Selling on a napkin: the persuasion power of participation
The napkin persuasion selling power
If you sit down with a potential client over a dinner, a coffee or having a drink, drawing some simple images, icons, or words with arrows representing flows in between, you can do miracles.
Your intentional words and images on the napkin accompanied by your verbal explication are probably one of the best sales methods there is.
By visually breaking down the problem and solution people will understand better and easier by participating in your thinking.
Moreover the process of verbal explication and sketching the problem and solution is staged step by step, as it takes time to draw and write the few words on the napkin.
Involvement leads to participation selling
The build up and the moderate advancement of the explication due to drawing, writing and telling, makes persuasion power much higher than if you would use the exact same icons and wording in a (PowerPoint) presentation.
This is probably due to the high involvement of the person you are explaining to.
He or she feels being much more related to what you are explaining or expressing as it is created immediately and originally in front of him/her.
He or she experiences and gets involved in the creation of something unique, specially drawn for him/her: participation selling.
After your sales pitch, the potential customer can take the napkin with him as a trophy, having your effort, sweat and creation on a handcrafted document in which she/he has participated.
Do cheat by rehearsing:
Try out or exercise your napkin creations in advance in order to make your napkin selling successful. They won’t know you have rehearsed.
Use Napkins instead of presentations
Thus the next time you sit down with your potential customer or existing customer don’t show a presentation on your portable or printed presentations, just use napkins.
Be creative, be original, and let him grasp the uniqueness of the creation and the moment with you.
How good are your experiences with napkin selling?
How many sales did you already do on napkins?
