Ironically, many people who know about Corporate Sales would most likely argue that it is one of the fields that has the most opportunities to be persuasive. In the corporate world, persuasive skills and appeals are absolutely essential.
A typical example that occurs regularly in the corporate sales is something as follows: “Let me explain to you why our firm’s product is so much better and more efficient than Company X’s. Clearly, by the looks of our sales last year, we trumped Company X’s sales revenue by over 65 percent on the given product. We are selling it so rapidly that we are now opening up different markets in Canada, Mexico, and Brazil as we move to the worldwide scale. The product is much more useful due to the new high definition screen, the way it takes over 72 hours to run out of battery, and it’s lightning speed connection to the internet. It literally is not even fair to Company X because of how outstanding our rates are. We would completely agree with the New York Times front page last year when they said our product is ‘quite possibly the most innovative, exciting product that the country has seen in a decade’.”
There are literally numerous examples of persuasive appeals that are displayed in the above example. There is a heavy use of the common topic- “comparison”, as my company completely proves why it’s new product is so much better than Company X’s. In any kind of sales job, there will always be a lot of comparison between two firms. We have to exploit the weaknesses of the other firm to show why we are better. Also, we can se the use of “testimony” as we quote New York Times in their front headline. It gives us credibility as we show a big time source giving us credit. It makes us appear much more powerful and stronger as an organization.
Another topic of invention that stood out to me while I read your example was past fact, future fact. Even though you didn't explicitly mention future products, because you were able to convince me of how great the present product is, I now have the same expectation of future products. This to me just reiterates that not only is what you say important, but also what you do not say and allow the listener to infer.
ReplyDeleteI loved your example! There were so many different uses of the topics of invention. I think comparison must be super important for salesman but also another topic you used was division when you divided up all the reasons why your product was better. Nice post!
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