's funny. I was recently relating a story to my parents about my (past)
experiences with online dating. I basically summarized it as "your first task
is not to convince someone to go out with you, it's to determine if you're
talking to a bot or not." And that's basically it, figure out if you're even
talking to the right kind of person for what you're selling.

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Ryel
Arent these guys the wolves of Wall Street?

I was expecting the right answer to be for the salesman to take the pen from
Belfort, sell it to someone in the audience, have that person sell it to
someone else, and then the salesman turns to Belfort and says... I can get you
a good deal on this pen right now before it reaches market cap but we have to
move quickly.

Though I still think it's a shame because I wanted to see the movie but wasnt
willing to sit through it because of how grotesquely inappropriate I heard it
was.

*Oh wait, maybe market cap is the wrong term. Lol.

