What you can learn from how to sell a brick

A few weeks back I went to New York to interview “the world’s greatest salesman”.

His name is Todd Herman and he’s the guy on the left.

The guy on the right has done even better. He’s Mark Zuckerberg. Yes; the Facebook man.

Todd won a contest run by my old agency, OgilvyOne. His challenge was to sell a brick.

After winning the contest Todd was whisked off to Cannes by the Ogilvy people, where he was quite a celebrity. So much so that Mark Z came up to him and said, “Aren’t you the guy that’s the world’s greatest salesman?”

Todd bashfully confessed to this, then reverted to type. “Why don’t you buy me a drink?” And Mark did.

You can see how Todd sells bricks here – and yes, he got people to part with good money http://www.youtube.com/watchv=DYnazMDvGsI

There is a great lesson- especially for copywriters – in that little clip. Don’t sell the thing. Sell the dream. And the best dream to sell is the dream people have of themselves

It turns out that Todd’s a successful internet marketer and quite a few big firms (especially ad agencies) could learn a lot from his website, as you will see if you go http://www.thepeakathlete.com.

In short, he’s pretty smart.

I like to think that’s because – so he told me – he’s been studying me for years.

But you know these super-salesmen: they are masters at the gentle art of flattery.

Which brings me to my next amazing trick. Tonight I’ll be interviewing Dave Clabeaux who, with his partner Ben Moskel, turns over something in excess of a million a year as an affiliate marketer.

Their business is admirably simple – run from a kitchen table.

So why aren’t we all doing that well? That’s one thing I’ll be asking him. Watch this space for news of when you can hear the interview.