You Hear Cannons Or Trumpets?

"Buy on the sound of cannons, sell on the sound of trumpets"

Wisdom from back in 1810 attributed to London financier, Nathan Rothschild.

At a time when peace was an uncommon time, the oft-listenable Singaporean David Kuo reminded his 'smart investors' of this advice as Putin maniacally eyes invading Ukraine.

Apparently the traditional safe havens of precious commodities like gold and the American Dollar, Swiss Franc and Japanese Yen will all welcome a fillip if Moscow repeats its mistakes of history and bombs Kyiv. Anywhere reliant on Russian energy supplies though, like the Eurozone, can expect a tanking.

Regardless of current Kremlinology, this metaphor can surely be extended into our Corporate sphere.

In my three decades of solution selling, I've experienced that it is remarkably true how companies are ever more prone to try buy their way out of trouble, rather than 'fix the roof when the sun is shining' with shrewd investment.

Couple this with the perhaps now out-of-fashion principle of understanding where your buyer sits and you might well have a powerful framework for a telling conversation with your prospect right now.

The four Buyer Response Modes as promoted by advocates of the Strategic Selling system are; Growth, Trouble, Even-Keel/Indifferent, Over-Confident.

These ideally are specific to how they respond to the change your proposal represents to them.

You could make a parallel between those in Growth mode hearing trumpets, and those sensing Trouble in earshot of cannon.

To ask the question which uses the above citation as a springboard, 'are you hearing cannons or trumpets?', relative to the issue you major in bettering, would certainly set you off on a path which reveals why they'll buy.

Whether they hear one of these, or do not at all, meaning they're likely yet to understand your true worth to them, you will no doubt be getting closer to the one thing alien to Putin; a win-win.