Sunday, April 13, 2003		Books

Hitting consumer’s weak spots
D.S. Cheema

You Can Sell It !
by Paul Hanna. Penguin. Pages 239. Rs 295.

PAUL Hanna has made it big as motivational speaker of Australia by "selling" himself. His other four books, You Can Do It, Believe and Achieve, The Mini Motivator, and The Money Motivator, are related with personal-development skills.

The book in hand has the well-known approach of learning special skills to be able to sell anything to anyone. Obviously, the central theme is that anything can be achieved with total commitment and perseverance. You have to want something hard enough to make every effort to get it.

Paul discusses certain techniques that can help successful sales professionals blow off sales targets.

In the Introduction of the book, the author appears to be wary of the pushy ‘sales’ style of the USA as also of many other countries. However, down the subsequent chapters, he seems to have forgotten it. Cut-and-dry methods claimed as panacea for all sales problems are found in every chapter.

It seems the author has resorted to teaching methods of exploiting the consumer by using the knowledge of his shortcomings. Understanding human behaviour and using it to one’s advantage is one thing and cashing on the weaknesses of others is entirely different and may not be very ethical.

In recent times people have been using their personality to project and ‘sell’ themselves. So much so, many believe that everyone lives by "selling" something.

The author is a motivational speaker and training people to realise their full potential is part of his job. But by suggesting cut-and-dry formulae to become good a salesperson he has fallen in the usual trap many other authors, whose primary interest is the sale of their book, find very tempting.

Selling in the Indian environment is entirely a different proposition. A path-breaking countrywide survey, "Indian Marketing Demographics," conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), demands a basic rethink of marketing (selling) strategy.

The survey included 281768 varieties of consumer durables and 18730 varieties of non-durables across the entire country. In a country in which there are 810 million consumers of cooking oil, 800 million of tea, 500 million buyers of casual footwear, 60 million TV owners and more than 10 million auto owners, and a market spanning an area of 35 million sq km, selling has to be a very special activity.

Among the findings are the points that consumption and income differentiate consumer segments, an 8-million-strong super rich class has emerged as new consumers, an amorphous and mythical middle-class has three different levels, low income group (<Rs 12,500 pa) has shrunk from 65 per cent in 1986 to 55 per cent in 2000, and a new rural market has emerged as an important factor. This demands tracking of customers. "Consumers are static, customers are people." This one statement sums up the attitude of an organisation towards its customers.

The plan of the book and scheme of chapters is attractive. All nine parts have an appropriate heading, which is sub-divided into related issues and these are neatly listed on the first page of each part. This is followed by a suitable quote from different experts. The subsequent page gives an overview of what to expect in the chapter. At the end of the book, Concluding Remarks provides the gist of advice contained in the book.

Paul Hanna’s book, planned and launched by a salesman who advises others on how to sell, will sell as a product. How much the reader understands and applies to his own USP would vary. However, it is hoped that the author’s advice will be taken by the sales force with an ethical interpretation of the axiom, caveat emptor—the buyer alone is responsible for assessing the quality of a purchase.