Oct 26 2007
Fear as a business model
How do you help your customers understand their problems so that you can solve them? I think of the insurance salesman I talked to not too long ago.
“What happens if you crash your car and are out of work for six months?”
“If you lose an eye, this insurance will give you $100,000.”
“What will you do if we have an earthquake and your house catches fire and everything you own is destroyed?”
This model makes a little bit of sense since we all seem to want to hear about all the tragedies in the world… fear is something that we can identify with.
The most common tactic for a salesman to employ is to strike fear, uncertainty and doubt in a customer about their current situation and help them see the light. Help them see how what you provide will make all of their worries go away.
Personally, I am not a big fan of fear as a business model. I don’t like sitting through presentations that tell me about all the things that can go wrong and if I don’t do my things differently my health is shot or my business will go away.
A better approach would be to find out what your customers are concerned about and help them solve that. Then you don’t have to strike undue fear into your customers’ minds to get them to buy.
If you solve your customers’ problems that they know they have, it will be easier for them to identify other problems they might allow you to solve and you never have to scare them into submission.
Corey Smith is the co-founder to Resumango where you can build a better resume for free.