Posted by
Jon on Saturday, April 07, 2007 1:44:49 PM
Sales people get a bad reputation all around the world as liars. But salesmen don't have to be lie to sell and everyone sells in everything they do. An actor's audition is really a sales call, selling (or renting) his talents. An IT consultant, like me, when he has an design idea better than his clients, has to sell that idea to the in-house developers, and I don't do it for money I do it in exchange for building the idea I think they want more than their own. I was talking to a friend recently about TV networks and heard their motives best described as selling shows to the viewers for ratings and then selling their demographics to advertisers for money. Pundits have the same double-sales idea, where they have to sell an idea to the public and then sell that grassroots support to the politicians for laws (and sell the listener demographics to advertisers so they can do it again tomorrow).
I think that's why talk radio only really works for conservatives. Neal Boortz has his theory in
Somebody's Got To Say It, and I think greater logic in the arguments is a big deal, but the larger point is made here, in
SPIN Selling. The most persuasive way to sell big ticket items is to listen. The sales cycle on big ticket items (the time between you first approach them and when they buy) is much longer, so you can't just fool people. Listening lets the salesman address the customer's real concerns and not just make them feel good about the purchase for the few moments it takes to get them to the check-out counter.
Talk radio lets people feel listened to; a columnist doesn't. So it sells ideas better to people who consider their vote a big ticket item.