In selling, it is important to understand not only the nature of the product you are offering but the nature of your prospect as well. When I was in college and thinking about joining a fraternity, I had an experience that really points out the value of understanding this very important trigger.

Of all the fraternities I could have joined in college, I chose the worst one. Why? After spending time visiting various fraternities, I had figured out the nature of why guys join a fraternity in the first place.

I reasoned that with this knowledge, I could singlehandedly take the worst fraternity on campus and turn it into the best one, simply by coming up with an effective marketing plan to dramatically increase membership. My approach would take into account the nature of my prospect (the student) and, using this information, seduce that student into wanting to join my fraternity at the exclusion of all others. I would thus, by building a large membership, transform my fraternity into a top-rated organization, regardless of how bad it had been when I joined. This may seem like a rather naive plan, but I was convinced that I personally could make a difference.

After joining and going through the initiation period, I got sworn in, went before my fraternity brothers, and laid out my plan—“Operation Survival” as I called it. I explained that guys join a fraternity for two psychological and motivating factors—one was as a vehicle to meet girls and the other was to experience the camaraderie, brotherhood and love of a group of guys.

I showed that an illusion could be created to capture this effect of love and social interaction in a fraternity for the sake of acquiring new members or “pledges,” as they were called. The goal was to have more guys wanting to join our fraternity than any other on campus. And we needed this big infusion of new faces or our fraternity would surely die—that’s how bad this place was and how badly we were doing attracting new members. It truly was Operation Survival.

My plan was simple and consisted of two parts. The first part was to invite the most beautiful and sexy girls to act as hostesses for our get-acquainted events. I didn’t want the active brothers’ girlfriends to act as hostesses, as was usually the case. No, these gals had to be world-class—girls the guys would talk about for days after our event.

The second was the way each brother had to introduce a fellow brother to a prospective member. I insisted that the brother should say to a prospect something very loving and warm about his fellow fraternity brother. For example, “Put your arms around your brother and tell the prospect what a wonderful person your brother is and how much you genuinely admire and love this guy.”

The plan was not as easy to execute as it might seem. First, no world-class gal on campus wanted any part of my fraternity. Second, the guys hated each other. Expressing love about a fellow brother whom you hated seemed a rather difficult gesture, if not impossible. But I did a few things that made it work.

We hired four of the most beautiful strippers from the local strip clubs. They were young, sexy, and welcomed the opportunity to “act out” roles as university coeds and hostesses for our three planned get-acquainted parties. I then rehearsed the guys and made them put their arms around each other, expressing this new brotherly love that was so foreign and repulsive to them. They could barely stand it. But the charade worked.

Not only did we end up with the biggest pledge class in our history, beating all the other fraternities, but some of the guys actually got closer to their fellow brothers, and an entire new spirit spread throughout the fraternity. There was such a buzz around campus about the girls who were acting as our hostesses that by the time we held our third party, we didn’t have room for the crowd that we attracted. In fact, the strippers enjoyed their experience so much that they invited some of their beautiful girlfriends to join the fun. (One of the gals even turned out to be a hooker.) The students were so impressed with the love, brotherhood, and display of beautiful women that when it came time to join, the students were literally begging to sign up.

I had understood the psychological trigger of my product (the fraternity) and of my prospect (the young student looking for a place to find love and social interaction). The key in this case was the power of knowing the nature of the prospect—those emotional aspects of the prospect that would respond best to a planned pitch. Operation Survival was a huge success and transformed my fraternity into one of the best on campus—all from a simple marketing plan and in a few short weeks.

Let me cite a few more examples to illustrate this very important principle. How can you use this trigger to your advantage in a face-to-face selling opportunity? Get to know the nature of your prospect relative to the nature of your product. Become an expert on your prospect. Be a good listener; talk to your prospects and those who know and have dealt with them. You’ll soon discover the very nature of your prospect and the emotional reasons he or she will buy.

If I were selling a home, I would get to know the motivations of my prospects and what they are looking for in a home. I would find out their history. I would ask them about their other home-buying experiences and what their hobbies are. I would gather as much information about them as possible and then I would develop a sense of what emotional and logical needs they might have.

Understanding their needs and the nature of the prospect in general would give me enough information to craft a very effective sales presentation that, ideally, would match the nature of my product with the nature of my prospect.

The prospect has basic emotional needs that your product will solve, regardless of how sophisticated or simple your product offering is. Examine those emotional needs. For the moment, forget the logical needs. It is from the perspective of emotion that you will reach the core essence of your prospect’s motivation. And it is from this essence that you will get all the clues you need to uncover the way to that prospect’s heart and soul and eventually to his or her pocketbook.

Triggers by Joe Sugarman

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