Is Selling The Same as Persuasion – Part I?

Did you ever buy a new car and then suddenly notice how many people on the road own your same make and model?

I was asked, in question form, the title of this posting during an interview recently and suddenly, I see the topic popping up everywhere on blogs and LinkedIn groups. So I thought I would add a nickel to the thought reservoir on this topic since my earlier “two cents” during the interview apparently was not enough to get the job. I am, after all, still writing this blog. Perhaps my “nickel of thought” will provoke a “dime of thought” from you!

Before engaging in a game of semantics, I consulted my trusty source of definitions on the web, Dictionary.com. The results were not inspiring. I sought out the verb definition of selling and persuasion, i.e. “to sell” and “to persuade”. Here is what I found:

To sell:
“A recommendation to sell a particular security.
The process of liquidating an asset in exchange for money.”

To persuade:
“To prevail on (a person) to do something, as by advising or urging: We could not persuade him to wait.
To induce to believe by appealing to reason or understanding; convince: to persuade the judge of the prisoner's innocence”.

Yecchhh. These definitions leave a Sales Pro wanting much more and feeling cheap. So it is natural then, to rest our response to such a question on the “art and science of selling”, the very premise of this blog!

So come back next time to “Part II” when I suggest that selling is sometimes persuasion, but persuasion is never selling.