Selling. Yes, I postponed selling, because selling is basically asking for money in exchange for what you offer. That’s the gist of it. If it weren’t for that, you could just be giving away your stuff without asking for anything in return. Yes, I know – and that’s an undeniable “but how can I make a living if I don’t ask for money for what I provide?” argument. And you’re absolutely right. I am not judging you. Please just accept that when you’re selling, you’re actually asking for money. That’s all I’m asking for from you right now.

How are you feeling now? Is your blood pressure elevated, are you feeling resentful? If so, then I have challenged your core belief, and since you have no control over my behavior – I did it without being able to stop me – your psyche is reacting with resentment to protect your integrity and distance yourself from my statement.

Because we’ve all been brainwashed to think that no matter what we’re selling, we’re actually providing value to someone else. And that can be true if we use empathy and consciously offer our stuff to someone who needs it. But these days, most of us are just showing off what we have in public, asking people walking around to give us money for it. It’s no longer a personal interaction, and we’re actually asking them for attention, to see what we have and to see if they see value in it. We’re asking them to work for us. And that’s why I say that selling is really asking for money.

But not everyone does exactly that, because simply putting your staff on the street in front of your store may work, but just putting your staff on your website on the internet is definitely not going to work. You need traffic. And you need a strategy and tactics to get that traffic. Here comes the second layer of selling: how you sell – the sales process or the sales funnel, which is more important than what you sell these days. Or to paraphrase my statement, now it’s mainly about how we ask for money.

Since 2002, when Daniel Kahneman proved that we humans are not rational beings when it comes to buying, but are driven by emotions, behavioral economics has been on the rise, and today every successful marketer uses emotional triggers to sell. And the second step in the process is that once we have emotionally chosen to buy something, we need rational confirmation that we are right. So the second step in practice is to use cognitive biases to close deals faster. And these are all tactics.

How it works in real life: Let’s say you are looking for knowledge about how to decide what digital product to create, researching online. Then you come across that video of a girl confidently explaining how she makes millions selling digital products online, living in Bali on a one-way ticket for a few years, and working from the beach. And before you know it, you’re already paying for her online course plus an additional limited-time offer at checkout that gives you the privilege of participating in her exclusive mentoring program, which normally costs 10,000, but is just 999 dollars for you and until midnight. It’s a deal, and the trap is clicked when your card is charged: Ka-ching 🙂

Why did this happen? Because you lost your mind experiencing the lifestyle she made you feel so real about (happiness trigger), then the scarcity principle fills in the picture, urging you to pay up right away because the deal is time-limited and the opportunity to access it might just disappear, so you’ll miss your chance (scarcity principle, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini). And it’s only later, when you start watching the videos you bought, that you discover that the knowledge you were actually looking for—a working method that can help you choose what kind of digital product of your own to create—is just a disappointing single sentence that says “list your interests, knowledge, and passions and choose from them,” so you finally realize that you’ve fallen victim to your own self-deception. And here is maybe the most important moral: the cognitive bias (scarcity) that has been used for closing the sale does not have to confirm the emotional trigger (happines), used to catch your attention. And it still works – the sale is closed. But there is a consequence: if the emotional state desired, represented by the trigger is not achieved by using the product, you perceive the seller as swindler (because it is hard to admit that you have deceived yourself). If you go to sue them, it won’t go to court, but in the long run, the image of the seller suffers. So you can use tactics, but being smart is a must !

This is how people sell nowadays, and it works because even when you know the traps, you still fall into them. And if you are disgusted by such manipulative practices, you are right, but let’s see what your alternative is, because the emotional trigger is always the starting point of the sales process.

If you feel resentful by what I just explained, you seem to have some deeply held beliefs about the “right” sales process, even if they are unconscious. And the question I’m going to ask you to check with yourself is what kind of emotion you think you use as a trigger when you’re selling something. How do you close the deals then ?

If you’re brave enough to dig deeper, you might discover some painful truths. The way we ask for money is related to how we “begged” for love as children. Some people have received without even asking because they had loving parents who gave unconditionally, and these children were loved simply for who they are. And that’s happiness, so they can use happiness as an emotional trigger to sell in a completely authentic way.

But if you feel uncomfortable even thinking about asking, it seems you haven’t been that lucky, as by the way most of us humans on Earth are right now. So there’s another option that’s probably yours.

For some other people, love was exchanged for something they had to do – clean their room, wash dishes, get good grades in school, be a good person, keep quiet… Because their parents were people who only gave conditionally. These people can be good B2B salespeople, like me 🙂

And there are people who have begged desperately for love but never received it. Because one or both of their parents were physically absent or emotionally unavailable. And these children have two choices: to become manipulators or to wait for some handout. But relying on handouts is begging, and at its core, we perceive it as a humiliating and shameful experience. Moreover, beggars are mostly perceived as social outcasts. We usually even avoid those in need because subconsciously they make us feel afraid of the possibility of becoming like them.

I think this is why we, as humans, avoid asking for money directly: because we unconsciously associate it with begging. Because begging feels like a lack of personal power, and we shrink into self-pity and victimhood instead of growing. And we are right to feel that way.

So what can we do if we need money then? Well, from my perspective, it’s a matter of changing your own attitude towards yourself. And that happens by changing your own beliefs, which is not exactly easy. But it is possible. And I highly recommend working on this issue with a suitable therapist – cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the perfect choice to start with. A financial therapist is the best. The basic process itself is in 3 steps:

First, separate your need from yourself. You are not the need. You are someone who needs. Need is a state, not your being – remember that!

Then separate your own need from what you can provide, because even when you need money, you still have something that you can do, create, teach, solve or have (for example, time, ability, skill, even talent). And somewhere, there is someone who needs it in the same way that you need the money. So check who might need it – now we have the internet with all these search engines and even the biggest trickster in the world available for free – artificial intelligence 🙂

Then offer them this “something” in exchange for money. But without using your possible desperation as a trigger for the sale!!! Nope! This is the most important point here: what emotion will you use as a trigger for your sales process? Answering this single question with something that explains the emotion that is painful for someone, so they want to relieve that pain and you can help them, or that they want to experience because it is positive, is your key to how to ask for money!

And if you want to test your ability to name emotions, guess what the emotional trigger is that made you read this post. You can share it in the comments 😉 Thanks!