Chapter 16 - Do You Understand What I Need?

As a general observation, the author remarks that the sales profession is all about ego (EN: What he describes here is not so much the ego but closer to the id, the part of consciousness that demands self-gratification and is indifferent to the interests of others). He describes selling to a client as being analogous to sumo wrestling - with two individuals with a bloated sense of self-importance attempting to push one another around (EN: which also shows a very poor understanding of the sport.)

The author writes another dialog in which a salesman is attempting to convince a client to purchase their accounting service. To do so, the salesman must convince the prospect that what he offers is better than what he's doing - and does so by deriding the prospect's accounting practices and questioning his decision-making skills. He admits it's exaggerated, but it's not uncommon for a salesman to stoop to such tactics, attempting to use insults and threats to gain an upper hand in the negotiation.

The main problem with this approach is that the salesman is assuming he is in a position of power, when power always resides with the prospect to decide to buy from him, or someone else, or at all. Given a competitive marketplace and informed customers, which is more typical in the present day than in the past, customers resist sales pressure and are quick to close the door on pushy and rude salesmen.

It's difficult to see how these tactics are geared toward winning a sale, as they are more about struggling to gain personal dominance. The author suggests that emotionally heated exchanges seldom lead to a sale - and when the volume increases above a normal speaking tone, it's clear that the salesman has lost interest in the real goal (to make a sale) and is more interested in stoking his own sense of self-importance, the profit for doing which is zero.

It's also noted that the salesman is attempting to do the right things in the wrong way: he must convince the client his service is superior to the one he has (but not by deriding his present practices); suggesting larger companies use their service does create a sense of its reliability (without belittling the client's operation); etc.