As I was recording episode #700 for my podcast (with guest Ben Settle, release date next Monday), we got into a discussion about “negative striplining”.
According to Ben, it’s when you’re:
“Being MORE negative than your prospect, lead, customer, or would-be client about which you are attempting to persuade or influence them to do … the general rule is, the more skeptical your prospect, the harder the stripline”
So you’re doing the opposite of what most people do in sales … you’re almost trying to convince the other person not to buy what you’re selling (and ironically, you can sell more this way!).
Looking back at my own business, I realize that I’ve been doing negative striplining without even knowing it had a name.
In a lot of my sales copy, and conversations, I try to push away people I don’t want to work with (ie: the get-rich-quick types, lazy ones who aren’t willing to roll up their sleeves, and ones that get off on a hit of dopamine by buying something but never seem to take action on it).
I’ve also used it when talking with potential joint venture partners.
Awhile back I had a call with one, and near the end of it he asked:
“What guarantees do you give with your partnership packages Marc?”
I answered:
“There are no guarantees in life, only death and taxes … and COVID, it would seem”
He laughed and I continued with:
“I CAN guarantee that I work very hard for my partners and I’ll promote the heck out of you during our campaign to get you the most exposure possible”
Here’s the thing – I can only guarantee things that I can control, like the amount of exposure I give a partner (daily emails, podcast/Facebook Live interviews, social media posts, etc).
But if they have an inferior product or service, or a broken process to convert leads into sales, I can’t do anything about that.
The partner came on board, we had a great campaign and a lot of fun, and it worked out beautifully.
If you’re struggling with sales, give the “negative stripline” a shot – you’ll stick out like a sore thumb by doing the opposite of 99.99% of entrepreneurs in the online space.
Alright – if you’d like to partner up and have me promote the heck out of you too, I have a select number of JV openings for this spring. Details here:
