My websites is still down, and I can’t even acess it…I’m a little worried…I may need to email my support dude about this. Well, enough whining about that.
Last week I went a sales seminar about “Value-added Sales” subtitled “It’s not about price.”
And a few things made me think about the relationship between modern evangelism and sales. Gone are the days of effective hammering people with benefits, no longer can we walk up to someone and tell them about all the great crap they get in heaven, or call them up and bombard them with features your product has.
Now you have to give them immediate benefits, and long term benefits that add value to whatever they are doing. In terms of evangelism, that means pushing the good stuff in the here and now. The positive short and long term effects of your Christian walk are usually the best thing to do. Saying things in buisness like “you will realize a 10% increase in profits each year due to my product which totals a return of xxx% over 10 years” is the kind of thing to say.
Also, they talked about treating the customer right, giving them coffee mugs or taking them to dinner and things like that. This is so people will be interested in you and know that you are really interested in their buisness. This reminded me of Servant Evangelism, because at this stage in selling you aren’t expecting an immediate return.
Then they talked about focusing on the person / persons you will be dealing with, and making relationships with them. From simple things such as knowing their secretaries name and remembering their birthday, to more complex things like talking to them after the sale about their needs and wants from your service department. Really listening, asking good questions that address what you learned from listening, and then listening attentively some more are key elements to making a sale based on value.
Sound familiar. I could almost hear Jim Egli, or Steve Sjogren talking to me in this seminar.
Of course there are parts of the seminar that are entirely focused on making money, and that isn’t the objective in evangelism, but it was just really interesting to me to see such a close simliarity in these two fields. And while it shouldn’t have suprised me I suspose because either way your selling something, I still have to wonder is this the Church trailing the culture, or for once is it the other way around? Because this seminar had some very counter-sales-culture ideas in it, and some of the veteran sales people there were pretty suprised at some of the things the guy asked us to do.
Well, that is long enough for now.
vip1 says
I find this parallel very interesting. At my job, they have now decided that we, too, should join the sad club of cold-calling businesses. I have been yelled at and hung up on. I actually talked to a really nice guy this morning and was so surprised that he didn’t hang up on me that I didn’t know what to say and made a complete fool of myself. In the midst of all this frustration, I too have been thinking about how this relates to evangelism. (Also beginning to feel convicted to pray for some of the customers who come into the store, but I’m still not sure where I stand there)
This stupid computer has a failing video card and so when I type stuff it makes dark lines across the screen and it’s VERY dark….so, it just made me completely lose my train of thought. But, I do find this stuff interesting and you should definately develop it further (ie more details and specifics and stuff). I’ll try to gather my thoughts and reply again from home where I don’t have to decipher black lines….
rschmit says
I am amused that you’re boiling down evangelism to the hawking of wares.
1x says
Those are interesting parallels. Not disagreeing with anything you said, I’m going to take one of your points as an excuse to rant on one of my pet positions. 🙂
In some of the circles I’m in, “selling” Christianity by promising short term benefits is being discussed as a problem. This position is still in a developmental stage, but here’s a summary of where I lean lately:
Selling the Gospel as a life improvement progam may attract people, but it’s problematic because it misses the point and gives those people a false sense of what the Gospel means. Yes, if you come to Jesus and live by Kingdom principles, your life will be better. But it won’t be easy. And in the end, it’s not about making your life better. It’s about accepting the King, who is in power whether we like it or not. If I’m only becoming a Christian to make my life better, what am I going to do in a few years when my life hasn’t become painless?
bigcat2k says
Yes, I was amused by the idea for a similar reason.
I actually jotted down this on my notes during the seminar.
Sales ~ Evangelism?
And thought it was amusing.
bigcat2k says
Fixed the link, thanks.
Actually I didn’t do a good job in that part of what I was saying.
You have to present immediate benefits, and long term benefits.
In essence you are doing the cost / benefit analysis for the customer by presenting the upside over the short term and the long term, so they have a “cost to own” kind of perspective, instead of just pushing features.
In my mind features would be some things like ; Barbeques, meeting chicks, singing cool songs, warm fuzzies, camping trips, etc. All good things, but ultimately those aren’t the goals of Christianity.
Benefits would be short and long term realized good things like ; forging new, and developing deeper existing relationships, a better understanding of yourself and the world around you, easier disposition, learning to forgive and subsequently recieve healing for past hurts, and the big one…eternal life. There are others but you get the idea.
Also, no longer do I try to hide my costs in sales like they used to. Instead you just wrap it up into the benefits so it looks like it is less. In Christianity, I think I would probably differ here, and just present the cost at face value, cuz some days it sux to be a Christian. There is a parallel in sales, in that you always have long-term benefits to look at, which help minimize the costs, but unlike my sales pitch I’m not going to wrap the cost up entirely insde of the benefits to hide the initial buy-in costs.
kelglitter says
My dad has talked to me a lot about value-added sales/jobs/lifestyles, etc since I graduated from college. In Europe instead of paying sales tax, you pay Value-Added Tax (VAT) and it makes a lot of sense.
What my dad talks to me about the most though, is choosing how to live my life such that I am adding value – to society, to my company, to my marriage, to Christianity, to everything. A lot of this is choosing not to be a middleman. That means for me, not gossiping (how is that adding value?), refusing to do a job halfway, praying about things over talking to someone else about things, etc.
Even when I was cold-calling for Kirby seven years ago, my dad indicated that I could be so pleasant and helpful on the phone, actively trying to bless the people whose days I was disrupting, I could be adding value. I don’t know if I buy that though.
I think I am just terrible at this. Just look at how screwed up my previous interactions have been – with you and Lauren, with Bob, with Jeff, with Liz (I think her pounds and pounds of help to me were returned with about an ounce given back to her). I am working on that now. Not really succeeding of course, but working on it.