Assume that when someone finds out about a technique, they judge whether they think it ought to work on them or not, and adjust their behavior accordingly. If a technique doesn’t work when the subject is aware of it, that usually means that they would decide, for some reason, that they don’t want it to work. So if a technique works only when the subject is unaware of it, then using that technique is going against their preferences.
Pretty much. I like to contrast this with the techniques I use in sales meetings to guide the sale toward closing, which I not only don’t mind if my clients find out about them, I’m usually happy to feature them if the occasion arises.
“Sales techniques” is something that seems cringeworthy to many people—I’ve had more than one person confirm that. One of the happiest find in my careers as a freelance was this set of non-manipulative sales techniques.
Solution selling in particular was a watershed in turning me from an engineer into a (pretty successful) salesman while getting rid of any qualms I might have had about the transition. It helps a lot that what I’m selling is my own services and I happen to know what I’m good at; but that’s the point of solution selling.
This sounds intuitively like a good heuristic, but the underlying logic isn’t obvious to me. Can you expand?
Assume that when someone finds out about a technique, they judge whether they think it ought to work on them or not, and adjust their behavior accordingly. If a technique doesn’t work when the subject is aware of it, that usually means that they would decide, for some reason, that they don’t want it to work. So if a technique works only when the subject is unaware of it, then using that technique is going against their preferences.
Pretty much. I like to contrast this with the techniques I use in sales meetings to guide the sale toward closing, which I not only don’t mind if my clients find out about them, I’m usually happy to feature them if the occasion arises.
“Sales techniques” is something that seems cringeworthy to many people—I’ve had more than one person confirm that. One of the happiest find in my careers as a freelance was this set of non-manipulative sales techniques.
Solution selling in particular was a watershed in turning me from an engineer into a (pretty successful) salesman while getting rid of any qualms I might have had about the transition. It helps a lot that what I’m selling is my own services and I happen to know what I’m good at; but that’s the point of solution selling.