Donald Trump and “Hurt & Rescue” Sales Technique

There is a classic sales technique called “hurt and rescue.”

In the hurt and rescue approach, the sales person works very hard to make the person he is trying to sell feel pain and discomfort, and to experience his/her problems as intensely as possible.

When the sales person has the target in a distressed state, really feeling his pain, the sales person then presents the solution, either a product or service that will make the pain go away usually by solving the problem that is the root cause of the pain.

In the case of politics, instead of selling a product or service, the politician is selling him self or herself.

Because Donald Trump is nothing more than a salesman, “hurt and rescue sales technique” is precisely what he has been doing for months. He has been describing America as a terrible place for months, and he did this very explicitly during his presidential nomination acceptance speech on July 21 at the Republican National Convention.

By reciting some facts, several lies and many half-truths, Trump depicted a false and very dark picture of a distressed America. Many of the “facts” Trump recited during his speech have been discredited by journalists. He made it sound as though there were thousands of foreign killers roaming our streets with no goal other than to kill as many good Americans as they possibly could.

After spending nearly the entire first hour trying to paint a picture of some kind of scary hellscape, he then said “I alone can fix it.” He also claimed to be able to “fix it quickly.” Suddenly, on January 21, after his being sworn into office, happiness and prosperity will be restored, and there will be no killing of innocent civilians or police officers, if one buys what he is selling. Trump insisted that he, and only he, is the solution to all of the problems that he described so vividly.

This is nothing more than Trump using hurt and rescue sales technique.

 

 

 

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