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Zelda is a Nintendo® video game. In it, the hero, Link, must wander the land, talk
to people to learn clues, collect weapons and tools, amass gold, fight hostile soldiers,
and slay monsters. I like Zelda. It’s
a medium paced game that requires a fair amount of thinking and planning and a lot of
persistence. It’s a good way to let the
pressures of the day flow away. While I was
playing it the other night, I thought how much like sales this game was. Of course there are the obvious parallels: wandering the
land is making calls, collecting weapons and tools is learning the features and benefits
of your product or service, amassing gold is what salespeople all hope to do, and fighting
hostile soldiers is dealing with the competition. The two most important parallels, though, were talking to
people to gather clues and slaying the monsters. Poor Link would wander pretty aimlessly if he didn’t
stop to talk to the local villagers and listen to what they had to tell him. He learns things like who to avoid, what weapons
he needs to kill a certain monster, and where the monster’s soft spot is so he can
strike there and slay him. In selling, this is equivalent to listening to the prospect
and learning where the problems are and what benefits to use to help close the sale. Never seeking help (by asking your prospects
questions) is like wandering aimlessly in the desert.
It will get you nowhere. In Zelda, in order to get to the treasures there is
invariably a guardian monster that must be dispatched first. There is never a way around the monster. If you don’t kill him, he will always kill
you before you can get to the treasure. Always! This is the objection that stands in the way of making the
sale. There is no way around the objection. If you don’t handle it, you will never get
the sale. Never! Sometimes, in Zelda, after you kill the monster and go into
the room with the treasure chest, you are pounced on by an even more hideous monster. The first one wasn’t the real monster. This correlates to the prospect’s false objections. Often after the salesperson thinks he has overcome
the objection, another, bigger one comes out. Block
after block barring you from the sale. Monster
after monster to be killed. But, in the end,
patience and persistence wins out — the monsters are all slain and Link saves the
world (and gets rich in the process). Some salespeople take selling too seriously. If they approach a prospect the same way they approach a video game, their lives and the lives of their prospects would be much less stressful. Selling is a game! Learn to play and you’ll have as much fun and as rich a reward as you do when you win in Zelda. |
