Are You Making a Sale or Selling a Dream?

At Apple Computer in the early 1980s, Guy Kawasaki and his marketing team didn't just sell computers with an easy-to-use user interface…. Instead, Apple sold the Macintosh dream: to improve productivity and creativity, and to resist the IBM “clone,” literally.

Building on the momentum of loyal and extremely passionate customers, Apple created an evangelism department and hired marketers to accomplish three things: evangelize, evangelize, evangelize. Guy was eventually named the company's “chief evangelist,” and Apple evolved into something resembling a religious doctrine. Its customers are believers, and true believers help spread the word based on the emotional connection that the company promotes and inspires.

Evangelism is an authentic sales format because its roots lie in sharing ideas, insights and hope. It's rooted in what's good for the prospect, not the seller. It's more powerful than most traditional forms of selling, because…

• Evangelism is authentic. To be an evangelist for your company, you must believe in its products, services and, most importantly, the company. Passion is difficult to fake. Customers smell a commission-driven sale a mile away.
  
  
• Evangelism is about long-term relationships. Sharing insights, ideas and values builds long-lasting relationships with customers; it's not just brokering an emotionless transaction.
  
  
• Evangelism builds upon itself. When people believe in you, the company and your cause, they want to bring others under your tent.

Using a chart adapted from Kawasaki's book, Selling the Dream, let's examine how a traditional sales culture compares to an evangelism ideology:

Take the concept of motivation and answer this question: What is the primary motivation of your company?

• To make money? Create shareholder value?
  
  
• Or is your motivation to change the world and improve customers' lives?

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Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba are the authors of Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force.