[Adam]

When in sales, you need to gain people's trust...

A lot of 'sales gurus' out there have written long presentations for their sales forces to follow... Those presentations are full of powerful hooks and dangerous barbs to catch the typical consumer, and the sales people are trained to stop thinking of the consumers as people... (hence the word 'consumer')

Well, that's all fine and dandy, except that you aren't actually gaining people's trust, you're gaining people's attention for a hard sell, which drives many sales people insane.

Here's a novel approach. Actually take your customer's interests to heart. Find out for yourself if they need your product, or can even benefit from it. If the product is good for them, then you can feel good about selling it to them. If the product isn't right for them, use them as a network hub so that you can find people who could use the product. If your product doesn't supply any value, then find a way to give it value, or find people who it would be valuable to.

Just a thought. Don't be afraid to laugh at me... but maybe try it out on just one customer: actually find out if they need your product or not, then see if you can sell it to them.