Selling Intangibles to the Consumer: Utilizing a Tangible Substitute During Your Presentation

Sales of intangibles can be challenging. Working with prospects on tangible products allows the senses of touch, sight, hearing, taste, or smell to play a role in the prospect's decision. To improve the success at selling Intangibles (for example, insurance, services, design, educational programs, etc.), sometimes salespeople can benefit by compensating for the lack of physical properties during a sales interaction.

One of the most beneficial strategies for salespeople who sell intangibles is to bring something tangible into the sales interaction. This item, whatever it is, can act as a stand-in for the product or service you sell to satisfy the customer's preference for interaction with something that has physical attributes. Many buyers need this stand-in to help their senses become involved in the buying decision.

For example, if you are presenting a particular investment instrument to a prospect who is currently not investing, prepare two envelopes with your prospect's name and address on the front, and with your company's return address also. In one envelope, enclose a physical "sample" investment account summary. Date this statement for today's date, but for twenty years from now. Put the prospect's name in the name/address section of this "statement" to customize it, and make it look like a real account document (like something they might actually get in the mail). Your statement should show an account balance that is the result of the investment instrument you're presenting to your prospect. Make sure you don't oversell the investment opportunity on this statement; Use conservative rates of return when creating this sample (and include sufficient disclaimers so it's clear that this is just a sample).

In the second envelope, enclose a second account summary for the same prospect, but show the account balance as "0" as if they did not spend the next twenty years investing in this vehicle.

Now paint a picture for the prospect and encourage them to participate as you ask them to imagine where they'll be living in twenty years. Ask them to describe it in detail. Ask how old their kids will be.  Ask them to predict if they will have any grandchildren, and if so, how many. Ask them to imagine going to their mailbox to retrieve the mail and then opening an account summary from your company.

Ask the prospect to open these envelopes and pull out the enclosures. Let the prospect touch these papers, and get them to walk through a twenty-year-from-now scenario with you.  Hand the prospect the envelope with the zero balance first. This will show them what will happen if they don't invest. Then have them open the second statement (the one that shows an estimated balance based upon regular monthly payments for twenty years). 

Ask them to talk about how they would feel if the first envelope was the real one they will open in twenty years. Ask them to reflect on how they felt opening up the other one. Get the tangible letters to represent your intangible investment product.

This is only one example in one industry of how a physical thing can become a stand-in for an intangible product. In this case, it involves the customers' senses of sight and touch. But other tangible solutions might use the sense of hearing, or taste.

If you sell an intangible, what is an example of how you could creatively use a physical something to stand-in for your product and give your prospect an opportunity to physically interact with an object that represents what you sell?

Please share your ideas!

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Skip Anderson is the Founder of Selling to Consumers Sales Training, a B2C and retail sales training and management consulting company. Skip is nuts about helping companies and individuals sell more. 

Comments

[Ian Brodie]

Really interesting approach Skip. In B2B selling we very often have to sell intangible products - but I've rarely heard people talk about tactics like this - brining in a tangible "stand in" for the product. I'm going to think about it further - thanks.

Ian

[Skip]

Thanks for stopping by, Ian. I'm happy to hear that my post made you think. Perhaps you'll think of some application of this concept to your field of expertise.