Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracey, Tony Robbins are well known carnival barkers of the art of the sale. Their pithy one liners and high powered adjectives coupled with their command of the English language can create an overwhelming impression that they’re in the know and live a successful lifestyle. Successful selling is an art form and part and parcel of your practice as long as it’s not manipulative. Often the word manipulation is found in the transcripts of arbitration and court documents in disputes with older clients. So head’s up.
Manipulation could devolve into steering, especially in proprietary product lines. All too often, the sales field force sells predominately proprietary products like a career agent for a specific insurance company or a broker of a wire house favoring mutual funds of their parent organization. When the vast majority of sales occur in connection with proprietary product line, it has a probability inevitably to be manipulative and could be defined as a form of steering. The decision process to buy can be inherently fraught with bias by the presenter. Doing what’s right for the client always supersedes proprietary product selling.
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