When you can get the prospect to think that they cannot live without purchasing your product or get them to think that they will be much better off purchasing the product / service from you instead of your competition you will close the sale.

Even if you are selling a product that is a necessity of life, you can use the technique of ‘A luxury once had becomes a necessity’ simply by making your service the luxury the customer cannot live without.

The Two ways I have always been successful turning a luxury into a necessity:

1. Involving the prospect in the sale
   There was a glass company in the 50’s located somewhere in New York that invented their form of safety glass. This new non-shatter proof glass was perfect for homes and business especially for anyone interested in safety.Although they had a great product and great customer service they were selling very little of their new product. “Safety Glass’.

   It was decided that the best avenue to sales success would be through motivating their sales force with a powerful incentive. They gathered all the sales staff together on a snowy December afternoon and announced: The sales person who sells the most safety glass in the next six months will be rewarded an all expense paid vacation for them and their spouse to the Bahamas for ten days. Well of course all the sales people were excited. The company gave each of them a pane of the safety glass, a stack of brochures and sent them out to sell safety glass.

   Six months later they all gathered and Jim had sold more safety glass than all the other sales people put together.

   The owner of the company asked, “Jim how did you sell so much safety glass, more than everyone else put together?” Jim replied, “I believe the reason it has been so hard to sell the new safety glass is because our customers see it as a luxury, something they and their customers have done without. And with the price being higher than regular glass I could not even get their attention to listen to my sales presentation.

   So to get their attention, instead of just showing them the safety glass and showing them the brochures, I got them involved in the sale by placing the safety glass on their counter. I went back to the hammer section of their store, grabbed a hammer, handed it to them and told them to strike the glass as hard as they could.

   When they raised the hammer and came down as hard as they could on the glass and the glass did not shatter they were amazed and said, “I can sell that glass!”

2. Try it out
   The ‘Try It Out’ technique is a great way to turn ‘A luxury once had becomes a necessity’.
   The technique is much more than getting the product in the customer’s hands at the store or sales presentation.Although for some items just getting the prospect to use the item briefly will close the sale. When you get the customer to use / experience your product / service in the environment they will receive the most benefits from the product / service, it is much easier to close the sale.

   When I went into the jewelry business I quickly realized that the more jewelry I could get the prospect to put on their bodies, the more jewelry we sold to them. So being aggressive, and knowing the more they tried out my jewelry in the environment they received the most benefits from it, I encouraged my customers to wear the jewelry to social events where others would pay them complements. Those pieces of jewelry were never returned and the price never questioned.

   When radial tires came on the consumer market in the 70’s, with a price tag of four times the price of any tire we had previously sold, we very rarely lost a sale once we got the prospect to try the tires on their automobile. No one wanted to give up the smooth ride and go back to the rock sold ride of nylon and glass belted tires.

A luxury once had becomes a necessary only when you give the prospect the opportunity to make it a necessity.