Astrology and Salesmanship

There are literally thousands of new things coming out everyday and are getting added to the glut of options that consumers can spend their already-earned and yet-to-be-earned money on. But we also know that not all of them make it past the first batch of production. The reason only a handful of products become successful is not always because they are better than the competition but because of the way they are positioned and sold to the consumer.

Communication, whether it is written or verbal, is the key to selling. Any sales pitch has the ability to get people to listen to it but the language, and the manner in which the sales pitch is wrapped in it, is what makes customers out of people. I have picked up this simple but essential truth of making a sales pitch from reading the works of a couple of masters who are as far removed from the sales field as the third rock is from the sun. (I am not naming names here for fear of coming across as biased when in fact I am not.)

These two names are astrologers, famous for selling the future to anyone who cares about that hazy, uncertain thing. But on reading their works, I feel that their talent has been wasted in that field. Take my prospects of foreign travel as an example. At any given point in time, there is as much chance that I might go on an overseas trip as there is a chance that I won't. But when this same thing is presented to me as "From now on, Mars will be in your long-distance travel / foreign people and places sector, so something big seems to be brewing for you in this area", it paints a picture showing me in the airport waiting for my flight! Now if I actually travel, it would mean that the words have come true. Of course, the best part is that the words are still true even if I don't travel because, on reading them a second time, you will notice that they just said "...something big SEEMS to be brewing...". That is what I call an effective sales pitch.

Education, according to popular tee-shirt wisdom, is what we gain from experience and not from a class room. Well, I got my sales education from a couple of top notch astrologers. And my personal opinion is that, given their uncanny ability to express general, day-to-day common sense in creative, positive vibe inducing prose, they could have made it to the very top in the sales and advertising business.