Бесплатный фрагмент - The Golden Laws of Trade

Introduction

You know the feeling when you do something and it doesn’t work out, you do it again and it doesn’t work out again, you try, try, try, but you fail after failure and you start to feel that this is some kind of curse, as if the higher powers don’t want you to do it. have you been successful in this business? It’s a bit of a mystery, isn’t it? And such constant failures greatly reduce motivation. At the same time, you look at other people who are doing the same thing and see what they are doing. Hell, you don’t, but they do. How can this be? It’s a terrible shame. This applies to any case. Someone does something and gets a positive result. And you can do the same thing and you have only failures, only bummers.

What is the reason? The reason is always knowledge and skills. Those who possess valuable knowledge can do much more than those who do not. And skills are just practical knowledge that has become a habit. You know, it’s like getting your hands on something. First you need to learn exactly what to do and how to do it, and then practice for a while until your knowledge takes the form of a skill. Then the new business will become native to you, you will do it without any extra effort. This is called unconscious competence.

In this book, I will give you knowledge in such an important business as trading. Its importance in this life is difficult to overestimate. The entire world economy is built on trade. If you learn to trade, you will always have money. Merchants, vendors, will never be lost in this world. Well, you, having received this valuable knowledge in the form of truly Golden Laws of Trade, will have to turn it into your skill, applying this knowledge in practice. Do not be afraid, you will succeed, this is not higher mathematics, it’s all from life.

By the way, why am I talking about trading and not sales? In general, these are synonyms, but there is some difference between the word «trade» and the word «sales», and it forces me to lean in the direction of trading, which better conveys the meaning of what each of us needs to be able to do in this life.

I personally like the word» merchant» better. Because it is associated with «exchange». This exchange is not always equal and equal, but it is an exchange, I would even say cooperation, in which you give me something, and I give you, everything is fair and everyone is good. And» seller «is associated with the word» submission», because that’s exactly what it is. The dictionaries say the following:

Merchant from the Old Slavic trg is a market. And this word, in turn, originates from the Latin Opitergium-bread market.

Seller from other-ind. Rradānam means «giving away». See the difference? I didn’t know that myself before. In one case, we are talking about an exchange, and in the other, we are talking about giving.

It turns out that the first word is «western», and the second is «eastern». And the root of perception, apparently, lies precisely in the difference of mentalities. The «Western» bias implies that nothing can be given away just like that, everything has its price. In return for what is given, something of equal value must be received in return. Thus, both sides of the bidding process are equal. This is normal, fair cooperation.

The «Eastern» bias suggests that you sacrifice something in order to get something more in return than what you gave away. And initially it seems that you are making a concession with a gesture of goodwill. But what kind of good will can people have, especially practical ones, think for yourself. Somehow it is unnatural for a person, you must admit, to give something just like that, to sacrifice something. Only for self-serving purposes. And if this is self-interest, wouldn’t it be better to immediately agree on the details of cooperation, so to speak, dot the «I’s» so that there are no manipulations? Well, if we are talking about honest cooperation, then, of course, this is exactly what we should do, without any tricks. But cooperation between people is never completely honest, so there is a place for all sorts of tricks. I am for honest cooperation, so I prefer the word «trade». But I have to admit that there is also a place for cunning and manipulation here. It must be, otherwise this science will not be complete. Therefore, both the words «trade» and «sales"will be intertwined in the book. I’ll tell you everything about success in this business, both good and bad.

However, I advise you to focus on fair trading, well, relatively fair. Because it is with this approach to working with people that you can not only earn a lot of money, but also create a good name for yourself, which will then feed you for the rest of your life.

Trading or selling, these subtleties are not so important. What really matters is the end goal you are moving towards. If this is the goal-to make more money quickly and quickly, and then even a flood, then you will get one life. And if this goal is to make a name for yourself, to become a respected person in society, an authority, to build a stable and stable system that will provide for you for a long time, then your life will be completely different. My experience tells me that the second option is much better than the first. Therefore, no matter where you start, it is desirable to come to the second goal in order to feel comfortable, calm, full and be confident in the future. In fact, all great entrepreneurs, businessmen, have acted in this way in their lives. They were moving towards something reliable, stable, and meaningful that not only brings money, but also enjoys respect and recognition in society. Because this is the only way to make your life very high-quality in the long run. And don’t be afraid that someone hates you and wants to hurt you, because you cheated, used, took away, killed, robbed and so on. This book will give you all the knowledge you need to succeed in trading and sales. But how you use them is your own choice.

Knowledge has always been power. But not all knowledge is necessary for people to get a good job in this life. And not all knowledge can be obtained. No life is enough to learn everything about everything. So you need to choose something specific, the most important, the most valuable, thanks to which a person can succeed in the most necessary things. I consider the ability to cooperate with people, primarily through trade, to be so valuable. When you know all the most basic laws of trading, which can still be called trade secrets, because not many people know them, then you gain a special power that helps you not only earn money, but also have power over people. After all, for power, you need people to obey you, obey you, this is the basis of any power. In trade and sales, the skill of influencing people is best practiced.

This book contains some of the most valuable trading and sales knowledge that I have collected all my life, working as a trader myself and communicating with other people who are successful in this business. What I’ve been collecting for years, you can now find out in a week or two, well, or how much you need to read the book, it depends on you. Just don’t put the book in the back drawer when you’ve read it, counting it. That the job is done. Keep it always in sight, refer to it every time you make a deal, this book is your best friend and teacher, never forget it. Communicate with it, not just read it. What is written here has been suffered for years. The best you can get out of trading is here. This is not an entertaining read that you can get enough of and keep going. If you want to become a great merchant-a respected and well-off person — you must make this book your friend and constantly communicate with her. It will give you answers to many of your questions and help you out in a difficult moment.

By the way, about the deals I mentioned. Do you know that our whole life consists of deals? Yes, that’s right. We make deals every day when we communicate with each other and interact in some other way. As a result of some of them, we win, and others can be considered our loss, because because of them we lose more than we get, or we simply do not get what we wanted, or we lose everything at all. We all need something from each other, and when we tryto get it, we make deals. Therefore, trade, sales, have a much broader concept than the banal scheme: product-money-product. These include negotiations, diplomacy, and people-to-people relations.In all of these and many other cases, we are talking about deals. It’s just that in trading, we focus on profit, and not, say, on the relationship between a man and a woman, or on any political agreements, so in it transactions have a certain form, in the form of money and goods. Although in all these cases, when people agree on something with each other, we are talking about making deals. If you know how to make them, you will often get what you want. And if you don’t know how, you will lose, not get what you want, and suffer losses. Like that.

The laws described in this book can be applied in many situations, to solve various problems related to people, with an agreement with them. But their main task is to make money. And the best way to make money is through trading. This is my opinion. It’s better than stealing them and killing for them. At the same time, it does not matter what exactly and how you will sell. You can do business, or you can work for hire, in both cases you will be selling something to someone. And in most cases, such sales will involve communicating with people. So that this communication is successful for you, so that after it you get more benefits, these laws are needed. They will definitely lead you to money, because that is what they are primarily aimed at.

One last thing you need to understand before we get to the main point. I will refer to you in this book as «you» and as a man. This «you» I have for you will help you understand me better, it brings people closer together, makes their communication more friendly and trusting. As for addressing the reader as a man, this is simply done for convenience. They usually refer to a man’s name in books, even if it is written for you. This book is suitable for everyone, both women and men. I will simply ask women to add the necessary endings to my messages in order to better understand me. Trade is the same for everyone, both men and women. Of course, there are certain advantages that male salespeople and female salespeople have over each other, but they are not as significant as I think they should be. The more important things that help sell something to both sexes are not related to the gender of the merchant and, in general, to the gender of the buyer, too. Keep that in mind.

What else can I tell you about this book? As you can see, there are 100 laws in it. There might be fewer or more of them, but that’s not what matters. One hundred is just a beautiful number. You can stop there. The main thing is to understand that these are not any laws, but, in fact, those rules from my workbook that I wrote down throughout my life. The sequence of their presentation does not matter. I just discovered some rule in trading, doing this business, which helps to sell, which gives results, and wrote it down, raising it to the rank of a law, so that in the future I can use it in suitable situations. So I have accumulated several dozen of them in my life. And I decided to present them in the form of a book, which you now hold in your hands. In what order you will study and apply these laws, it does not matter. They’re all workers. You just need to constantly refer to this book, it should become for you a kind of Bible of trade, which you don’t just need to read and put aside, you need to read it constantly, you need to communicate with it. It will help you out in many situations, you just do not forget to look into it when you are not doing very well in trading. It will tell you what to do and how to do it. Here is the wisdom of many generations, here is my whole business life.

I won’t say it’s the best book in its field. Although I want to do it. But for now, well, these show-offs. Let’s keep it simple. I’ll just say that this book is very good. I put a lot of effort into it. I’ve read a lot of sales books myself, plus I’ve learned a lot from my own experience and written it all down here, so I know exactly what works. I won’t talk about myself either, I’ll brag about all my achievements, educations, and successes, all this is primitive bragging for people who are not stupid. You don’t need that to believe me. Just know that I know how to sell, I know how to negotiate with people, convince them, persuade them, inspire them with something, and get them to take the actions I need. And the knowledge that is in this book helps me to do this. I am happy with my results. And you will be satisfied with your results if you use the knowledge offered in this book. Believe in their usefulness and effectiveness and everything will be fine for you.

That’s probably all. Now you are ready to learn the important truths of trading, let’s move on to the laws themselves.

Law 1. Be persistent

I know you’re going to say that you already know this, that you’ve read about it, heard about it, and there’s nothing new here. Perseverance is an important condition for success in any business. Trading is no exception. But let me tell you something. You see, doroy, knowing and following what you know are not the same thing. I also know a lot of things, and I’ve heard, seen, and read a lot. As a wise man, I can tell you what is right and what is wrong. There are many of us in this world. But if we talk about whether we put our knowledge into practice, it turns out that even a tenth of it we do not give a course in life. We simply remember these things, so we think we know them and shouldn’t be reminded of them. But this is dead knowledge.

The purpose of this law is not just to introduce you to this truth, which you probably already know, or rather remember about it, but to convey this idea to your consciousness and make sure that you follow it. But if you persist in sales, you will try to achieve success in this business from time to time, until you achieve it, you can consider that you have learned this law. I didn’t remember it, which means that you supposedly know it, but I learned it. Before that, read about it, and read it every time you fail, every time you fail. I, in turn, will inspire and explain its importance to you.

In any business, and even more so in trade, sales, negotiations, perseverance is a prerequisite for success. This law is as old as any productive activity of a person, in which he simply cannot achieve any significant success if he does not persevere. The first pancake, as you know, is always lumpy. And how do you make pancakes if you give up after that first coma? No way. And in the lump trade, ten, a hundred or more first pancakes can go. Why? Because life is complicated, and life is even more complicated. What is happening in many people’s heads is not even a mess, it’s just a mixture of everything and everything, which is unknown what can give. You must understand that people are not constant in their desires, today some people want one thing, tomorrow another, today they have some thoughts that are dominant, tomorrow others, today they are driven by some emotions, tomorrow it can be completely different emotions.

Perseverance is often equated with the willpower and strength of character on which it is believed to depend. You must not give up, you must continue to fight, then you will win. This is how this quality is explained to a person. But I learned long ago that most people are slugs. They are not fighters, they will not be strong if you call them to be strong, they will not fight if you call them to fight. And maybe you’re a slug, too, a weakling with a weak personality. But please don’t take offense. It’s not an insult or a mockery, it’s just a recognition of a part of human nature. Most of us are like that. They make us that way. We have been broken since childhood. If you want, I will tell you that I, too, by nature was often a slug, and even now they are, I am also not resistant to difficulties and failures. It’s not a problem. You just need to approach perseverance, not as some kind of strong side of a person, but simply as one of our qualities that is in each of us. Be persistent not because you are strong, but simply stick to this behavior, not linking it to any of your personal qualities.

If you try to do something in life to earn money, you will try to sell something to someone and you will not succeed. This often happens. Not much is obtained from the first time and even from the tenth. You will experience disappointment, other negative feelings, in general, as it should be, this will be a completely natural reaction on your part. It is not necessary, or rather, it is not necessary to convince yourself that you are strong, persistent, that you will overcome difficulties, all these affirmations are optional. don’t paint yourself as strong for yourself. If you are a weakling, a slug, it will be a self-deception that your brain recognizes. Of course, you can become stronger, but don’t think about it. Just try again, and then again and again. That’s all you need to do. Without any thoughts, without any autosuggestions. Just go into a trance, imagine that no one and nothing in this world exists, not even yourself, you are just pure energy that moves in a certain direction. You overcome space, you go through failures, failures, failures to your goal. Like a ray of light moving through darkness, not paying attention to it and not thinking whether it can overcome it or not, whether it has enough strength to fly to a certain point or not. It just moves in a certain direction and that’s it.

That’s what you need to do. Your perseverance does not depend on your personal qualities, it just exists. And it is necessary in trade. Strong or weak, fighter or slug, you have perseverance all the same. You just need to do these things — trade, sell, work with people, communicate with them. Do you understand me?» Just do it, regardless of the outcome and no matter what kind of person you are.

The only thing I’ll ask you to consider is flexibility and diversity. Being persistent doesn’t mean being stubborn. Stubborn people, like sheep, stick their horns on the doorjamb until the horn cracks or the door jamb breaks. They use the same approach to achieve their goal, without changing tactics. They fail after failure and do not change anything in their approach. You don’t have to be so hard-headed. Without changing the ultimate goal, I will find ways to achieve it. That’s the point of perseverance. If it didn’t work out that way, try it another way, or use another option to achieve your goal. Even here, a hundred laws of trade are described, as you can see, not one, not ten, but a hundred. This is so that you can use different approaches to people, so that you are flexible and flow around obstacles like water, and not per like a tank.

That’s all you have to do. You don’t have to be cool, you don’t have to be strong, you just have to try to sell to make money until you sell. This will be perseverance. You will master this law without changing yourself too much, without cultivating an inner core and other qualities that are not peculiar to you. You will master it when you start using it many times to achieve your goal. How much is that, a lot? As long as you need to reach the goal. Understood? Don’t think about anything or anyone, just do your job until you’re done. Sell until you sell.

Law 2. Don’t be selfish

This law must be properly understood. I’m not asking you not to be selfish at all, I’m asking you not to be selfish in the eyes of people. However, to do this, you will need to forget about selfishness for a while, stop thinking about yourself while you communicate with clients and partners. Otherwise, they will feel your selfishness, people always smell selfishness, and it scares them away.

If you want people to like you, and you need them to like you in order to make a deal with them, show them a genuine interest and talk to them about them, about their interests, desires, needs, and not about yourself. Understand one simple thing: when you talk about yourself and everything that interests you and that you need, then you are not interesting. And you will definitely talk like an egoist if you think about your interests when communicating with people, and not about them. And then the two egoisms will collide with each other, and the one who needs less will win.

People are selfish by nature, they are interested in their own problems, desires, dreams, and not others’. People usually don’t care about others. And they know it. They know that others don’t care about them any more than they care about them. But a person always wants someone to show a sincere interest in him, to take care of him, to help him, to solve his problems. This happens on an instinctive level, we are all drawn to those who promise to take care of us. The merchant must create this state of caring and interest in the client or partner. To do this, you need to tune in to this state, you need to think about the situation in which the other person is, imagine yourself in his place in order to feel what it is like. Of course, you can’t just put yourself in someone else’s shoes. You need to learn more about a person in order to understand exactly what situation they are in. That’s why you need to talk to him about him, you know, about him.

People like to talk about themselves, especially when they see a genuine interest in themselves. Try to portray this sincerity. As you learn more about who you want to make a deal with, it will be easier to imagine yourself in their shoes. And by imagining yourself in their place, you will be able to better understand the person, their needs, desires, problems, interests and the right words will come to you by themselves. It will not be selfish words, but the kind you would say to yourself to convince yourself of something. Your speech, your proposal, your presentation will not look selfish, your self-interest will not bother your eyes and hurt your ears, and the person will open up to you, but will meet you halfway. Maybe not every trade will be successful for you, but believe me, you will have much more positive results with this approach.

Remember: they rarely buy from egoists. Much more often they buy from those who sincerely want to help. Moreover, people feel selfishness or sincerity in their gut. So it is quite difficult to deceive them with words if your thoughts themselves are too selfish. Give up selfishness and success in trading is guaranteed for you.

Law 3. Keep it simple

This law will take you to a level of working with people that is rarely seen in our time. And everything rare, as you know, is valuable. Here there is an opinion, both among sales specialists and among ordinary dealers, that the client should see in the seller some kind of super-specialist, an authoritative person, in order to shift all responsibility for his decision to buy something to this specialist. And when he does, he buys, thinking that such a smart person, such a special person, like the seller who advises him something, definitely knows what he is offering. This approach is partly correct. I’m not going to refute it for the sake of show-off. But it is not always true. And in some cases, it is monstrously harmful, it prevents you from gaining the trust of a client who sees too good a specialist and too good a liar.

If you are simpler, in every sense, there will be more trust in you. And without trust, trade is tight, and sometimes it doesn’t go at all. Quite often, people want to see in front of them the same simple and understandable person as themselves, speaking their language, without any abstruse phrases and dominant gestures. A simple person is not dangerous, people feel it. Therefore, in cases where you are dealing with a very distrustful client, and there are many of them, it is better to be simpler than to look like a cool specialist who knows everything and teaches everyone.

To be simpler means to be relaxed, a little absent-minded, to be talkative, to tell stories and so on, in general, to seem like a sort of simpleton who just does his job, without any second thoughts. This relaxes the client, sometimes even allows him to feel superior to the seller, which flatters him. Such a person is more likely to make a purchase, including because they consider it a gesture of goodwill on their part. In this way, I perfectly ingratiated myself into the confidence of many people. They didn’t see me as a threat at all. They had me in plain sight. I behaved simply, was tongue-tied when communicating in person with people, dressed modestly, took simple things with me, and not some branded, expensive ones. Before people appeared the most ordinary person who made them a simple and understandable proposal, without any second thoughts. And they agreed to it.

Of course, this doesn’t work for everyone, and some people need to throw dust in their eyes in certain situations in order to impress people with their intelligence and wealth. Well, for example, if you sell a certain information product to beggars, then it is better for them to appear rich and successful, otherwise they will not believe you. They don’t care about the content, they don’t have the intelligence to evaluate it. Give them a nice wrapper. And in this wrapper you will have to first of all pack yourself. But now we are not talking about such primitive customers, but about those who are more critical in assessing the personality of the merchant, the seller. These are more affluent and educated people who perfectly understand where and how money comes from in this world. Therefore, they do not need to show off their show-offs, they need to be easier for them, so that they trust you more.

Trust in trading is everything. What only experienced salespeople don’t do to achieve it. This is one of the ways to form such a feeling in a person. Simplicity has always bribed, especially those who have already suffered with all this specialists from trade, managers there all sorts and others, who will put on relatively expensive suits, make a smart face and start chattering non-stop, trying to dump an ocean of information on you, believing that this will encourage you to buy. Many people are already sick of them, but this approach is still being used. I suggest that you approach the client from the other side, pretend to be a simpleton. To better imagine this image, remember any simpleton from your life who caused you to trust with his naivety and clarity. Or at least, you didn’t suspect him of anything, of any trick, and therefore you weren’t afraid that he would deceive you.

Become such a simple and understandable person and go to negotiate with people who are smart enough not to be led to all sorts of babblers. Appear before them in the form of a person who can be seen on the screen. This will be your trump card. You’ll see, this tactic will bear fruit and you’ll make a lot of deals.

Law 4. Come up with something unusual that will make you stand out from other merchants

In our time, when it is not so difficult to get a certain product, which is why its cost begins to play a big role (people try to buy from those who sell cheaper), the ability to stand out from other merchants and show their uniqueness becomes especially important. Actually, this task has been relevant for a long time, especially in the West, where there has always been high competition in business, and therefore so many creative ideas related to the offer of various goods and services come from there. But all ideas will eventually become obsolete. Everything new becomes old over time, and everything special and unique becomes ordinary. Therefore, we must constantly think in this direction. You can’t just sell bread all the time if a lot of people are still selling it. It is necessary to come up with buns and other unique products made from flour, which will still be the same bread, but unusual. And people are always drawn to the unusual.

Therefore, you should do your best to make your offer, not necessarily a product, product, or service, but an offer, that is, an idea, special, not like others. A person is so built that he is drawn to something rare, even if relatively rare, just not like others. So, no matter what and how, the main thing is to differ from the competition. Actually, this is the basis of marketing, which every merchant should know perfectly. Look for an opportunity to make your offer different from similar offers of competitors, even if you change the label, even if you offer additional services, anything, just not to be like everyone else. That’s when this idea in your head blooms in full bloom, you will constantly try to be different from others. You will not copy other people’s businesses completely like a monkey, but you will try to bring something of your own into your work with people. It doesn’t matter what you sell, you can be different from others in everything, so that you can be more attractive to your customers.

You can always come up with something. Some small bonuses, in the form of the same discounts on subsequent purchases from you, some gifts, even if purely symbolic, various pleasant additional services, for example, free delivery or consultation, some signs of attention to former customers after they have already bought something, everything these small joys and amenities give you an advantage over other merchants, which are not much different from each other. The human being is greedy by nature, always choosing what is slightly more than anything else. People need a Swiss army knife that will give them what they need, plus something else good in addition. On this you need to play, differing from others by any additional advantages.

You can get some ideas from retail chains, they always offer some chips, all sorts of bonuses, points, their own cards and other nonsense to tie the client to themselves and at the same time stand out. It seems like a small thing, but believe me, all these add-ons work, I have confirmation of this. Of course, our networks have almost no creativity, they lick all the ideas from Western stores, our business is very stupid in this sense, it only knows how to repeat others, few people think with their head. But you just see for yourself what works well for them and what doesn’t. Communicate with your friends and relatives, and read online about where and why people like to shop. Look for ideas on how to stand out from others. For example, I notice that retail chains ' own brands are doing quite well. People think that this is something special, better than the usual products. For example, people take their own brand of millet more actively than regular millet. I know this from statistics. Although there is the same nonsense as in other packs, only more expensive. But people fall for it and buy it, which proves that this difference is paying off.

In my practice, there were cases when we simply changed the product name a little, so that there was at least some difference from the competition. Just the name of the product was changed, just think, and this alone led to an increase in sales. In some cases, they changed the packaging, not using standard ones, like competitors, but modified and unique ones. Well, this is generally a classic, for different packs, the same thing to push out and indicate different prices for different packs. Here it is only important to think through the packaging design properly, which, in fact, I did. This is a job for creative and at the same time practical people who understand human psychology and know what kind of candy wrapper people are most likely to fall for. I can’t recommend anything here, but you should experiment. In some cases, the results were simply amazing, in others very modest. But here it is important to work on creating any differences from competitors. You don’t need to look at examples of successful changes, because what worked yesterday doesn’t necessarily work today. The human psyche adapts to changes and eventually no longer responds to them. So no case studies will help you. Just tune in to find and create differences for your offer and experiment until you get a good return.

I also remember how well the additional services provided with the product being sold have proven themselves. As a rule, in my case, these were consulting services. For example, when I was implementing a security alarm system, or rather, helping to implement it, we offered a certain package of consulting services as a bonus. Some of them were free, some were paid. But they were, that’s what’s important. People knew about them and liked it, they cooperated with us on good terms for them, because, as they themselves said, they will explain everything here, show them, tell them, help them set up everything, solve all problems. It was fascinating. Communication with people, with clients, always captivates them. The point was to show people that we are not just some hucksters, when we bought the goods, received the money and ran away. We are responsible for our product, we want everything to work well for the client, so that he is completely satisfied with everything. This was how we differed from our competitors, not in the product or price, but in such a convenient offer, which included various types of consultations. We had other useful features, but this is one of the main ones. It seems that this was not such a special difference, now many people advise their clients, for a serious business this is a prerequisite at all. But please understand that the quality of consultations can vary, as well as the focus of these consultations.

Well, these modern support services of banks, providers, mobile operators give you when you call there, and they offer you to press the number «1» in one case, the number «2» in the other, and so on. It makes people nervous. And in general, connecting call centers can also be useless, they are of little use, there are «green» children sitting there and do not really know anything. Anyone who has encountered it, understands. So, depending on what you sell and where, competent information support can become a valuable distinguishing feature for your business, which sets you apart from your competitors.

Or take, for example, this book that I sold you and that you bought. It would seem that I offer you something so unusual, because there are many other books on sales, trading, negotiations, manipulation, marketing, advertising and other similar things that you can also download for free on the Internet. But you bought this book, right? But why? Let me guess. Is it all about the way the information is conveyed? You liked my style, my language, so to speak. You understand me, you understand what I’m saying. And you understand that I understand what I’m talking about, that I’m not some kind of theorist, I really think in trade, sales, I really have a great experience in this activity and I have something to teach you. That’s what bribed you. And it made me stand out from the rest. It made my book stand out. See, I know what I’m writing about.

I also tried to be different from everyone else, I also tried to be special when I wrote this book, I put other ideas into practice. And I was able to do it to a certain extent. And this time it was successful. Agree? Just understand, there can be an infinite number of ideas here, ideas of how to stand out, how to have some kind of highlight of your own. And all of them can be useful. You don’t need to look for something specific, use any options. Do not imitate others in everything, make sure to introduce something of your own. Don’t be afraid to do it, it’s a show of courage, people love it. You need differences like air, because they will show others that you are not just a merchant, you are a person. In trade, I’ll tell you, they pay a lot of money for this. That is, for ideas that will help some business stand out from the rest, here they are paid for. And they, these ideas, need to be constantly invented. This is creative work. You can either do it yourself, or involve someone else in it. But I advise you to do it yourself. It will give you strength. Often in the evening, when I lie down and relax, I think about what other uniqueness I can bring to my offers, to my business, to my website, articles, books, everything. Over time, this becomes a habit, and the head begins to generate something new by itself. It’s not a talent to invent something, it’s a skill. It is acquired by a person in the process of practice. So, practice.

The main thing, I will repeat it again, as many times as I need to repeat: don’t be like everyone else! I sometimes go to trade pavilions, for example, construction, and see how in one place gathered merchants of the same plumbing equipment. They sell the same things, at the same prices, just as they mirror each other. And they sit and wait for someone to buy something from them. People buy, of course, but is it really a trade, tell me? I think these sessile mummies are called roosters that hatch eggs. They can stay like this forever if you pay them a salary. They’re just pants wipers. There is no need to think of something to stand out from the other roosters hatching eggs, but no, all as one, the same. Maybe they have a conspiracy on prices, but otherwise, you need to have some kind of zest of your own. And they don’t even have it in counseling. These are not merchants, not salespeople, but money-raising machines. Don’t be like that, stand out, at least somehow. Constantly come up with something new that will set you apart from others and you will become a great merchant, I promise!

Law 5. Listen carefully to people

This law is so important that it should literally be cast in gold. It applies not only to trading, but also to everyone who works with people. This skill, in particular, is taught to diplomats. Being able to listen is a great art. Believe it or not, check it out, but the vast majority of people do not know how to listen to others at all, they do not hear anyone but themselves. This also applies to many sellers. Just imagine, your aunt calls you from the bank and offers you a loan, you tell her that you don’t need it, that you don’t use loans at all, and she says that she heard you, you know, she heard and then talks about the terms of the loan. It looks very stupid and annoying, you must admit. I just want to tell this stupid woman to fuck off, because she doesn’t really hear you, doesn’t hear you at all. But you can understand her, she’s just an automaton, they gave her a paper with instructions from the bank’s managers, and she talks all sorts of crap on it. This is moronic work. But she has to do it. Only here the seller from it any, absolutely.

For you, such a stupid approach is not acceptable, you must be attentive to what people say and start from their words when communicating with them. The person needs to see that you can hear them. To do this, you must listen to him. How to do it? Forget about your desires, your goals, your problems, and relax. If necessary, meditate before communicating with a client or partner, it helps. You need to relax in order to calmly perceive the client, the negotiating partner. Next, you need to explain to yourself how the other person’s words can be useful to you, and we are interested in everything that is useful. This means that you need to explain to yourself what the client can tell you that is useful to you, for which you need to listen very carefully. Do you know what useful things he can tell you? He will open his soul to you, give you the key to his heart, if you listen to his every word. Needless to say, what does it mean to have access to a person’s heart and soul? It will be completely yours.

Just always remember that. Remember that your chatter is not as valuable as your ability to listen. People keep talking because they think it will benefit them. This is an instinctive need, it is quite logical. In this world, the person who gives out information, not consumes it, succeeds. But in our business, in working with people, before giving out information, you need to get it. And the most important information for you will be information from your client. Well, or a business partner, depending on who and what you are going to sell. Remember: you just need to convince yourself of the importance of what your client will tell you. As soon as you do this, your mouth will close, and you will become very attentive to this person.

Sometimes you have to break yourself, I often did this to myself. A person says something to me, and I have an irresistible desire to say something, to respond to something, and even when he is talking. I mean, I want to kill him. And this is a mortal sin for a merchant. This is both a sign of disrespect and a sign of weakness. It is necessary to control yourself and listen, even if it is no longer interesting. Patience is what you need to develop in yourself in such cases. I always say to myself in my head: shut up, shut up, shut up, listen, listen, listen, I just break myself so as not to open my mouth. Yes, I am at this moment not listening to the person, sincerely do not listen. But at least I pretend to listen, at least I keep my mouth shut. In some cases, this is enough. This is where you can start developing your listening skills. First you need to shut up, and then you need to strain your ears.

You have no idea how many useful things people can say if they are allowed to speak out. They will tell you a lot about themselves, as well as about their desires, problems, experiences, goals, and dreams, which you can then use in your offer to them, simply by telling them how much your product or service meets all this. Sometimes people buy right after they talk, they don’t need to explain anything, they don’t need to prove anything, they don’t need to show anything, they already liked you because they listened to them. Few people listen to humans, so they value open ears and a closed mouth.

I once had a case when I went to a meeting with a business partner, he was a seventy-year-old grandfather who was well versed in his business and knew how to calculate his profit. I had already learned about this important law, well, that you need to talk less and listen more. To be honest, it was difficult to follow this law, because I knew so much about what I wanted to offer this grandfather. But my grandfather didn’t even let me open my mouth, when we said hello and sat down, he began to talk to me about his business, his goals in life, children, grandchildren, then switched to politics, and I just nodded like journalists during interviews and couldn’t even get my own questions in. Thank God, I didn’t interrupt him, but listened carefully, and then he offered to sign the contract without even asking me about my offer, because, as it turned out, he already knew a lot about the company I represented and what kind of offer it was making. At the same time, he did not agree to cooperate with them before, and as soon as we talked to him, or rather, as he talked to me, having expressed everything he wanted to me, he agreed to cooperate. You see how important it is to be able to listen.

Sometimes it is necessary to show the person that you can hear them during communication or that you have heard them when they finish speaking. This means that you should not only nod in response to his words, but also ask simple clarifying questions, as well as ask him to tell you something further, in more detail, to emphasize your interest. And, as Donald Trump advises in one of his books on negotiations, you can also repeat exactly or slightly modified the words of the interlocutor, his main idea, which he expressed, so that he can see that he was heard. Cool advice, I often used it during negotiations, just repeated briefly what I was told and people bloomed with a smile, realizing that they were heard. People like to be listened to, which is already a big plus in negotiations. Well, you get a lot of valuable information, under which you can adjust your offer.

Be sure to learn this law, it alone will dramatically change your relationships with people for the better. And this applies not only to trading. Keep that in mind.

Law 6. If you don’t sell — they’ll sell you

The meaning of this law is that when you make an offer to someone, you enter into a fight with the person, in which the one who is more convincing and persistent will win. This does not apply to all cases, however, quite often in trading there are situations when people test each other for strength and fortitude. Either they will explain to you why you don’t need to buy from them, or you will prove that your offer is profitable. I mean, you have to be a tough little tin soldier, you know? This is not just perseverance, which I wrote about above, it is your demonstration of your determination to the client and an opportunity to prove to yourself that you are a fighter. People like to be coaxed, coaxed, and proved to them that, not all of them, of course, but some people really like it, because this approach to them allows them to feel like someone important.

And what’s interesting here. In response to your desire to sell something to such people, they put forward their refusal, such a strong, reasoned, decisive refusal. They don’t do this because they don’t want to buy from you, but because, like women, they want to break down and get on your nerves before they agree. They want to deal with a salesperson who has balls of steel, not one who is easy to send. For them, it’s a matter of honor. They can’t afford to just agree to your offer, even if it’s profitable for them. No, they are like the merchants in the eastern bazaar who like to bargain, they need to fight with you to give in to you in the fight. Yes, for them, agreeing to someone’s offer, whatever it may be — is a concession. Well, people are such, the psyche is such, understand. But among them there may be such money bags that cooperation with them will provide you with a stable income for many years to come. So, it makes sense to show character and tinker with these people.

In such cases, it is very important to remain calm and not try to push through the opponent. This is not necessary. Don’t push them at all. Just make them an offer, ask them what doesn’t suit you, and show them that you will look for an opportunity to cooperate no matter what. Sometimes you can demand very little: cooperation in some form, just to get their «yes». This small victory, even if it will not bring you tangible benefits, will allow you to prove to these people that you know how to get your own way. They respect that because they are like that. Otherwise, they will sell you their rejection and write you down as a loser and weakling, with whom they are disgusted to deal.

Some people only accept deals through fighting. I didn’t learn the law myself until I was thirty. One person, a specialist in working with people, explained this to me. If I had known about this earlier, I would have made a lot of useful deals. But I found out when I found out. Better late than never. And after I understood this law, I made a lot of useful deals that brought me good returns. I just came to people with an offer, watched how they reacted to it, and if I saw that they were resisting, even without really understanding what I was offering them, I concluded for myself that this is the case when people want to fight them. I left and then came back with another offer, then another and another, I asked them how I should adapt to them, I found out their needs, I changed some of the terms of cooperation, then I quietly went back to the original options, until finally they said «yes"to me.

Just keep in mind that you should fight for a really good deal, and not for three kopecks. If this game isn’t worth the candle, don’t play it. These people can be the same energy vampires that will torment you for a long time until they allow themselves to be conquered. So, it is very important that the profit is significant. Otherwise, don’t mess with these creatures.

Law 7. Don’t argue with your client

You know what’s interesting? This mistake is made by many, including experienced salespeople, depriving themselves of the opportunity to catch a complex, but monetary client. Arguing with people who think, for example, that you are cheating on them, or that your product is bad, or that you are not worth dealing with, is just as pointless as arguing with a stupid woman about anything. Yes, she will pull out all her hair, but she will not admit that you are wrong. However, stupid men are just as stubborn. Therefore, disputes should be avoided. A dispute is any emotional confrontation, when the main goal is not to search for the truth, but to prove one’s rightness.

Remember that it is important not to be right in communicating with the client, it is important to sell to him. You need to get money from him, not prove yourself right or him wrong. Yes, he may be wrong, but do you think people like to admit it? Their ego does not allow them to think badly of themselves, it actively resists any external pressure, so that only a person does not lose his importance in his own eyes. The client is always right, or he is sometimes right and sometimes wrong, or he is always wrong — that’s not the point. You have to think about money, not what’s in the mind of one human being or another. If the client does not agree with you, then ask questions to clarify their position, but not too difficult, so as not to seem boring. Just ask him how you can be useful to him, how to prove your honesty, and so on, if he doubts you. There is no need to argue, it rarely leads to success. It is necessary to ask so that in search of an answer to your question, a person thinks about their beliefs. It is possible that he will guess that he is wrong. He may not admit it, but he will be willing to cooperate with you. But even if he doesn’t realize that he’s wrong, you won’t annoy him by trying to prove him wrong. And that will make him like you.

If you don’t argue with the person, they may later agree to your offer. It is only important to leave the door open for this purpose, giving him, for example, your business card, or somehow else leaving him your contact details. Or by setting up a new meeting later. This is even better. People themselves rarely make contact, for various reasons. And if you come by yourself, contact a person, then the chances of making a deal with them will be much greater.

How can I avoid an argument? I usually repeat to myself the words that I am a practical person, that I don’t need the truth, I need money. I also tell myself that I am a professional who does not give in to provocations, who cannot be led away from the main goal — to make a deal and make money! The rest is all garbage, husk, vanity of vanities. The truth, the truth, is of no use to anyone in this world, no-co-mu! I have a job to do, and I’m doing it. And who is right, who is wrong, does not matter at all. If only the client would give me his money. Try this approach, give up all your idealistic views, you don’t need them. Let the client be at least a hundred times right, as long as he gives you his money. Sometimes, of course, they can also beat their nerves with their rightness thoroughly. But you can see for yourself whether the amount for which you suffer someone’s claims and questions is worth agreeing with the person for them, and sometimes even justifying yourself to them.

I must admit that I did not always accept the rightness, or rather, the wrongness of the client. Sometimes he broke down, got into an argument, argued, criticized, swore with the client. Some people can get annoyed with their mutton stubbornness and delirium. But if all the same, if you think about the money, that you need to feed your family, pay for an apartment, and pay off loans to someone, then the anger subsides and sanity returns, after which you look at even the most crazy client more calmly. It’s like having a great mission and thinking about fulfilling it, without being distracted by all sorts of small irritants in the form of a client’s wrongness. It is necessary to adhere to a model of behavior that leads to money. Everything else is pushed aside as less important or not at all important.

Sometimes there are also cases when the client expresses some concerns about cooperation with you, and you want to convince him that everything is fine, he has nothing to fear, no one will deceive him, he can trust you. But that won’t help. Rather, on the contrary, it will push this person away from you even more. Why? Because the reason he doesn’t want to cooperate with you is because of something other than the concerns he’s talking about. They are simply deceiving you by telling you the reasons for their unwillingness to cooperate with you, so as not to show the real reason, because they are afraid or shy to talk about it. But he’s waiting for you to tell him something useful. And you start to passionately prove something to him, thereby increasing his anxiety. This is psychology, a subtle thing, the devil himself will not understand it. And sometimes the customer doesn’t even understand what’s stopping them from buying something from you. It’s just that there’s a block inside his head that works, and he doesn’t even know what that block is. He clearly needs to understand himself, not your offer. And when you start trying to convince them and reassure them that there is nothing to be afraid of, you only increase their resistance. After all, he feels that you need to sell more than he needs to buy. And this makes him hold on to his refusal even more, because he does not want to make a deal to please you, he wants to do himself good, but just does not understand how. He makes a conclusion for himself that it is definitely not worth rushing to buy, to conclude a deal, because it is profitable for you. He doesn’t understand that your benefit doesn’t conflict with his. And you don’t have to explain anything to him, he has to get to it himself. To do this, he needs time.

It is better to leave the clients alone, let go of the situation, let them think, let them mature to your offer. The main thing for you is to tell him everything, and not insist on cooperation. Don’t try to convince him of anything, don’t prove anything, let him know that you are always open to cooperation with him, and don’t ask him to make a decision here and now. When he understands himself, when he thinks about your offer, he can contact you and you will agree with him. Explain this to him.

At the moment when I am editing this law, I have just lost one deal, not very big, but necessary for me. I did not follow this law and began to convince the person of the safety of cooperation with me instead of being brief and simply silent in response to his objections, and he was afraid of something that he let me know. It wasn’t the fear he’d told me about, though. I did not immediately understand this and began to explain without further ado. I only scared the man off with that. I know that he can still come back, they often come back when they understand themselves. But it might not come back. I could have received money from him today, right now, if I had simply not explained anything to him, but had been brief and restrained, giving him the minimum necessary information. But I failed, I ignored this law, I forgot about it, I really needed this deal and I said too much. So I lost a client. I didn’t argue with him in the literal sense of the word, but I said a lot of unnecessary things. It’s almost like an argument. This was my mistake.

So, do not make my mistakes, do not argue with them, do not prove anything if you see that a person is not sure of something, that he is somehow suspicious. Show restraint, maybe even some indifference to the situation and everything will be fine. They will decide to work with you. Not everyone and not always, but many will say «yes», seeing that you do not insist on cooperation and do not try to convince them of something. They just need time to sort out their fears.

Law 8. Start small

One of the most serious shortcomings of a person is the desire to get everything at once. It killed a huge number of people who, in an effort to satisfy their desires immediately, did a lot of stupid things and lost everything they had. Some people lose their lives when they can’t control their appetites. The wisdom of life is to realize an important thought: everything in it has its time. This rule works especially well in trading. Our competence does not always correspond to our ambitions. A person can develop a great business plan, which, in his opinion, will take into account everything, any probability that can only happen, any problem will be thought out in advance. He will take a loan, a serious loan, to start his brilliant business, open it, and then fail. Why? Because he was in a hurry, because he started with a weight that was too heavy for him, and decided to make more money right away without going through the simpler path of a merchant.

You need to start small. This is a more reliable path to success. When you want to grab a lot at once, then you have a fifty-fifty chance, if you are lucky — you will not be lucky. And when you start small, most often you are lucky, even a little, but you are lucky. Today you bought something at one price, tomorrow you sold it at another, higher price, and made a profit. Let it be a purely symbolic profit, it should be such that you get the necessary experience, so that your psyche gets used to trading, to success. And then you order more expensive and larger items to resell them as well. That is, over time, you start to invest in more serious things. And then you conduct negotiations, at first simple ones, for example, with your friends, acquaintances, colleagues, relatives, in order to offer them something, to convince them of something. You get the necessary experience and then arrange more serious negotiations with large clients. It is necessary to move from simple to complex, this is the meaning of this law. I even teach my children to trade through bulletin boards. I help them find cheap products, negotiate their purchase, and sometimes even bargain, and then offer these products at a higher price. Let them get used to making deals, let them see how money is made. Now they sell all sorts of small things, and when they grow up, they will do serious business in real estate, cars, money, luxury goods, information products, and so on, and so on. Immediately such a strong jerk should not be done, you can fly and then the person will have a bad experience in the asset, which will make him less confident in himself.

Think, well, why do you need to rush, what are you afraid of not having time in life, that you need everything at once? Do you think that if you get everything at once, you will calm down? Nothing like that, in place of some desires, others will come, then others, and so on ad infinitum. A person is driven by passions, he will never rest while he is alive, all the time he will want something. So, do not think that if you break through the wall with your head now, you will never see such walls in front of you again. Understand that these desires of yours are a disease of humanity. People have been sick with them all their history. Many people can catch you on this disease, promising you everything at once, quickly, here and now. People lose their minds, wanting to get out of the mud in one fell swoop and take a lot of risks for such a breakthrough. You can and can object to me by saying that there are examples in life when people quickly achieved success, when they immediately received a lot of everything, not being afraid to take risks. I know such cases. But understand, these are exceptions. For every one who succeeds, there are a thousand losers who have lost everything or much.

And business is not roulette. Of course, you need to take risks here, this is also one of the laws of trading, it is better not to engage in this business without risk. But this is not the same risk as in a casino, when people have a one-in-a-million chance to win. Business is still a calculation. Here, people do not rely on luck, but on a plan that should adequately assess all risks. Therefore, the chances of success increase. The merchant is not a casino player, he is a businessman, an entrepreneur for whom high risk is unacceptable. You always run the risk of losing everything, but your risk will be higher the faster and more you want to get. Accordingly, the risk decreases as you reduce your appetites. Or rather, his passion. Don’t rush, you’ll have enough life to get everything you need. Start small, with the simplest deals, with simple sales. If you have never done this before, then it is especially important for you not to rush. There is a time for everything. The crust bites on the grain. Let someone be lucky big and fast, and you will move towards your success slowly but surely. And you will come to him.

Law 9. Learn patience

To think that I once had to explain this law to the fifty-five-year-old man I worked for who started his business with the stolen money. He was no businessman, so he was in grief during the fat years when the price of oil was $ 150. Then even the last fool could trade something and make money on it. But then, when the crisis began and the business automatically began to separate boys from men, real businessmen from stupid dealers, he, of course, went bankrupt. But before that, he drank a lot of blood from the people who worked for him.

This law says that you need to be able to accept difficult times, relive them, until everything becomes good again. This is an objective law of economics, when growth is followed by a decline, and after the decline again growth. You need to be patient to pass these phases with dignity. You must understand that it is always good in this life can not be and should not be. Life is a striped joke, nothing is permanent in it. Today can be good, and tomorrow will be bad and you should be prepared for this. You must be prepared for this both financially, having a certain margin of safety in the form of savings, and morally, setting yourself up in advance for a difficult time, lowering the bar for your needs, if necessary. And even intellectually, you need to be prepared for this, when you have to think about what you will do if your current business ceases to feed you, if in general life becomes difficult due to some economic problems.

Many people break down when they have serious problems with money after a high and stable income. Not only can they not adapt to the new reality, they can’t rebuild their business and their way of life, but they also start to panic, take it out on other people, get into loans in order not to reduce the level of consumption, and keep the business afloat. They only make it worse for themselves. You, as a serious trader, should understand that you will not sell well and a lot every day. There are bound to come times when sales will decline, for a variety of different reasons. If you want to be a great merchant, you must keep these times in mind, and not think that it will always be good. And when such times come, you will need to be patient to wait them out. You don’t have to tear your hair out on your ass, shouting how bad and terrible everything is. Twist, adapt, and lower your standard of living if you can’t maintain it at the same level. Sometimes I need to roll in the mud, and not just soar in the sky.

Do you know what helps me endure? Faith. What else can help when everything is bad all around? I believe that my mission, my life, is important to the forces that we used to call God. I am not a religious person, so you will not hear the usual religious words about faith from me. But I believe in something bigger and more intelligent than a human being, on which or on whom we all depend for our lives. And this something or this someone helps those who live in accordance with his idea, with his goals. I know that I have to develop, create, and help other people to do this, and I know that no higher forces need us to be weak, sick, or poor, so they are not against us achieving success, and moreover, they help us to do this. But in this life, only good things can not be, otherwise life will become completely uninteresting. That’s why good and bad balance each other out. And the higher powers help those of us who are patient and wise enough to accept life in its entirety. We must be sympathetic to both the good and the bad.

Therefore, I know that if I don’t give up and do something stupid myself, I will definitely go through a difficult time. And I always worry about them. Think about it, too. If you are not patient, if you are not persistent, if you are not hardy when necessary, you will go limp at the first difficulties and run away from the trade to some slave wage work. You’ll get chained up to some uncle and bark by the bone and stand up on your hind legs at his first command. As a merchant, as a free and creative person who knows how to feed himself — you will perish! You will not become a great merchant if you are not one at all, if you do not know the defeats, the blows of fate, the pain, the suffering, the mud into which each of us can fall. Well, what business can be without problems, how can you be a businessman, and a real merchant is necessarily a businessman or entrepreneur, call it what you want, if you do not lose everything or much when life strikes you? It’s like being a boxer who’s never had his nose broken or dropped. It will be a weak-willed boxer.

The character of a true merchant, a great merchant who always and everywhere will have money, who is interesting to people, so they are drawn to him, must necessarily be tempered in difficult times. As a matter of fact, if there were no such times, every fool could go into business and there would be no one to do dirty and hard work, everyone would only do that they drove goods back and forth, making money at a mark-up. But in life this does not happen, everything should be in moderation. Every social role requires a person. That is why not everyone is suitable for trading, but not because someone is not designed for trading from birth, but because in order to become a merchant, a seller, you need to pass certain tests that will harden your character, develop patience, perseverance, and determination in a person, which will distinguish him from the rest of the world. other people. As a result, life will put everything in its place, someone will trade well and successfully, and earn a lot of money, and someone will do hard, dirty and low-paid work until their health fails and the person is thrown into the trash.

Understand that everyone in this life can’t and shouldn’t do well, they just shouldn’t. There must be some kind of filter, some kind of sieve that will filter out people, allowing some of them to occupy some places in life, and others others. Man is a stupid, lazy ape, and not some kind of divine being, as we like to think of ourselves. In order for something worthwhile to come out of a person, he must suffer. You know, suffer! Crises are very different, they just create these sufferings, in which personalities are forged. Some people are still a stupid and lazy monkey, some are even ready to die, just to not change anything in themselves. And someone grows into a great personality, including a merchant, that is, a person who knows how to make money without harming anyone. If you endure the hard times when trading, selling is difficult, but you still do it, spin, do not give up, do not run to work, then you will become a real merchant. You will pass the tests and rightfully take your rightful place in human society.

Law 10. Arouse your curiosity

One of the most powerful motivations of a person is curiosity. Don’t feed us bread, just let us stick your shnobel somewhere. In trading, this motive must be used when people do not want to accept a direct offer. Only it is necessary to use it very subtly, not just trying to interest someone in something through communication with this person, but only by creating conditions in which their curiosity will awaken. I’ll explain in more detail.

Look, we live in a world of egoists, where some selfish beings try to sell something to other selfish beings, if we talk about trade. You know, all those obsessive hucksters who come to you with their stuff. The same horror as infuriating, don’t you agree? Moreover, these vtyukhivayuschimi, absolutely do not care about what others need and want, just to sell them. Buy, buy, buy, that’s all they can do. Maybe it works on characterless fools, but not on smart people. Smart people are annoyed by this obsession. Well, it’s like with ad blockers on the Internet, people put them up so that they will never see this stupid ad on the web again in their life. It’s the same with merchants who come after you even though you didn’t ask them to. You should block them so that they don’t annoy you.

In addition, when you persistently try to sell something, it is pure selfishness. And selfishness also has a very strong repulsive effect. I don’t want to buy something just because someone wants to sell it. I want to buy for myself, for my own benefit. Therefore, selfishness prevents you from being a great merchant, a true professional in your field, because people shy away from egoists. Well, except for the weak-willed slugs, they can bend under the brazen merchant. But there is often nothing to take from such people, you can’t make money on squishy things alone. Thus, the modern consumer is used to the fact that he is under pressure, he is constantly shoved something under his nose so that he buys it and, as a rule, does not like it. To get around such discontent, you first need to arouse curiosity in a person by unobtrusively demonstrating a product or service. This can be done simply by ostentatiously using it. Start using some product or service yourself, or assign it to someone, or make sure that people hear something out of the corner of their ear, or read it out of the corner of their eye, just by chance, about something special that you offer. In general, do not directly stick your offer under your nose, but arrange a situation in which people themselves will find out about it, as about some special offer that is rarely mentioned. This is called the subtle use of human curiosity. This law of trading is aimed at people with above-average intelligence who make their own decisions about what is best for them. And it is a law because it gives a clear understanding of the psyche of people who need to come to something themselves, and not accept someone’s offer. I repeat, this is typical for more or less intelligent people who are used to and can think with their own heads.

A person just needs to find out that there is such a product or service that no one offers him, no one sells him anything, does not impose anything on him, just such a thing, such a service, or there is a new store, exists. Then their imagination will do everything itself. They will think: how is it, there is something good, profitable, and we don’t even know about it. Curiosity will push them in the direction of the product advertised in this way, and not push them away from it by the obsession of the seller and advertising. You just need to understand that some people can be encouraged to do something just by sticking something under their noses. That’s why the old ladies in the market are shouting: «Tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage!» They pull the insecure, weak-willed, weak-willed consumers in such a way as to encourage them to buy. And there are many such people in our society. But there are also a lot of those who resist pressure, who do not want to be forced to do something, too. So they need to throw up an idea for reflection, so that they themselves find out about something and buy something, as it seems to them, of their own free will.

For example, in our city, we once practiced advertising such as people communicating on public transport, during which they had to discuss some product or open a new store that we needed to advertise. In this case, I helped the advertising agency work out this idea and correctly implement it. It wasn’t just a random conversation, it was supposed to be special, adapted as much as possible to the casual listener. It was necessary to think through every word, every participant in the conversation, so that the scenario was perfect and people who would have heard this conversation would have been guaranteed to show interest in the advertised product, service, or store. And I must say, the effect was amazing. And why all this? But because no one imposed anything on anyone. Just certain people, for example, students or middle-aged women, or even pensioners, depending on who was more in the transport, talked among themselves and talked among themselves about a new product or a new store that opened and all its advantages.

There are a lot of students going to school in the morning, so we put students on public transport who talked about cool things for young people that needed to be advertised. A little later, pensioners got out of their dens and already people of retirement age shared their thoughts on trams, trolleybuses and buses about what and where it is useful to buy. And in the evening, we usually let women into transport, middle-aged or slightly younger, for such advertising conversations that advertised cosmetics and other nonsense for the appropriate audience. Somehow, according to our observations, this was the most profitable option in terms of return, namely middle-aged women.

In general, we launched word of mouth in this way. You can come up with a lot of such ideas. The point is to let people hear about something profitable, not offer it to them. Then, as I said, their curiosity will play to the merchant’s advantage. They will not be able to resist, well, many of them for sure, so as not to learn more about what they heard, so as not to buy and try what they, so smart and attentive, were able to learn. That’s how it works.

Law 11. Think about the future

This is the great law of trade. It doesn’t apply to all situations, but where it’s appropriate, it just works perfectly. And it is appropriate in a stable, developed or actively developing society, where the reputation of a person, a merchant, a salesperson or an entire company plays a very important role in its success.

You see, the stupidity of many sellers is that for the sake of momentary profit, they can go to any lengths, including the most vile deception of the consumer. For example, some «green» managers in banks can use primitive deception schemes, introducing various hidden commissions, payments, and interest rates in order to show the result of their work through a quick result. Deceived a person-got a profit and is happy. They don’t care about the reputation of the bank, they don’t care about what customers they will scare off with their deception. They work clumsily, dirty, like petty crooks. This brings some benefits, mainly due to fools who allow themselves to be deceived, but for serious business, for serious trading, this approach is unacceptable. A name is what you must work for to become a great merchant.

When selling something today, think about whether this person will come to you tomorrow to buy something else from you. Or, will they be so happy with the purchase that they will recommend you to their friends, relatives, or colleagues when they also need this product? If you focus on this, you will work more responsibly and seriously, not as some market huckster, but as a serious person who can be trusted.

I remember the crisis of 2008, or rather 2009, if we talk about the crisis in our country, where it began to be felt at that time. Many businesses then closed, or began to work in the negative. I remember all these conversations of entrepreneurs who thought about what they should do, either close down or work in the negative. Most of them grudgingly worked in the negative, because, as they said, it would be very expensive to open again later. And it really is. Only now, not all of them survived this difficult time. Some, by the way, after they lost their business, got drunk and completely went down. I’ve recently seen some of these downtrodden ones, a pathetic sight. But the company in which I worked, despite the stupid management, felt normal, the income, even if small, was there. Because I and some other employees have earned regular money customers who regularly ordered something from us, making orders from us, because at one time we were very competent with them, and discounts were made, and in many other ways inferior. It was not an easy job, largely because we gave up various momentary benefits in fat years, for the sake of the future, we gave in to these people in order to cooperate with them on a permanent basis. To do this, you also had to fight with the stupid management, which in the person of its director wanted everything at once.

The man I worked for spent most of his life plowing through a combine on a collective farm, abusing alcohol, not reading books, you know what he was like. It was then that he relatively successfully married a terrible woman who helped him steal money, and she stole them in a terrible way, holding a leading state position, for which they later opened several businesses. It is clear that such a collective farmer in business did not think anything clearly even in fat years, and in the absence of serious competitors, of course, he earned money, but when the problems began, everything fell apart. So he did not understand why, for example, we, in particular, when concluding a transaction, took roughly 800 CU from the client, if it was possible to take 1000 cu. Why not earn more if you can? After all, the redneck wants more and faster things, and in principle they don’t understand why they should limit themselves in some way. It was almost impossible to explain to this dumbass that it was necessary to do this in order to get regular customers in order to have a stable income in the long term. But in a crisis year, it was these people who helped this idiot stay afloat. They contacted me and other employees and negotiated orders, while many of our competitors did not sell anything at all. And the cretin’s business only collapsed when I and several other key employees left one by one. He himself could not cope with anything and did not find a worthy replacement for us. That’s why crises are necessary to separate boys in business from men.

You see what it means to think about the future. It means sacrificing something in the present. A great merchant simply has to lay straw for himself in those places where he can do it in case he falls. Small traders always try to snatch more here and now, without thinking about tomorrow at all. You don’t even need a big mind here, grabbing everything that you can grab is not a feat at all. It’s hard to think far ahead, oh so hard. To do this, you need to study someone else’s experience, compare it with your plans and actions in the present, in order to have an idea of what it can be like if you do one way or another. To think about the future is to think at all, and not to live in one day.

This approach to trading helps to develop strategic thinking, in which a person calculates the consequences of their decisions several steps ahead. And to calculate them, I repeat, you need to study other people’s experience in order to know what the consequences of certain decisions may be. A strategic approach helps you win wars, not individual battles, for which tactical thinking will be enough. Understand that relationships with people are always more important than money, always. Money is an inanimate thing; without people, it doesn’t give us much. Today they are there, tomorrow they are not, but the person remains. A stupid salesman will deceive people, grab something here and now, without thinking about his reputation, and then no one wants to deal with him. A smart merchant will do everything to make people remember him, so that they are satisfied with cooperation with him, then they will return, they will definitely return.

Some will say that all this is nonsense, people are selfish creatures, and business people are also practical, who do not remember the good they have done and will not help in difficult times, but will go to look for their profit in other places. I will tell you that those who think so are simply not good judges of people. People are driven by emotions, they are subconscious about everything, these are not computers that can calculate everything and that do not remember those who treated them well. A person always remembers places where he was happy, even if these places are no longer there. And he remembers people as well. Good attracts us. Respect for us attracts us. Attention attracts, the desire to help — we are drawn to it. Isn’t that right? Therefore, it is not necessary to say and think that taking care of the client is useless. Do not say that no one appreciates good deeds. Work hard, sell so that you will be remembered for a long time, make discounts, serve well, advise. And you will be remembered, you will be attracted, you will create permanent sources of income in the form of customers who are happy to work with you and partners who are happy to cooperate with you. This approach has worked for me all my life. So this law will help you too. If you follow it.

Law 12. Help your client feel important

I learned this law thanks to the advice of Dale Carnegie, who teaches you how to behave with people so that they feel like the best, smartest, strongest and generally significant people around you. Of course, I have tested the advice of this well-known psychologist on my own experience and I can say with all responsibility that it is correct. It doesn’t work perfectly on all people, and some people get very impudent if you treat them well, but even such individuals will give you their money when you praise them to the skies. So from a practical point of view, this approach to people justifies itself in the vast majority of cases.

What does it take to use this law? Not so much really. If during communication with the client, you help them feel important, raise them to a very high level, show them how smart, brave, determined, quick-witted they are, and so on, then they will have sympathy for you. And when a person likes you, they want to do business with you. This law does not apply to all people, so it should be applied experimentally, looking at the person’s reaction. Some people may see this as an attempt to suck up to them and they are repelled by it. But I’ll tell you for sure that there are a minority of them. On compliments and not even flattery, many bite just fine.

When working with a person, when communicating with them, think about what you could praise them for, what are their qualities to highlight and emphasize their significance, so that the person is pleased? You yourself, what kind of attitude do you like, what do you like when people tell you? So also communicate with other people. Don’t be like those dim-witted salesmen who teach customers what to do and how to do it, thus belittling the dignity of people. I remember working for another company that sold building materials, and there the CEO, at a time that was not very good for his company, so attacked customers, teaching him how to build houses, that I myself, as a witness to this disgrace, felt sick. Well, unless that’s how they work. Is it possible to tell a person that he does not understand anything about construction, that he does everything wrong? This is such a pressure, after which you want to run away and never return to such merchants again. Which, in fact, this person did.

A person, on the contrary, should be made to understand that he is doing very wisely, even if he does something wrong for the merchant, if he has already bought something in another place. You can’t let a person know that he’s a fool who made a mistake. The ego does not accept this. The ego wants a person to be praised, to be praised above others, to emphasize his intelligence, then the person sinks into a state of bliss and is ready to give. Even if a person has made a mistake, it is necessary to explain to him that it was not his fault, but the fault of the person who advised him something wrong, advised him incorrectly, misled him. In general, the responsibility should be shifted to someone else, not the client. The client should feel smart around you, not stupid, you know? He should feel good, or at least not bad. If he tells you that he did this or that, that he bought something somewhere, say in response that he made a great decision, a smart decision, that his calculation was generally correct. And if he wants to do even better, then somehow he should start interacting with you. In other words, don’t discount the client’s past actions, whatever they may have been.

With the help of flattery, you can generally create miracles. With its help, you can grease up to anyone and not only sell something, but also make a successful career for yourself. People only love it in words and say that it does not affect them, but in deeds they simply adore it and are perfectly amenable to it. If you exaggerate the merits and success of a client or partner, you will eventually get them attracted to you. We are always drawn to those with whom we feel like a king.

Some entrepreneurs objected to me, saying that flattery does not pass with business people, they do not even pay attention to it, no matter how much you praise them, they do not want to conclude deals from this. I say that flattery works, and with everyone, even with very businesslike and seemingly serious people. It’s just that the return from it is not quick. Well, all in good time, what do you want a person to immediately fall apart and do everything for you? It doesn’t happen that way. Some people need time to fall in love with someone. Here you are, reader, judge for yourself, aren’t there a few examples when flattery helps to get up to someone? In our country, even in politics, no matter what serious people do there, it is the sycophants who succeed more than others, it is they who in most cases manage to climb high and high on the career ladder, bypassing more talented and hardworking colleagues who have a language that is not as «sweet» as they have. And these flatterers are not always useful people, some of them may not be of any use at all. These are people who pour honey in the ears of their superiors and that’s all they do. Well, there can still inform on someone, they can also do this. You see, the boss, in any field, feels special against the background of a flawed environment, and not against the background of talented people who are in some ways superior to him. The lower the others, the higher the person himself.

And if flattery helps you succeed in politics and in big business, then what can we say about people who are at the lower levels of the social pyramid? Are they special enough to be above flattery? Of course not. They are the same. They also enjoy being around people who tell them only the best things about them. Once again, focus on your own feelings as well. Remember who you are happy and happy to be around, and even better, remember who and why you are happy to buy something from. And be the same person with whom you want to be close, and buy from whom it is pleasant. Be like this for those who are important to you, for profitable customers and partners. Of course, there will also be some people who will not appreciate this effort of yours, no matter how much you lay before them. There are always such things. But you understand that you will not adapt to everyone, you will not please everyone. And someone is disgusted to please. Well, don’t do that. To be a successful merchant and get rich, you don’t need to become a chocolate bar that everyone likes. Moreover, even chocolate is not liked by everyone. Praise those who are very important to you, both in terms of money and in terms of friendship. Don’t give a damn about the others.

Law 13. Push the weak and insecure

But this law of trade already speaks about the need to put pressure on people, or rather, to push them psychologically, if you see that they are weak and insecure. It is designed specifically for morally weak people who cannot resist pressure and are ready to give in, just to be left alone. It is absolutely impossible to use it against strong people, otherwise you will make enemies, or you will simply be sent. Make sure that the person is loose and doesn’t know exactly what they need. And I’ll tell you, most of them are. Our culture breeds weaklings, it breaks people. Yes, plus, the upbringing of many parents leaves much to be desired, they grow all sorts of rubbish, because they often assert themselves on their children, suppressing and humiliating them. These are your victims to put pressure on.

How to push? Start by stating that you know exactly what the client needs. Show him that you are absolutely sure that you are right. If he objects, stop it right away, tell him boldly that he doesn’t know what you know, that you already have a lot of experience behind you and you are a professional in your field, so there shouldn’t even be any objections. You need to listen and do as you say. Don’t even think about humiliating yourself in front of a morally weak client by trying to persuade them. It will be a sign of weakness on your part. And people who are weak themselves can’t stand someone else’s weakness, they just hate and despise it, because in their hearts they hate and despise themselves. Act with such weaklings boldly, decisively, brazenly as if you are a real professional in your field, a downright guru who knows everything and can do everything. They love them. They listen to them. For them, such a salesperson is a leader, a leader that they would gladly follow, shifting all the responsibility for their lives onto his shoulders. It’s in their blood, this kind of submission to the strong. Leaders of religious sects do just that. They pretend to be God’s messengers, and their congregation accepts everything, agrees with everything they say. You don’t have to be so bold and confident, you have to appear so.

Most people need a shepherd because they themselves are a herd, insecure and timid, unable to manage their lives and afraid to do so. Remember this. Who they see as a shepherd is another matter, that’s another matter. You can fly with this law of trading if the client doesn’t respect you, if they don’t see you as strong enough for them, as they see in someone else. If they don’t recognize you as a strong person, a leader, and compare you to another strong person they respect, you won’t sell them out. Even if he’s much weaker than you, he won’t give in to you. But you still need to try. Get the necessary experience. In the market, hucksters often run over customers like this, directly demand money from them and force them to buy their goods. But this is how they deal with those who behave insecurely, like a weakling. Also, gypsies do, or rather gypsy women, who specifically look for weak-willed people in the crowd and push them through with their perseverance and determination. This one will stick, and if you don’t send it, it won’t leave you alone. It starts with a cigarette or fifty kopecks, and ends with her going through your pockets and you smiling like an idiot. How many people are robbed in this way and not to count.

To identify a weak personality, look at the person’s eyes, gait, and manners. If you see that a person’s gaze is drooping or the person is constantly averting his eyes, hiding them, then he is afraid of people, depressed, and not sure of his behavior. If he walks as if he is prowling, or if his legs are slack, or if he is running from side to side, not knowing where he should go, then this also indicates that the person is weak. The gait of a strong man always looks purposeful, he does not hang out like Katya in an ice hole, not knowing where to go. See how confident a person puts his foot, it will show you his strength. And yet the manners, in a weak person they are very courteous, he is afraid to make sudden movements, to prevent someone from doing something, to somehow attract attention to himself. Such a person is quite modest. This is your sacrifice. Start small by getting their attention. Call this person or make an appointment with him, or come to him without an invitation at all, in general, depending on the situation, take the initiative. Greet such a person and start any distracting conversation with them, just to grab their attention. You need to establish a strong contact with him, so that he does not even allow the thought that he can somehow get rid of you. When he starts talking, you’ll see even more clearly how insecure he is. Such people do not say something exactly, they often say that they know, they don’t know anything that you don’t ask them about. And they also need to think, even if there is nothing to think about, they are simply afraid to refuse you. They look for excuses for their unwillingness to buy something or make a deal, try to shift responsibility for their decision to other people — mom, dad, husband, wife, mother-in-law, and so on. These are all signs of weakness. They can’t say no to you, because they don’t have the spirit. With such people, you need to behave boldly, directly push them to the necessary decisions and actions, push goods into their hands, slip papers for signature, demand money, in general, behave with them in a businesslike manner. Such people are used to obeying direct commands, orders, so you give them such commands and orders. Let them do it.

Do you know what the most interesting thing about this law is? They can work with different people at different levels of the social pyramid. Smart people, stupid people, poor people, rich people, everyone can obey orders, everyone can be pushed through. It is clear that among ordinary workers, plumbers, locksmiths, drivers, builders and other hard workers, there are more such insecure people than in more, let’s say, intellectual areas, and even more so in those areas where human work is related to managing people. The lower a person’s status, the more servile a mindset they may have. This is the law of hierarchy. Nevertheless, I’ll tell you for sure, and among big businessmen, such squishy people are also found among politicians, and even among bandits, who seem to have a strong character in order to commit crimes. But they can obey the power of the leader. It’s just that many of them mask their weakness, most often hiding it under the mask of aggressiveness, when people, being afraid of everything and everyone, try to scare them themselves. They especially like to do this through their voice-shouting and swearing at everything, and of course, threatening others. Threats are a sign of fear, weakness, and insecurity. In fact, they are rotten, so they can be persuaded to do a lot. My father was like that, he worked all his life at the factory, where his self-esteem was trampled into the mud until it was completely destroyed. And before work, his parents humiliated him all his life. No wonder he was very insecure and succumbed to external pressure. But at the same time, he tried in every possible way to hide his uncertainty, behaving quite aggressively in public, especially under the influence of alcohol, without which he was generally afraid of everything. But in reality, he was a weakling. It was easy to force some crap on him in the store, or he was somehow persuaded to send his pension contributions to a non-state pension fund. He always thought these private traders were crooks, but they were so quick to pressure him, saying that he simply had to sign the papers, that they knew better what he needed, they put a pen in his hand and told him to sign, so he signed. If it wasn’t for their determination and even their audacity, he wouldn’t have become their client.

To be honest, I hate such impudent sellers who don’t ask you anything at all, but just climb up to you and shove all sorts of crap under your nose, directly forcing you to give them your money. But I must admit that it works. People even give in to such impudence, such pressure. In my youth, when I was also a squishy person, I was sometimes pushed by some salesmen. I, of course, then infuriated that I was suppressed like this and something was imposed on me, but I must admit that such indecision of a person must be used, otherwise he will chew snot all his life. In some cases, I felt good myself after I bought what I was forced to buy, insistently forcing some product or service on me. I also benefited from it. So, the hatred for such impudent sellers may fade over time and even respect them for being able to achieve their goal will appear. Provided that they didn’t cheat you, but just sold you something, blatantly foisting it on you. Deception, of course, makes you hate them for the rest of your life.

We can all be indecisive at certain times in our lives. It is clear that it is scary to part with your money, sweat and blood earned, it is scary to conclude some kind of deal that you did not plan to conclude and the profitability of which is not obvious. And we constantly postpone fateful deals for later, for fear of making a mistake. So you can slow down all your life. And only the person who boldly and decisively breaks into our lives, takes us by the hand and forces us to do something, will pull us out of this swamp. So such an impudence of the seller, such a commanding model of behavior, when he behaves with a client or partner in a businesslike way, often benefits not only him, but also his clients, as well as his partners.

You, most importantly, do not be afraid to be such a determined, arrogant and confident merchant. I’m not saying be a merchant like that, that is, play that role sometimes. Even if you are not so brave and strong by nature, try to become so that you can make a deal with people when you see that they are also weak. You may not succeed, but at least try to do it. Be as confident as you can with insecure people. At first, if you are not used to active, aggressive, obsessive trading, as the same network developers (MLM) work, who go and sell all sorts of dregs or invite people to their pyramid, you will crumple, make mistakes, stumble, in general, mess up. It is ok. Don’t pay any attention to these shoals. It is until your first victories that you will be like this. As soon as you sell a customer, get money from them, and get them to make concessions, you will feel strong, your self-confidence will grow, and you will understand that you can command people, that you can direct them where you need to go. Here, wait for these victories, bring yourself to them with this trade. This is the character of the leader, it must be cultivated by practice. We are all leaders by nature, but this is the leader’s instinct or the leader’s behavior pattern, it needs to be awakened and developed. If you command people, in our case, clients and partners, and lead them in the right direction, then this leader will begin to grow in you.

If you are not afraid of failures, which are most likely to be inevitable, because in school we are not made leaders, but rather, on the contrary, they kill us, turn us into lowing sheep, then after a while you yourself, on your own, will grow a leader in yourself. You will become a merchant leader, not just a merchant. This model of behavior will not always be relevant for you in trading, it will not always bring you profit, it is unlikely to pass with other leaders, but with all this loose crowd that does not think with its own head and is not responsible for its life, you will treat them like children. You will decide who and what will buy from you, why and for what. You will choose with whom and under what conditions you will cooperate. The more often you practice this approach to working with people, the more actively you manage them, the stronger your leader spirit will become.

Some clients will even come back to you later, the ones you sold out without knowing why. They will be attracted to your strength and determination, they will want to be close to you, do things with you, because in their eyes you will be a person who knows everything, you are strong and confident, so you can shift responsibility for your decisions, you can follow. This is a strong law, my friend, and if you follow it, you will not only succeed in trading, but also grow a leader in yourself. There is nothing complicated here, just command people who look weak and indecisive, direct them in the right direction, assure them that listening to you, they are doing the right thing. You don’t even need to explain anything here, you say that you are right and that’s it, we tell them that the right thing is the way you say it and there is no need to discuss anything. We must do as you say. The strong don’t explain or prove anything to the weak, they just tell them what to do. I repeat, this is what they teach us at school, they don’t explain or prove much, and they don’t teach us to think about anything or be critical of anything at all in these slaughterhouses. This is so, and this is so, just remember it and repeat it on the exam, that’s all the training. Therefore, people are used to accepting the opinion of authorities without critically evaluating it. And if you behave like an authority, you will be an authority.

So you can make a lot of profitable deals. So go ahead. Remember: you are the leader! They’ll follow the leader. The leader will be listened to. And weaklings are not interesting to anyone. They are prized.

Law 14. Be kind to people

Now we will work out a different approach to people, in which you need to be the kind of person you meet every day. That is, kind. Not to say that this law always works, not all people buy from those who are kind to them, but in many cases it helps to gain confidence in the buyer and persuade him to buy. Kindness is a great power. And to be kind to people, you need to love them. You see, people, whatever they are, are the most valuable resource in this world. They probably do more good than harm, otherwise we wouldn’t have built a civilization by moving away from the wild. Being kind to people means recognizing their importance and value to the world. Not everyone will respond to your kindness in return, this is obvious. But you know, people often feel someone else’s warmth and love for them, and they like it.

I can’t tell you in what situations you need to be kind to people, and when it is better to use other approaches to sell them something, to make a deal with them. There are no general patterns here, you just have to try this approach to people and see if it works or not. If it works, well, you’ll sell something, make a deal, maybe even make friends. Well, if it doesn’t work, there are 99 other things described in this book, so you can use them.

From my own experience, I can say that I am often kind to clients and business partners, and I am genuinely happy to work with many of them, not only because of the money, but also because they help me expand my horizons a lot. You have no idea how many interesting people I’ve had in my life, who I’ve never talked to, who I’ve never had anything to do with. This is valuable in itself, even without sales. This experience allows you to better understand life and people. And when you understand this, you can live easier, you can achieve a lot. That’s why I love people. I love them for the fact that thanks to them we live in a relatively comfortable world, an interesting world. People feel it, they feel when you value them, and they start to appreciate you in return. They value communication with you, partnership, cooperation, friendship. And this is natural. How many good people do you know who don’t constantly think about how to get something out of you and how to use you? And sellers who are genuinely interested in your well-being, and not just to fill their own pockets at your expense? That’s just it. That’s why kindness is valued, real kindness, not an imitation of it. Everything rare is valued in this world. And genuine kindness is rare.

Being kind to a client means thinking about them, not just yourself, and trying to solve their problems as if they were your own. This means trying to please him and get pleasure from what he did well to another person. Think about how great it can be when you’ve done a good job and made money at the same time. After all, people give to beggars to feel their greatness, to make themselves good in their own eyes. And there are many of them. So in trade, use this desire to be a noble, strong, even great person. Take care of your client, your business partner, and be a person with a capital letter, as befits great people. And you want to be a great merchant, not just a grabber. So be like this.

Kindness is power. This is a very big force. Not all people know what power it can give them. But this is provided that the kindness is real. Fake kindness is often recognized by people. You don’t need all this fake smile stuff, like salespeople are taught to do, forcing them to smile at the customer through force. Of course, such smiles are better than nothing at all, it is more pleasant for a person to buy something from a polite and smiling seller than from some shovel-like grinning and growling shepherd dog, which used to be found in almost every store. Yes, and now they meet. But in order to stand out from such fake kindness and thus be more attractive to customers than these trained salespeople, you need to be really kind. No need for pretense, it’s still felt. Sincerity in this case is your advantage over other merchants. That’s your competitive advantage, if you want. And in order to secure it for yourself, you need to find reasons for yourself to love your customers and partners, and indeed many people in general. Not all of them, of course, but most of them. Think about these reasons. Think, for example, about what it’s like to live among people, how much more comfortable it is than, say, living alone on a desert island. Imagine a life in which you are completely alone and there is no one around you at all. I am sure that it will be worse than the one you live in now, when you are surrounded by so many people and you get a lot from them. Even if you do not have friends or a loved one, a close person who cares about you, but you still live in the company of people, remember that you are not alone. And it’s worth a lot, you must admit. You can love people, even if not much, for just being there. It can also be a selfish motive, but not so selfish when you just want to use someone without thinking about that person.

I also advise you to remember all the good things that people have ever done for you. There must have been a lot of such cases. Do you think they were enough for you to understand that most people are useful beings, capable of helping each other? Is that enough for you to love people, or do you need something else? Think about what else you need to love your client, partner, seeing them as a person, and not just a source of money? Think of your own reasons. You will need them to give you the most positive attitude. People will feel it and reach out to you. This, if you will, is magic, that is, a law of existence that science has not yet explored and explained. People are always drawn to those who are friendly to them. Maybe not all of them, but many of them are for sure. Use this power for your own good. Just find reasons to love the people you work with as much as possible. And with this attitude, start working with people. Then you will see everything for yourself, all these miracles that love and kindness create.

Don’t listen to those who say that being kind is useless and even dangerous, that kindness is punishable, people don’t appreciate it, don’t respect it, and so on. This is complete nonsense. So say those who simply do not know how to be kind and good. These people think that they are doing good to a person, but in reality they are not. Their kindness only makes things worse. Because it is based not on their sincere love for people, in which a person wants to do others good, wants to help them as himself, but on their selfish and even selfish interests. And love based on selfishness and self-interest always betrays bad kindness. People only seem to be kind, but in reality they are not. That’s why they say about such people: they wanted the best, but it turned out, as always. But because they didn’t want what was best. Rather, they wanted to do better, but not to others, but to themselves. Because of this, they often do not help themselves and harm others. Well, can’t you tell the difference between a genuinely benevolent salesman and a selfish salesman? Even if you don’t logically understand who he is, you will definitely feel it. Lying, greedy rats, they’re everywhere, you can feel them in your gut. Such people are disgusting to deal with, their lies and hypocrisy are visible to the naked eye. You just need to listen to your intuition. It always signals danger. That’s when I suggest you be kind and love people, I just help you learn how to send positive signals to people so that their intuition recognizes you as a friend, and not as an enemy. They will feel that you are a good person and that you are not dangerous to deal with. They’ll be happy to make a deal with you.»

Kindness is usually attacked by those who cannot be kind themselves. The only question is why you dissuade other people from doing good deeds, for what purpose. Well, people don’t respond to you in return, well, they take advantage of your kindness, well, don’t do anything good for them, be evil, bad or whatever you want to be. But why immediately smear all good and good deeds with mud, why denigrate the good as such? I’ll tell you why. Because these people feel that the problem is with them, that they don’t understand something, don’t understand something, and can’t do something. It’s their kindness that’s the problem, not kindness in general. But their problems are their problems. You listen to me. I almost always succeed in negotiating with my clients when I am genuinely kind to them. I sell, make deals, make useful acquaintances, in a word, I benefit myself and do useful things for them. The main thing, I repeat, is to be genuinely kind, for which you need to love people. And to love them, you need to find reasons why you will love them. We find these reasons for hatred. Ah means and for love their need to seek.

And don’t be kind out of fear of people. This is also fake kindness. Often, people don’t realize that they treat someone well just because they’re afraid of them. That’s why you shouldn’t be afraid of your customers and partners. To successfully run a business, to sell a lot of things, you need to be moderately bold. Fear makes us cowards, and because of our cowardice, we miss opportunities. Be kind, because it is good and right, because we are human beings and we must take care of each other in order to live in comfortable conditions, so that our species can survive. This is in the best interests of nature, God’s plan, if you believe in him. That’s what you need to be kind for, not out of fear of anyone. Start thinking like an idealist, think about the eternal, forget about all these vile values that we humans are fighting over like dogs. The more global your approach to life is, the more confident you will feel without fear of being lost. You will not be lost in this life, do not be afraid. Your kindness will help you. Not everyone deserves it, but everyone wants it. In trade, good people are rare. If you are like this, you will be different from other merchants who think not with their heads and not with their hearts, but with their stomachs. You will surpass them with your openness and sincerity. People will believe you, even if you lie. After all, if you lie, you will do it with love for them, as parents do for their children who wish them well, but cannot be absolutely sincere with them. You know, not every truth is pleasant to the ear and not every mind is able to perceive it. So just be nice to your client, even if you’re not being honest with them. And he’ll do a lot for you, if not everything.

Law 15. Tell people about yourself

This law perfectly helps to gain people’s trust. And those who are trusted, usually buy more willingly. There are some people, and you’ve probably met them, who like to talk about life, tell about their family, tell about their children, if they have any, remember some interesting and funny stories and share them. They are such seemingly simple and good-natured people, without any second thoughts. They act like they’ve known you all their lives and have nothing to hide from you, they’re willing to tell you everything. And they are listened to. People are more likely to fall for such openness and can also share something, tell something about themselves. More serious people may not pay attention to such chatter, but they calm down next to such chatterers and stop seeing them as a threat. When a person talks about himself, he shows that he trusts people. You’re not going to tell anyone anything about yourself, unless you’re a moron. But even if you’re a moron, what’s there to be afraid of? That’s why this behavior in dealing with people allows you to gain their trust. Merchants who use it in their work sell it more and more often. I have been convinced of this many times, both on my own and on other people’s experience, which is why I derived this law of trade.

At the same time, keep in mind that you do not have to tell the whole truth about yourself, you can also invent various stories or some unusual facts about yourself, as long as they seem true. Think through them in advance, make them folding, beautiful, and slim, so that they don’t look contradictory and your client doesn’t catch you lying. The main thing here is not to lie, otherwise you will quickly turn people against you. They don’t like liars.

I usually, in order to gain the client’s trust, tell them half-truth stories about myself, not so much fictional ones, my life is already rich in events, in order to invent something else, I just don’t tell everything, I keep the most intimate things to myself, and I tell people only what I consider safe for myself. You can not fully open up to a person, he can use it against you. You know, information is power. But such harmless, and even more useful stories about yourself, in which you just talk about your lifestyle, what kind of family you have, how you love it, how your children study, how you yourself once studied, in general, all this information garbage, all this you can and even need to tell them. They will not cause any damage, but they will help to win over a client, a partner, for whom your frankness will be a sign of high trust and respect on your part.

Just make sure that your stories are positive, at least interesting, and in no case angry and bad, which spoils the mood. Bad, scary things, people don’t like. They run away from bad things. And they also don’t like it when someone complains about their fate, cries, blames them for all their problems. Don’t complain about life, don’t. Not many people are strong enough in spirit to withstand this, they have enough problems of their own to think about other people’s problems. You don’t have to cry or complain, or you’ll scare everyone away from you. If you want to cry — go to a psychologist, he will help. And communicate with customers only on a positive, optimistic wave. Make them happy, make them happy, it’s nice for everyone.

People also like to hear about how a person has done something stupid, made a mistake in something, suffered some losses, suffered from something. Thanks to such stories, only they must be told in a positive tone, people will feel very smart compared to you. They don’t make mistakes, they always do everything right, it’s you who’s such a jerk who fucked up there, made a mistake here, didn’t have time to do something here. But they, no, would never be so stupid. It’s nice to be around someone like that. It’s hard with smart people, they always feel tense when you don’t know if you match the level of this person or not. Any of your stupidities and weaknesses are noticed by a smart person, and you understand it and you don’t like it. And it’s easy with simpletons. Against their background, you are always a hero, you are very smart, quick-witted, strong. That’s why many managers surround themselves with such simpletons, so as not to feel inferior, to be lions against the background of mice. That’s what you need to look like, too.

No need to tell stories about your victories, achievements, successes, well, the most striking ones that will show your strength. Although many people like it, it still causes tension. People don’t like bragging rights. And they don’t like those who are stronger than them. And that’s exactly what your victories will indicate. Who’s interested in them but you? More criticism and irony in your address, so you will seem easier and you will not be seen as a danger. And be sure to tell us something interesting that you can laugh at and then tell others, like another gossip. People like to spread gossip. To do this, shock themwith something, some interesting facts from your life. The more unusual your stories are, the more interest they will arouse and the client will already forget who you are and what you need from them. And he’ll only remember when he gives you his money.

People sometimes object to this law, saying that such talkers with their conversations about their lives are annoying. They do not speak to the point and are generally not interesting with their stories, no one wants to listen to them. In part, this is true. But here you just need to know the measure and not talk too much and out of place, do not bother people so that they do not roll their eyes at your chatter, dreaming that you will disappear as soon as possible. You just need to know the moderation in this case. You do it not to express yourself, but to create an atmosphere of trust, you should not annoy, but just show your openness and simplicity. In general, this is how you talk people’s teeth, distract them from annoying thoughts about you. Of course, such conversations are not always appropriate, sometimes people do not need to know about your life, but rather buy something from you as soon as possible, because they are on fire. Of course, in these cases, you do not need to slow down, just make money in silence. You see what a person is ready to buy-sell it! Without any chatter. This law must be observed when you see that the client is tense and does not trust you. And people often do not trust sellers, because they have suffered many times from unscrupulous merchants who imposed something on them or cheated them in some way, cheated them, and then a painful splinter settled deep in their soul. And in general, some people are very reserved by nature, they are afraid of everyone, they avoid everyone, they don’t let very many people near them. Here, to relax them, such conversations about your life are needed.

You must understand that no one has to believe you in this life. And no one will believe you. Although we live in a civilized world, where people are more or less humane to each other, but it is still a person to a person, at least not a friend. And often even the enemy. People are trying to use each other. In trading, this is especially noticeable, because here the seller often needs to sell more than the buyer needs to buy. Not always, but often. It is especially difficult to engage in active sales when it is not the client who comes to you to watch and buy something, but you go to him to offer him something. In most cases, you will be perceived just as an enemy who came to take something, and not to give something away. How will you prove and show that you are not an enemy, but a friend? This banal nonsense that your product is the best, and others have only shit? Yes, with this, even to go to kindergarten today is a shame. Even not very serious people are skeptical of such fairy tales. Who needs you with your» good» product from your point of view? So you need to overcome the psychological barrier of the client in order to be accepted. Talking about yourself is one of the ways to achieve this — to bypass the protective boundaries of the client’s psyche. Until you do, you will remain in the status of an enemy.

Tell some fascinating story about yourself, defuse the situation, take the client away from thoughts of your hostility, create a positive first impression, show the person that you came in peace, that you are a simple person, not some cunning person, you are just like him. And you will see for yourself how he will relax, after which it will be easier for you to make an offer to him, he will not immediately dismiss you, but at least listen to you. How many of these incompetent salesmen are walking around now, offering all sorts of nonsense, sometimes plastic windows, then some kind of toothpastes, lotions, approaching you as if you owe them. I remember talking to such people and being amazed at their lack of professionalism. They work clumsily, like some trading barbarians breaking into your personal space with their shit. It is not clear where they are recruited and whether they are taught anything at all before being sent to people. After all, you can immediately see that he is lying, that his offer is unprofitable, that he came to take money from you and he doesn’t care about you. And they still have the nerve to demand that you trust them. Personally, such impudent people asked me why I don’t trust them. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you, and I don’t need you at all, with your super-duper product, and you’re asking me to trust you. That only makes me madder.» So that such stupid situations do not occur, I suggest that you enter into people’s trust, gradually, slowly, starting to communicate with them as if you are their old good friend, and not immediately pounce on them with your best super-goods or whatever you offer.

Whatever you do, whatever you sell, you must be prepared for the fact that you will be perceived with hostility. No one knows you, unless people have already worked with you before, but we don’t consider such cases. And few people want to get to know you unless they have to. And if they don’t know you, then you just can’t count on trust. And without trust, it’s hard to sell something unless people really need it and there’s no one else who can sell it to them. So it takes time for people to recognize you. And to speed up this process of recognition, you need to tell us about yourself. It is clear that few people are interested in your life. If you’re selling something, it’s something that should be attractive to people. But by talking about yourself, you are paving the way to the hearts of people, not to the minds, they will think little about you, if at all, but to the hearts. They will feel that you are their own person, just as simple, walking on the ground as they do. The celestials also attract them in individual cases, but not in cases where they want to sell them something. Here you often don’t want to buy something from someone who lives better than you. People are already tired of the lies of the celestials, so they are ready to buy only from people like themselves, simple and understandable people, whose motives are clear and do not cause rejection. Your life is not a showcase — it is a path to the showcase where your product or service is presented. When you talk about your life, you first sell yourself, your personality, and then offer what you intend to sell.

In my experience, even very large transactions with very serious people were often concluded using this approach to communicating with a business partner. No matter how practical and serious a person may be, his emotional perception of life is the same as that of the most ordinary people. He wants to see other people as friends, not enemies, and he wants to trust them. to deal with them. The higher a person sits and the more resources he controls, the more people who ask for him go, who need him only for the sake of profit. Everyone needs something from him, everyone is trying to get something from him in one way or another. Few people just try to be friends with him, without any selfish goals. And he needs, like any other normal person, a good warm relationship with someone. Where to get them, in whom to find this warmth? You can give it by approaching the «big» person as your friend, sharing stories from your life with them. This will make you stand out from other people around him. I remember being able to make friends with very interesting people in this way. I didn’t manage to work with all of them in the long run, but we always got some benefits from each other for a while. So, talk about yourself, about your life, relax people with it, and you will make a lot of good deals.

Law 16. Never raise the price of the same product

This is a very important law of trading that I found in various marketing textbooks when I was studying them. In them, it was formulated differently, but its meaning always remained the same. So I also formulated it in my own way. The essence of this law is that people do not like when prices rise, so such an increase should be masked in every possible way. It pisses people off when they see that they have to pay more for something that was cheaper yesterday. They feel like they are being robbed. Which, in fact, happens in reality. People really get robbed when they raise prices. For this, in fact, they are promoted. No matter how this process is disguised and explained as necessary, this is a real robbery. Well, since no one likes to be robbed, and sometimes it is simply necessary to raise prices, you need to be able to mask this increase so that most people do not notice it.

To neutralize the negative reaction of consumers to rising prices, you need to change at least something in your product, service and in general, in your offer, so that the new, higher price is not tied to the same product, that is, not to the old product, but to at least something new. In this case, the price increase is perceived more easily, and in some cases, some people do not notice this increase at all. In any case, for some people it will not be painful, that’s what’s important. Roughly speaking, there was product A, and it became product B, but in essence, it is the same, and in form it has become something new and people no longer associate product A with product B, and therefore do not perceive the higher price of product B. It seems like a simple technique, except for the need to come up with an idea that will create such a difference. But with its help, you can avoid negative reactions of people to price changes, and therefore not scare them away from yourself. I always follow this law in my work with people and am very happy with the results of its application.

It’s important to understand that a new product doesn’t actually have to be new. In this world, in general, there is little new, most often something new is a modified old one. But it should look new. New at a new price — this is normal. People will accept it. But when the same product starts selling at a higher price, it causes irritation. That’s what you should avoid. This mistake is made by many people, and you should be as cunning as possible. Think about it, yesterday a loaf of bread cost 1 CU, and today it’s already 2 CU, isn’t this causing outrage? Yes, it does, even if not for everyone, but for many people for sure. Because people do not like to part with their money, especially earned by hard work, so to speak, their own sweat and blood. Who wants to pay more if you’re already used to the old price? People feel sorry for their money. It is on other people’s streets that you can walk, not counting them, on stolen or at worst, on money that came to you easily. And all that was hard-earned, people feel sorry for just giving it away. Therefore, we need to do something with this loaf of bread, somehow change its name, shape, composition, packaging, and anything else to show people that this is not the same product that was yesterday, but a different one, a new one, and the price for it has nothing to do with the price for the old one the product. In general, your offer needs to be modified and supplemented in some way so that it is not the same as the old offer. This makes it harder for the buyer to compare the old price with the new one. And he will not have negative emotions in this regard.

Simple, so to speak, market traders in such cases are very fond of referring to the quality of the goods they sell. They say that it is more expensive for them, because it is very high-quality. This is a primitive, but workable technique. And the more complex the structure of a product or service, the harder it is to check its quality. Who knows if it is of good quality or not, because until the time has passed during which you will use it, you will not check this quality. And over time, the warranty for it will pass, or the seller will disappear. So, either you have to believe the seller, or you don’t. And in this life, people take a lot of things on faith when they overpay for a product or service. They do not check anything themselves, and what they say is taken at face value. The main thing is to say it beautifully, convincingly, so that it is easier to believe you. Here, for example, there is a smartphone of an unknown company and there is the same smartphone of a well-known company. Both toys are made in China from the same components, but people will be drawn to the one that is better known, believing that it is of higher quality and, of course, because of its prestige. But if prestige needs powerful pre-advertising, which you need to invest in, then telling fairy tales about the quality of your products, of course, is easier. But such fairy tales alone are not enough, you also need to consider other options that will make your offer special and justify your price.

Marketing in this case gives a lot of different ideas. You just watch how different firms unify their offers, how they make something unusual out of something ordinary. And see what you can use to make your offer unique. For example, in a store, you can see how the volume of packs of cereals has decreased or how the weight of bread decreases, while its price remains unchanged. Here you are, please, masking the increase in the price of goods. Note that the same buckwheat, peas, semolina, barley, millet are sold in packs of 900, 800 grams, instead of a kilogram. This allows you to keep the same price, but sell a smaller volume of products. As a result, the product still turns out to be more expensive, it’s just that it’s not the price that changes, but its mass. It would seem that this is not such a clever trick for the buyer not to notice it. But many people do not notice and therefore do not resent and even more actively buy this product, considering it inexpensive. Many of my relatives do not compare the weight of such products with the price of them at all. Their logic is very simple, in terms of evaluating the profitability of the purchase. This bread is cheaper than the other one, by 50 kopecks, so it is more profitable in price. And the fact that it also weighs 100—150 grams less, it somehow passes by attention. People don’t like to strain their heads, so these tricks work with them. Well, you take them into service. Also look for an opportunity to distract buyers ' attention from the price. Especially when you increase it.

I believe that only laziness can prevent people from changing their offer, making it different from their old offer. It’s easier for them to just raise the price. But this simplicity can be costly, especially in a highly competitive environment. So when I read in the news that manufacturers of a certain product threaten to raise the price of it, I immediately think about why they are saying this, because it is not profitable to announce it in most cases. Whether they want to create a stir around their products, so that people rush to buy it before the price rises, as in the cases of our long-suffering buckwheat, and then these producers will be able to save all their stale stocks. Whether it is blackmail of the state to support the whole industry with money or make some tax breaks for manufacturers, or it is generally fake. Just from the point of view of normal competition, it makes no sense to announce an increase in prices for your products. If you are not alone in the market and if there is no cartel agreement, then why would someone scare off customers by raising the price so that they run away to their competitors? On the contrary, in conditions of normal competition, everyone tries to keep the buyer stable with their prices, so that he does not run away, because this can hit the business hard. Therefore, when they talk about price increases, it is most likely some kind of manipulation, and not preparing buyers for the new reality. Or in such cases, we are talking about a monopolist who generally does not care about everything and everyone. But monopolism has nothing to do with our case.

In general, it will be useful for you to change something in your offer on a regular basis. I advise merchants to constantly come up with some distinctive features for their goods and services, come up with any chips that will make you different from the rest. Even when it’s not about raising the price, it’s still useful for you to do this in order to attract people’s attention. People, they are extremely contradictory creatures. On the one hand, they want to be like everyone else, and on the other, they want to emphasize their individuality, to be special, only in a good way special, that is, better than others. Like everyone else, they want to be normal when they are not sure of themselves. But they tend to emphasize their individuality when they want to be better than others and feel that they can. And what only people do for the sake of this difference, the same fashion is based on this desire. So you need to play on this desire of people to be special, offering them something new and something unusual, different from everything else. Under this sauce, you can raise the price, and this decision will not scare anyone away from you. Well, maybe only the most advanced ones, who will still need to go to someone from you. After all, other merchants can raise prices. So, why would a client, even a very smart one, change the awl for soap, especially since your offer has changed and the price increase is morally perceived easier.

I remember that we once worked in an advertising agency to sell lawyers and psychologists ' services at a higher price. Well, some people wanted to sell themselves at a higher price, but they didn’t know how. They almost all had everything the same, a kind of template offers for customers, as if under a carbon copy. Naturally, when everything is the same, people choose what is cheaper. And what’s the point of pushing up the price if you’re just like everyone else? So we had to make sure that our customers were not like everyone else, that they, or rather, their offer, was somehow different from what is offered on the market. We worked on the list of services provided by them, came up with differences for them from the services of competitors, included something free in these services, removed some of them, added something, simplified them in some ways so that it was easier for people to use these services. In general, you can try different ideas here, just to make these necessary differences from everything that exists. Then you can also set your own price, higher than that of your competitors. And then what will the client compare and with what? Of course, a smart client can understand these subtleties, but there are few smart clients. And everyone else will simply see that services of different quality and composition are offered at different prices. Our work was successful, we achieved our goal, and our customers began to sell themselves more expensive.

To put it bluntly, your task is to change the wrapper, wanting to sell the contents more expensive. Most people judge something by its wrapper. This is not very difficult to do in fact, change the wrapper. You just need to practice more often in this business, not rust in your business, but soap more often, generate ideas. Creativity is trained through the madness of thought. You need to offer the most crazy ideas that will make your product different from the product of competitors and in the case of a price increase, it should be different from what you sold before, no matter what, just to be different. Don’t be afraid to fantasize about it. Each individual case may have its own idea, but there are no universal solutions. Some marketers advise you to focus on the needs of society. Well, for example, to adapt the quantity of goods to the needs of a certain group of customers, so that they do not sell a kilogram of something or not a hundred pieces, but less. This is a good idea, but don’t stop there. You can also impose your own standards on society, and not adapt to people’s requests. The consumer often doesn’t know what they need or want. Advertising has made such a mess of his brain that he has a mess in his head and his desire can be formally expressed as follows:" I want the best! «He doesn’t even know what is the best, but you can tell him that. And the best, as you understand, and should cost accordingly. So much for raising the price. Change the offer, feel free to say that it is the best and set the price for your product or service that suits you. Just do not forget about the client’s capabilities, they are also not unlimited.

And don’t raise the price of an old product, don’t do it. If you are not a monopolist and if raising the price of something is not massive, then this is a bad idea. And even if your competitors raise the price of the same product, you can still figure out how to change it for the customer so that your price increase is more fair than that of your competitors. So you can also lure other people’s clients to you. Do not be a parrot, do not repeat everything after others, just to be like everyone else. If you want to be a great merchant, then be special, not just one of many. And while most of them share the crumbs, you’ll take the cherry off the cake. Price is an annoying factor, remember that. There are, of course, individuals for whom a high price is an indicator of high quality, such specifically pursue a high price, and nothing cheap attracts them. But these are well-off people who have their own cockroaches in their heads. But even such customers don’t want to pay for something ordinary that everyone has, but for something special. So even in this case, you need to come up with differences for your product or service in order to stand out from other merchants. Fantasize and you will definitely come up with something.

Law 17. Don’t mess with bad products and services

It just so happens in my life that I learned this law of trade, and indeed the law of life in general, a little late, as a result of which I suffered a lot from working with the wrong people and their bad goods and services. The point here is not to connect your name with any rubbish that can get it dirty. And if your name is smeared, you will never be a great merchant, but just a merchant rat who drags everything he can carry.

A lot can be said about a person if you look at what he does, who and what surrounds him, what values are important to him, what he lives for, what he strives for. A tradesman, especially a great tradesman, a professional tradesman, should not tarnish his name by getting involved with all sorts of rubbish just because he is well paid for it. Name is always more important than money, remember that! If someone offers you to sell low-quality goods, harmful goods, in a word, outright shit, think ten times before agreeing. You can get burned on this shit. No, you may earn something at first, but in the long run you will definitely lose. And I understand that you are planning to live for a long time, not just for one day. If you want people to remember you, love you, and respect you, to be willing to cooperate with you long and seriously, to come back to you and carry their money — don’t sell them shit, don’t get involved with anything bad. And do not advertise any scams, do not sell what will show you from the bad side.

Never mind the money, think about your reputation, it’s more important. When there is a reputation, there will also be money. Reputation feeds for a long time, if it exists, and all these temporary earnings, just to quickly and earn more money, deceiving someone, foisting shit on people, it’s all not serious. In difficult times, you will die, because when consumption declines, people are always afraid to buy from those they do not know well and buy from those they trust. And even more so, they will not buy from someone who cheated them once. Fools who step on the same rake a hundred times over don’t count. But you can’t get enough of them alone, because fools quickly run out of money in difficult times. Yes, there are exceptions, some scammers, like Sergey Mavrodi, can catch a huge number of idiots for the same bait all their lives. People, even the same ones who have already been deceived in this way, fall for the same hook, because they are completely stupid. But this is exactly the exception that is not so easy to be. There, charisma takes its toll, the ability to hang noodles on your ears, make beautiful promises, plus you still need to be able to gather the necessary audience, after all, not everyone can be deceived all the time, but some can be if you reach out to such people, for example. Through the TV, which is not far away people just love to watch, eating all the advertising served through it. You may not have the necessary qualities and resources for such blatant fraud to buy ads designed for idiots, and you don’t need them, such fools, to sell them something rotten. You hesitate with them, they have a wind in their head, today they buy from you, tomorrow from someone else, these are extremely unstable buyers, not for all the time. It is better to sell decent products and services that will paint you, and you them. And sell them to reasonable people who always have money. For me, this is better, more reliable. Of course, you should also be able to work with fools, but this is a low level of trading. Aerobatics in this business is working with serious, money-making clients and on a regular basis.

Wise merchants know that good goods not only bring money, they also adorn a person’s name. People inevitably associate the product or service they bought with the person from whom they bought it and evaluate this person just for this product, even if he is just a seller and has nothing to do with the production of this product. There is no need to delve into the psychological jungle to explain this phenomenon, just understand that you do not need to dirty your name by associating with all sorts of rubbish. On the contrary, you need to associate yourself with all the best, prestigious, high-quality things, so that your name stands on the foundation of decent goods and decent services. It’s like being familiar with celebrities. You don’t seem to be a celebrity yourself, but you stand next to a celebrity, take photos with her, communicate with her, and part of the word of this celebrity goes to you. So it is with what you sell. The glory of the goods and services you sell will pass partly to you. You will be an authority in the eyes of people if they attribute all their successes and victories to you, even if you have a very mediocre attitude to them. This is psychology.

You might object to me by saying that there are examples where people started out selling stuff, got up with it, gained fat, and then started doing a more decent business. We have examples of merchants who, for example, rose in the trade of vodka and other poison, and then became bankers. These are, of course, interesting examples that indicate that it doesn’t matter where you started, it matters what you came up with. There are also some mafiosi who started out with drugs, weapons, prostitution, and then became quite decent businessmen engaged in real estate, gambling, and much more, which is not only legal, but also not immoral. I know these examples. But you must understand that there is too much way to go, where money does not play the most important role. Here you need connections, and a lot depends on the market conjuncture, you can not always succeed even in selling drugs because of the high competition, but you will get your name dirty, or even lose your freedom. It’s not so easy to move from bad to good. How many politicians with different reputations can not wash their name and the dirt behind them stretches all their lives, interfering with their career. Reputation can theoretically be washed, all sorts of image makers do this, and sins can be forgiven, but this is not always easy to do. This may take a lot of resources, which you may never have, no matter how many people you cheat, no matter how much trash you sell them.

It is more convenient, in my opinion, to initially embark on the path of a decent merchant who sells only the best possible goods and services. And if you sin by doing something dishonest and harmful, then little by little and so that no one knows. Selling normal things and doing normal business will create a name for yourself faster than moving from a bad product to a good one. It won’t be easy to clean up later. Getting involved with a bad product, with bad services, you are shitting on your reputation, and therefore you are eroding the foundation of your future.

There is another important point here that also needs to be taken into account. This is the habit of working poorly and the habit of cheating. It can be very difficult to adjust your thinking and change your behavior when a person has been behaving in a certain way for a long time. Habit is second nature. You can not work all your life carelessly or earn money in easy ways, and then at times become a serious, honest and responsible employee, a salesman. This is like many of our hand-assed workers from different fields who say that they do not work well because they are not paid enough. But try to pay them a lot, as much as they want, and they still won’t do a good job, they’ll still screw up. Because they are already used to working poorly, carelessly, used to doing everything poorly, justifying their laziness and sloppiness with low wages. And they won’t be able to rebuild themselves that easily, even if they try. Therefore, if you get used to working with all sorts of rubbish, for the sake of quick money, then later, when you are already required to take a completely different approach to work and to people, more serious, you simply will not be able to provide it. You’ll stay the same as you’ve always been. That’s what’s scary.

And if you don’t have a name, you don’t have the seriousness and responsibility, you don’t have to think about being a great merchant who can always make good money, even in very bad times. Some people say that you don’t need to be very smart to sell a good product. And you sell your poop at the price of candy, and then you can say that you are a cool seller. But I’m not talking about the need to sell only super-duper goods that are in demand even without your efforts, I’m talking about the need to work with a decent product, and not with shit, so as not to dirty your name, but on the contrary, to cost it. Whatever you’re selling doesn’t have to be the best, it just doesn’t have to be something that people will hate you for. Think about the future, try to work only with high-quality goods, useful services, work for a good company, and not for any scam shops, and you will build a name for yourself that will then work for you all your life, if you just don’t mess it up, and at the same time you will develop the character of a great merchant who knows the price. Such a merchant, if the word and advice know the price of both consumers and business partners. And this price is very high.

Law 18. Make gifts

This is a fairly simple law. And it seems to be known to many. Because in business, you can often see how people are offered some kind of gifts when buying certain things. But, first of all, this is not a technique that is always used by everyone, and secondly, it is often used too clumsily, rudely and senselessly promising and giving gifts to just about anyone and as it happens. Although it requires a very subtle approach to itself.

People, of course, are devilishly greedy for gifts, they are ready to overpay for goods, just to get something as a gift. It comes from childhood, we are accustomed to freebies with all sorts of gifts for birthday, New Year and other holidays. Just think, a person did nothing useful for others, but at the same time received something valuable. It is enough, in particular, that he was once born on a certain date, so he has the right to get something good, interesting, and necessary. This is a freebie, and who doesn’t like it? Traditions in this case make a gift a special value, a magical value, you might say. Naturally greedy for freebies, people quickly get used to the value not of what they are given, but of the gift itself. Just the word «gift» caresses their ears and evokes pleasant associations. But in business, this technique is abused, devaluing gifts, because they give all sorts of unnecessary nonsense, to everyone in a row and without any meaning. Well, what is it — buy flour and get a crappy mug as a gift. And flour at the same time costs two to three times more expensive than the same one, but without a gift. Well, what kind of idiot is this designed for? Such gifts do not carry any value in themselves and people begin to associate them with some expensive or even unnecessary product. Mediocre people from business have made a mess of the very idea of giving gifts, with their stupid greed and inertia. It’s like discounts that were once an attractive piece of candy, but turned into banal nonsense, because many discounts have nothing to do with the profitability of the purchase. Even worse, they are also provided on ugly terms, so that people no longer believe in them. But a discount is also a gift, it should be appropriate, and not be drawn on every shop window according to the lead and without.

Don’t be as incompetent as all these would-be businessmen who stupidly copy and hideously reproduce the once brilliant ideas of smart merchants. They defamed all the ideas, roughly reproducing them in their non-businesses. Act subtly, give gifts wisely. And not only for customers, but also for business partners. All you need, dear colleague, is just to figure out what gifts you will give to your clients who will buy something from you, what will be the benefits of these gifts for them and, most importantly, what will be their exclusivity. More precisely, the gift should emphasize the exclusivity of the buyer or partner, so as not only to be a valuable thing or some service that you give, but also to emphasize the exclusivity of the person to whom this gift is given. To do this, a person must have some achievements, so that the gift is a result of the efforts made on his part. Such gifts that people have achieved after passing some tests are especially valuable for them. What falls into our hands from the sky, even if it is something very useful, we do not really appreciate, unlike those things that we had to work hard to get. It makes us special in our own eyes. That’s what people really like-to feel special and look better than others. And of course, you need to tell them about it, they need to know that buying from you, they will receive gifts that will emphasize their exclusivity. In your gifts, they should see not just freebies, but also an opportunity to show themselves, an opportunity to surpass others.

You see, freebies are freebies, people certainly love them, love them very much, just adore them, and gifts stimulate this love in them. But people also have An ego that makes sure that people think very well of themselves, that they exalt themselves above others. To stimulate it, it is necessary not just to promise and give gifts, but to give them competently, distinguishing a person from other people. At the very least, every customer should have the impression that they are better than others. To do this, you need to give gifts for certain merits, and not just like that. Also with business partners. Well, you can’t give them all something the same, it’s like not giving them anything at all. You will simply emphasize your personal interest in cooperation with this or that partner with a banal gift, it will be your self-serving interest to show, but you will not single out or praise the partner in any way. And we need to do it. To do this, your gift should be selected directly for this partner, taking into account their interests, desires, problems, and other features. Don’t go near people with musical fountains that occupy half the office, I saw such a sight, it was terrible. Well, what the hell fountains. If you want to thank your partner, give them what they need, and then find out what they need. So you will look smarter than if you start giving unnecessary exotics, just to show yourself.

A gift is not just something that is useful — it is a whole ritual. And the ritual excites, causes a lot of unusual feelings, it is remembered and especially appreciated. It is not for nothing that it is considered important not what you give, but how you give it. If you give something to a customer, then do it in such a way that they receive a gift for some achievement, and not just because they came and bought something from you that you need to sell to earn money. Otherwise, in the future, he will consider it the norm for himself that each of his purchases must necessarily be accompanied by a gift from you. But even if you do this, he will quickly get tired of it, he will get fed up with this attitude towards himself and still run to your competitors for something new. For example, for a low price, you will not give him gifts out of your own pocket, you will include their cost in the price of the product, and this is already a minus for your offer. Do not devalue the very idea of a gift, it should not be taken for granted, it should be deserved.

The gift should symbolize some achievement of people, both buyers and business partners. They need to see that they have done something special, for example, in the case of customers, you can give them gifts for buying a certain amount, or for frequent purchases, or for buying some significant product, for an intelligent purchase (at a favorable price), and so on. In general, think for yourself about what people should do so special that you give them something. Naturally, the gift should be worthwhile, it should not be some cheap Chinese trinket that no one needs for anything at all. Not that the cheapness of a gift necessarily devalues it, but because the stupid dealers have already filled up customers with all sorts of shit, giving them gifts for no reason, people have become not very sensitive to them. That’s why you need to somehow distinguish your gift from other useless and cheap gifts.

Well, the reason, I repeat it again, charmingly should be serious, and not so that the gift to the person gets very easily. When I worked in an advertising agency, or rather, not in it, but with it, as a partner, and not as an employee, we took a very serious approach to thinking through the reasons for giving gifts to customers. We came up with different conditions under which these gifts were to be given, and then tested our ideas on customers, observing which of the ideas they would like best and give the maximum return. People should be eager to receive your gift, and not see it as something ordinary, to which they have long been accustomed. Then they will buy from you, including in order to get your gifts.

Law 19. Become a source of happiness

This law encourages you to address one of the most powerful and at the same time difficult human desires — the desire to be happy. This desire is as old as the world. And it is inherent in all mentally healthy people. Everyone wants to be happy, regardless of how each individual understands their happiness. Happiness is often something personal, subjective, even intimate, which is not easy to explain in words. Most people don’t even think about the essence and meaning of happiness, so they are open to accepting someone else’s concept of happiness, whatever it is, as long as it is convincingly beautiful. It is this openness to the ideas of happiness that you should use in trading.

You can convince a person that, for example, a new car can make him a truly happy person, or that a new phone will help him in this, or a very high-quality repair in the house is the way to happiness. Let not to absolute, but still happiness. You see, happiness can be anything. All these things that are sold today are sources of primitive joy and simple, affordable pleasure, they do make people happy, for a while and not much, but people nevertheless feel blissful when they buy all these things and this is the main thing. They believe in their happiness when they go out and buy them, and really experience it for a while. And most people don’t need to be happy for a long time, most people won’t even understand what real happiness is, eternal happiness, if you explain it to them. Most people do not profess the highest values, but simple, primitive, accessible to them and understandable to them joys. You need to grow up to real happiness with your mind and soul, and most people do not strive for this, they do not care about all sorts of higher truths, they do not understand them and therefore do not show any interest in them. Life is so arranged that the majority will always be so simple, narrow-minded. Therefore, to sell something to ordinary people, you need to offer them happiness in the form in which they are able to understand it, that is, in the form of simple earthly pleasures.

People love not just, but rather not only bodily pleasures, which they strive for all their lives and which they need to promise and offer when you sell something close to them, they also love to be better than others, cooler than others, smarter than others. People like to stand out from others. They also love the general approval when they are praised, when they are envied, and for this they are drawn to show-offs. All this flatters their Egos. Here with these primitive joys and connect your offer. A fairly strong and largely universal theme is sex, which is interesting to everyone, with the possible exception of the elderly and some not quite healthy people, so sexual overtones are often found in advertising. People associate their happiness with sex, and sometimes only with it. Therefore, if you hint, and in the case of narrow-minded people, directly say and show how your offer can improve their sex life and thus make them happy, you will definitely interest these people in your offer, they will reach out to you as a source of their happiness.

I like to develop the very idea of happiness by telling people in detail and emotionally about the state of bliss they can achieve and how much peace and confidence the life they will find by taking certain actions will bring them. That is, I talk about the state of happiness itself, describe it colorfully, draw various images as far as my imagination allows, and do not talk about what it is, happiness, consists of. A person will decide for himself what it means to him. He will already connect my words with his own feelings and ideas, with his life experience, and decide for himself what makes him happy. My task is only to encourage him to think like this. This approach helps me sell. People accept beautiful ideas, and they make them truly happy. Because true happiness lives in our heads. You can be happy in many situations, living a very different life. It is not necessary to be rich and have a lot of expensive and beautiful things. However, it is still better for people to talk about a beautiful life, linking it with their offer, because most of them are not idealists and will not understand how it is possible to be happy at all when you do not have an expensive and prestigious car or, if we are talking about a woman, she will not understand, how can you be happy if she doesn’t have a fancy dress and an expensive purse? Well, I say this in general terms, how non-idealistic people think, their happiness is always connected with the possession of various material things, they do not know any other happiness.

Therefore, your proposal should be related to what people dream of. Promise them a rich, beautiful life, prestige, respect, recognition, admiration of others, a lot of things, lots of sex, no fear, no threats, no prohibitions, no problems, diseases and so on. In a word, promise them Paradise. That’s how much your offer allows you to do it, so make it a path to paradise life. For example, when I was selling security devices, we beautifully told our customers about how well they would be protected by purchasing our equipment. We made them happy by guaranteeing them safety and peace. Isn’t it a blessing when you have nothing to fear and are protected? If you explain this beautifully, people will understand that life can be good just because they don’t have any serious problems in it. But here, of course, it all depends on what exactly you are selling.

Just think for yourself, how can your offer, how can what you want to sell to people, make them happy? Separate yourself from your sentence and look at it from the outside. What would you say to yourself to make you want to pay for what you’re selling? I do not know how you personally understand happiness, what you see it for yourself, but you must have a connection between this feeling and those things that are sold for money and that you are ready to buy, so that you feel better, so that you experience greater joy. There is always some logic that explains why buying certain things makes a person happy, especially you. It needs to be identified and explained in order to know what to say to other people in order to encourage them to make a deal. For example, if I buy a book, as was the case before, when I spent a lot of money on books, then I saw happiness in this for myself due to the thoughts that motivated reading will lead me to success in life. I will win more often, achieve my goals, and be more comfortable with people if I am well-read. Actually, this is what happened, which is natural. My reading was motivated precisely because I paid money for books, for most of them, and did not take them from someone, or, when the Internet appeared, did not download them for free. Free books are not valued as much as paid ones, so even the best books in the world, obtained for free, may not be read by the person who got them too easily. No motivation. And motivation is everything. All our success depends on it. No money was invested in the unpaid books, no sacrifices were made for them, so their value is questionable. This is how our psyche works, how we perceive reality. So I was happy to know that spending money on useful smart books and then reading them makes me stronger.

But these are my motives. They may be different for you and other people. You need to adapt to other people’s ideas about happiness. If you know about them, that’s fine. You have valuable information that you can use in your offer, drawing a picture of happiness to the person. And if not, push the basic values-money, sex, no problems, public recognition, show-offs. In most cases, you can’t fly with these things. If your offer allows it, then tell people how they can get rich if they use it. Everyone loves money, for many people it is the presence of a large amount of money that is happiness. And you must become a guide to this happiness, convincing the person that you are doing everything in your power to find it. People love it when someone works hard for them, to make their life better. For the most part, they are not like that, they are selfish beings, they don’t think about others, they think only about themselves. But others are expected to act altruistically, especially those who are paid. People generally believe that everyone owes them more than they owe anyone else. This is such an infantile attitude to life that you need to take into account.

Remember: happiness is in a person’s head, not in the outside world. For you, this means that everything depends on your words, with which you will have to explain to people how cooperation with you can make them happy. And to do this, first explain it to yourself, prove to yourself that you can make someone happy, thanks to your offer. What’s on sale there — some product or some service, so think about how you can become a happy person thanks to it. By making deals with each other, people want to make their lives better. But it’s not always obvious how a particular product or service can improve someone’s life. For example, I don’t understand how you can become happy if you buy yourself, say, a new expensive phone, the same iPhone. I don’t see my happiness in it, for the life of me. I understand that the youngsters, who are nothing of themselves, need to somehow establish themselves in their environment, so they need these show-offs. But I do not see the connection between my happiness and these pieces of iron. But to sell such a piece of hardware, I must see or invent such a connection and convince myself of its reality and importance. Only then can I go to the client and convince him that this iron box can make him a happy person. He’ll believe me and buy it, because I believed it in the first place, and that’s why my words are so damn convincing. I have sold my own happiness, and then I will sell it to others.

And what is most interesting, they will actually become happy when they buy this thing, believing in its magical power. Because it is not its presence or absence that makes a person happy, but his belief that this thing brings happiness.

Law 20. Provide support to customers after they sell your product or service

An important law, the observance of which allows you to earn the reputation of a serious, responsible, honest and decent person, which should be a truly great merchant, to which, as they say, the national path will not grow. I have always kept in touch with my customers and partners while running my business. It is clear that for large businesses, such support has long been not only the norm, but also a necessity. I’m talking here about each individual merchant, a seller who needs to provide such support to their customers after they buy something. Well, or at least notify them that such support is possible.

There are plenty of sellers who will sell their goods and forget about the customer, but there are only a few who remember them and are even ready to do something for them for free, then after they have already bought something. And what can be done for free and at the same time useful that the client will appreciate? Of course, provide informational support! Sometimes just asking a customer how satisfied they are with everything is enough to make them like it. At a minimum, he will then buy something else from you, seeing that you do not forget him and he can always count on your help in the form of advice. And as a maximum, they will recommend you to other people — their friends, acquaintances, colleagues, relatives, as a pleasant and honest person, a true professional in their field. People like to share such useful information with each other in order to earn the praise of friends and acquaintances for good advice. And you will definitely need such word of mouth, because it is the best advertisement for any business.

Providing information support is not so difficult, although in some cases it is expensive. It is clear that the larger the business and the more customers it has, the more difficult it is to communicate with them yourself, without delegating this task to other people or even individual companies. This is not possible at all, you can keep in touch with everything yourself, unless you take into account the largest customers, with whom it is not a sin to communicate, so that they do not go to competitors. That’s why there are all these support services and call centers, with their, most often, stupid and useless work, which you probably encountered when trying to get help from various companies and communicating with narrow-minded operators who give boilerplate answers. Well, some of them work fine, others just provide terrible support, they don’t know anything about what you ask them. But this applies to large companies, their businesses, and their organization of customer support. I’m telling you about your own information support for those with whom you cooperate. First of all, you must provide it, and people must be able to contact you. And secondly, it should be at a high level, so that your concern for the client is clearly visible to everyone. This is a fat plus in your karma.

Even I sell my books and provide other services to people, in particular, I recently advise people on personal budget management, and then try to communicate with many of them personally on certain issues that they have, even if this is not my responsibility under the terms of our cooperation. Yes, this is time that costs money, and I spend it, because the more people who want to discuss something with you, the more you are distracted from your work, which brings you money. This is exactly what happens to me. There are certain losses due to this. But there are also significant acquisitions. Because this is also an important job, and it will also later bring money from those who will become your clients. Communication with people is your contribution to your name, to your credibility, to the credibility of your business, and in general — it is a contribution to your future. You sacrifice your time and earnings in order to attract people to you, spread useful rumors about yourself, and be perceived as a serious and responsible person. Just pay attention to how many reviews you can find on the Internet about a particular company, about all sorts of businesses, specialists that people focus on before they buy something. In most cases, these are all purchased reviews, often even poorly executed, which immediately catches the eye. And as long as the company has the money to provide such fake reviews, it will have them.

How effective such reviews are is a separate issue that requires special study. Here it is necessary to conduct research in order to understand whether they have any benefit or not and what benefits they have in themselves, if any. Sometimes the costs of such advertising can be completely unjustified, that is, they do not pay for themselves. Mena has data confirming such cases. I suggest that you work on creating real reviews, the usefulness of which will be expressed not only in their more sincere form, but also in the longer life of such reviews. People don’t keep their mouths shut, they like to tell something, share something with each other, and you will give them this opportunity by your respectful behavior with them, your help to them. Your customer support is advertising. It’s partly free, you don’t pay for it, but it’s partly paid because you spend your time talking to people.

Understand that in the modern world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to draw attention to yourself, and even more so to stand out from other people, against the background of the same competitors. But this is the main task for anyone, especially a small and young business, which no one knows about yet. People pour huge amounts of money into advertising and promotion, trying to put their business on its feet, to declare it as loudly as possible, and they do not always succeed. But such seemingly simple ways to capture the memory of people with whom you are already dealing are somehow not particularly used. But that’s a good thing. If everyone followed this law of commerce, it would not be exclusive and would not carry such benefits. And then I would hardly describe it in this book. After all, there is no point in doing something that everyone does. Imitation will not help you to rise above the crowd, to join it, yes, but not to rise above it. It makes sense to do something that will make you stand out from the rest, that will show people where you are better than your competitors. That’s what you need to be focused on to be great, not just one of many. The great ones skim the cream, and the rest are content with crumbs.

Small businesses, even to survive, use a more individualized approach to customers and focus on a narrower segment of the market. When you’re small, you should do one thing very well, not all at once and badly. This is a necessary condition for competing with large companies. And the individual trader, no matter what offer he makes in the market, should try to work with each client as if he is the only one, at least until he creates a name for himself, does not promote and he does not have a lot of customers. To gain fat, you need to start somewhere, very few people manage to jump right off the bat, most often everything happens gradually, step by step. First, we lick the client so that he is delighted with us, and then, when we gain fat, gain fame and we will have a sea of such clients, they will try to please us so that we serve them well. This does not mean that you should then spit on everyone, it’s just that there will no longer be a need to spread out in front of everyone, and the same information support can already change its form, it can be assigned to someone on the side. Although, it all depends on the individual business. I don’t think that for the same writer, no matter how many fans he has, it is appropriate for someone to entrust communication with them. But here, of course, everything depends on its capabilities.

The main thing is to remember that communication with people is a very useful procedure for the merchant, it can be many times more useful than some banal advertising.

Law 21. Ask your client to help you help them

A very interesting law that I discovered through studying psychology and diplomacy. And of course, it is very valuable. Here are some useful and interesting ideas that you won’t find in books if you read them. I love reading. It’s just a pity that life doesn’t allow me to read more. After all, in books you can find so many good thoughts that improve your life. And then, by testing these thoughts in real conditions, you can be convinced of their absolute genius. This is exactly what happened to me when I discovered this law. I have seen in practice that it works just fine. Let me explain it to you.

You see, no matter who your client is, even a simple consumer, even the head of a large company, or even the state represented by a particular official, this person may have a negative attitude to your business proposal, for a variety of reasons that are completely beyond your control. Identifying these causes can be difficult, and sometimes people themselves don’t understand what they don’t like, what makes them angry, and what they are dissatisfied with. They just don’t want to buy anything from you, that’s all. Or cooperate with you. It is pointless to persuade them and seduce them with some advantages of the product, the profitability of cooperation, because if a person has already got it into his head that he does not need you and your product, then you will not convince him. It is better not to try, otherwise the resistance on his part will only increase, and he will distance himself from you even more.

But you can and even need to ask them to help you understand what you can do for them, how you can help them meet some need, solve some problem or problems that are poisoning their life. Let him think about what you can do for him. In other words, you don’t have to explain, impose, or prove anything to him yourself.Ask him to think about the terms of cooperation that are favorable for him. Involve them in the sales process, in the process of making a deal. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t, but the person needs to see that you care about them, that you came to them not only to sell and make money on them, but that you really want to help them, do something for them. Well, or that you are interested in making your deal profitable for both of you, you want to make it so, you just don’t know how. You have to show them that you earn your money in a decent way, solving people’s problems, meeting their needs, fulfilling their desires, taking into account their interests, and not just selling them something like a small-grade merchant.

We don’t know what some people might want, what they might disagree with, or what they might not like, so we just need to politely ask the client to share with you their thoughts on how you could be useful to them. Polite, calm, friendly, remember that. Just find out his opinion on this matter, you don’t need anything else. Ask him about it. Use the word «please» so as not to seem too arrogant, be good-natured and sincere. Convince yourself that it will be right and good. It’s great to do something for someone and make money from it. Give a person the opportunity to express their wishes, this alone is worth a lot. A person should understand that you are not an enemy, or at least feel it, they should see that you have not come to take away the resources necessary for life, for survival, you just want to cooperate with them, on favorable terms, not only for you, but also for them.

When I used this law in my work with people, I often managed to extinguish their aggressive attitude towards me in the first place. They initially perceived me as a person who breaks into their lives with their product or service to use them, and not to do something for them. And I did it, that is, I sold something so actively, most often when I was young, without having a name and reputation, I was engaged in active sales, when I sold my consulting services. I had to go to people, to serious people, and offer them cooperation. At first, I didn’t know this law, and many things didn’t work out for me. And when I found out, things went much better, because I began to actively use it. I was extremely attentive to the words of the interlocutor and always politely asked him to help me understand what he wanted. You see, people are not against cooperation, they understand that in this life you constantly have to buy and sell something. This is normal, this is the economic activity that we all need. It’s just that they often think that they know better where, what, when, and from whom they are profitable and need to buy. It is their belief in their own rightness, in their own enlightenment in this matter, that often prevents them from getting any benefit. Here there is a profitable offer that is profitable right here and now, but tomorrow it may not be relevant, and the person does not understand this. There are plenty of such examples. Once Google was not bought without seeing its potential, when its creators wanted to sell it for mere pennies, they asked for a million dollars for it, if I’m not mistaken, and the buyers did not agree to such a deal. And then she shot so hard that the amount they were asking for her was ridiculous. Now it’s worth billions.

You can’t explain to people that your offer is exactly what it is, that it is profitable here and now, and they need to take advantage of the opportunity that you provide. Because sometimes you’re not sure. And sometimes your offer is really not so good as to be accepted, but at least it’s not worse than others’. A person will not accept your arguments in favor of cooperation with you, because in his eyes you are a merchant who needs his money, needs a contract. But when you ask him to think about how you can please him, in what ways you can be useful to him, you will force him to think about the benefits of working with you. This is how you remove his block on constructive communication with you. People are just people to think about something, and not to cut down from the shoulder, rejecting certain offers, even trying to find some benefit for themselves in them. A person should think, so give him such an opportunity with your question or better to say, with your request.

This is pure psychology, when a person is irrational in their behavior, they are controlled by their patterns and emotions, and not by some calculation and logic, so they refuse to cooperate without even thinking about it. And your task is not to try to push through his defensive reaction, this stupid behavior with people who have a strong character, and even more so the situation is strong, with them it simply will not work, but to weaken it and then completely remove it, making it clear by your desire to please that you are ready to listen and hear him. If you’ve ever been called by incompetent marketers on the phone and tried to sell something, like a card, for example, a credit card, from some bank, then you know how they can be very annoying because they don’t hear you at all and don’t try to understand your words. They’re just stupid robots that tell you shit out of a piece of paper and are completely oblivious to your reaction to their chatter. And those managers who draw these pieces of paper for them are less knowledgeable in human psychology than market hucksters. More precisely, they understand only the psychology of individual human individuals with low intelligence, under which this dread is written. But they can’t adapt to a smarter consumer themselves, and they don’t teach this to their callers. It is the lack of this necessary flexibility that prevents them from selling a lot to many.

But this law, which I am kindly sharing with you, is a vivid example of the ability to be flexible and not put pressure on a client or partner, but to look together with them for an opportunity to please them. At a minimum, you should remove his negative attitude towards you by inviting him to think about your usefulness to him. And as a maximum, this is a way to start working with them. Others will not be able to do this, he will simply ignore them, and you, by following this law, will be able to.

Law 22. Sacrifice yourself for trust

This law is as important as it is simple. But people who sell something, because of their nature, which makes them greedy, rarely follow it. Trust is a valuable resource in our world. Whatever it concerns, it is useful everywhere and yet it is so difficult to earn it. Fools trust everyone, smart people trust only those who deserve their trust. At the same time, you deserve trust for years, but you can lose it in one moment, betraying, deceiving, substituting a person. To earn the trust of people, especially smart ones, who can’t be fooled into talking about their honesty and decency, you need to sacrifice something for them, for example, your own benefit. The bigger the victim, the more serious a person you will be in the eyes of the client, and they will trust you, seeing what sacrifices you make for their sake and for the sake of your principles of honesty and decency. There are really few such people.

Sacrifice is what is required of you. You have to sacrifice something for the client to show them that you are worthy of working with them. It is clear that neither for the sake of each client, partner is worth making sacrifices. It is necessary to choose those of them who can become a regular customer or a big customer in the future. Here you can already look at their needs and the specifics of your business. If you’re selling something that you’ve already bought and said goodbye to, then you probably don’t need to sacrifice anything for someone, unless you want to throw dust in your eyes in order to make a big deal. Then it is necessary to sacrifice small fish for the sake of large fish. If your business allows for constant cooperation, then be sure to enter into the trust of the client, a fat client who has a lot of money, through sacrifices. Give up the extra extra charge where possible, spend more time on a person than you usually spend, and provide them with some additional services for free if you mess up something so that they can see how dear they are to you. For example, if a person has booked a room in your hotel, but when they arrive, they find that they are already occupied, then at your own expense solve their problem with checking into another room, show them that you are responsible for your business, and not like a rat running away from a sinking ship, leaving people with their problems. In our country, even large companies allow themselves such swinishness. But you can still understand them, although they are not monopolists, but they have a huge piece of the market, the same mobile operators or Internet providers, whose support you can’t get through to. And for a small merchant, it is simply unacceptable to treat the problems of their customers negligently for the sake of short-term benefits.

Sacrifices are needed to ensure that trust is earned. Not all people trust beautiful and clever words, even bright demonstrations do not convince them. Only business, only time, only something that takes a person away from themselves for their sake can convince them that they are worth dealing with. It’s like in the mafia or in gangs, if you want to become one of them, you must prove your determination and loyalty through a serious crime, and until you have sacrificed nothing, you are an outsider and there is no trust in you. And political pariahs also demand various sacrifices from their members to make sure that you are ready to do anything for the interests and ideals of the party. And how else, think about it, to get proof of someone’s loyalty? How else can you make sure that a person is not a rat who will throw you at the first opportunity, but will be ready to risk something for you? Why do you need all these selfish cowards who only save their own skin, if something happens, why do you need greedy sellers who will give you some rubbish and run away with your money? No, let them first prove that they are worthy people by sacrificing something for you, and only then you will let them come to you. And that, I’ll tell you, is fair.

And if you also knew what the leaders of some large companies had to go through in their lives, how many times they faced fraud and betrayal, as soon as they were not drowned and crushed by bandits and government officials, you would understand why they treat people with great caution, including merchants. A man who has passed through fire, water and copper pipes, earned his money by hard work and has a status for which he sacrificed a lot. And then some brat comes to him with junk or a business and, like, lucrative offer and wants to start working with him just because he’s so cool about himself, active, like educated, who knows better than this person what he needs. There are plenty of such clever people. Working with them is not always profitable and easy, because they are often irresponsible about their obligations, and smart, experienced people know this very well. Many such dealers have passed through them. Therefore, they need to make sure that the person who came to them represents something, that this is a worthy person to cooperate with.