The Art of Selling and the Power of Favor

“To make someone want to do something as a “favor” is a form of sales in itself.”

I’m working on market research for a company as an intern. The company provides people with the appropriate training and resources for employment or switching careers. They’re trying to expand to the market of younger high school to college students, seeking university entry, which is where I come in. Part of my work involves conducting interviews with this younger demographic, figuring out what are their “paying points” or needs.

Since I have my friends who dispersed through all parts of the world, getting access to a large pool of connections to conduct these interviews shouldn’t be a problem. But when my boss asked me: “How do you plan on convincing people to conduct this interview with you”. I was unable to give a satisfying answer. Because I’m not necessarily convincing, but instead, it’s a favor. “Martin’s a nice guy, so I’ll do an interview with him.” It’s clear my boss viewed this in a negative light. He gave me the advice that everything is sales. Everything is an exchange of value, otherwise it is a favor. Using this model of thinking, I revised my plan. For college students, I can leverage my position as an intern — college students want to talk to people with internships, they want to know more about the process of getting them to enter the professional world. For high school students, selling is a lot easier. This program could be really interesting to them as potential customers, and being at an established university like NYU makes younger students want to learn more about my background and my path to admissions. Sales is important. It makes you more confident in any transaction. It makes you more aware of what value you bring, and what value you want to extract from someone else. It’s the fundamentals of business and marketing. It’s something you always hear people talk about, but now I’m glad to have understood it from a hands-on point of view.

However, I couldn’t stop thinking about the value of the favor. Often the line between sales and favor is not so clear. I see favor as the more emotional side of selling something, less rational, more unpredictable. The art of this favor lies in this tremendous emotional power. To make someone want to do something as a Favor is a form of sales in itself. We’ve seen it everywhere. Favors can get people internships, into the E-board of that fancy Stern club, favors alone can get me a large pool of interviewees to complete my job. At the root of marketing and business is sales, but also at the root of us as human beings is emotion. And an underrated side of sales is in the emotional aspect of the favor. Which is why it's strange when business-men have this cut-throat quality about them, this cold and pragmatic attitude. Have you ever favored a small-business rather than big corporation? The local coffee shop on Thompson St rather than the local Starbucks. Have you ever thought about getting an electric car? Or been swayed by an advertisement that uses an inspirational subject matter? Or returned to the same barbershop over and over because “you never cheat on your barber”? This is the power of emotions in our decision making. This is the power of favor. 

In our modern world, where I think the importance of emotion and kindness is more urgent than ever to keeping our societies intact, it’s crucial to consider our mindset on human exchanges. Although as everyday working people conducting our jobs, we should keep sight of the usefulness of sales, I think it’s even more important, as members of society, as human beings to keep in mind the value of the favor.