You can talk all day about theories but I prefer practical real life stuff and when it comes to ideas for selling there are several times in my life when I have seen them make the difference between failure and success in a business. I have seen small and medium sized enterprises lifted from failure and bankruptcy by a single selling idea.
Actually I call them selling systems and I firmly believe that to succeed in business every entrepreneur needs a selling system that works. Why have an accounting system and a production system and a system for everything else except a system for the most important thing in your business-selling whatever it is that you sell?
Anyway it does not really matter what I want to call it or what you want to refer to it us, the bottom line is that we both understand what we are talking about here. And even more important that we grasp the power that ideas for selling have when it comes to bringing dead businesses back to life.
The first time I witnessed he power of ideas for selling or a selling system at work was some years back when I completed developing a brilliant product in the form of a small magazine. The response from my readers was enthusiastic and I was sure that I had a winner. But there was a problem. I was having difficulties selling my mass market woman's magazine. I developed a miniature version of the magazine where I printed the headlines of my articles and a summary of what my stories were all about and I gave it out free to my prospects. The response was instantaneous and I immediately started selling like hot cakes. At the peak of it all I was doing $800 worth of magazine sales daily. This was in sharp contrast to a few short days before when I would easily go through a whole day without making a single sale.
From then on I have witnessed as well as taken active part in many situations where ideas for selling have dramatically changed the situation on the ground and rescued numerous small businesses from the jaws of certain death and bankruptcy.
Let me describe the simplest and yet most effective idea for selling (selling system) I have ever seen in action. You too may have seen it in practice because I have witnessed it being used on two different continents that are miles apart. On a hot day when temperatures are high, a lemonade stand gives all passersby a free taste of their cool drink which under the circumstances is almost irresistible. It would seem that the lemonade stand is wasting valuable lemonade that it would have otherwise sold. The truth is that this selling system tempts many passersby who would have otherwise not stopped to make a purchase to buy. Some take advantage of the free sample and walk away without buying but at the end of the day the lemonade given free is but a small fraction and a tiny part of the total costs from the huge revenue made from lots of sales. Sales that would never have happened without the brilliant selling idea of giving away free samples.