Does Negative Selling Affect Our Investment Decisions?

Americans were recently exposed to one of the worst political seasons on record for negative advertising. Amazingly, one candidate knew that the TV ad they were running against the opponent was an outright lie, yet refused to refute his unfounded claims.

Conventional wisdom among campaign professionals is that negative ads do, in fact, work. That is, while voters might not like negative ads, their perceptions of candidates attacked in negative ads are tarnished by the information they are exposed to. However, two important qualifications must be made to this general observation. First, according to the survey data presented above, voters do not treat all negative information equally. If the allegations or information presented in a negative ad are not perceived as relevant, the effects of the ad will probably be less significant. Second, while negative ads have the capacity to weaken political support for a candidate's opponent, "going negative" in a campaign can also diminish the attacking candidate's stature among voters. There is a perceptible "backlash" effect when a candidate persistently publishes or airs negative information about his or her opponent, especially when that information is not perceived by voters as immediately relevant to the campaign.


What does it have to do with Medical Sales?

Negative selling against a competitor can work sometimes. But who wins? When we're talking about capital equipment, there can be a lot of commissions on the line for the rep. as well as tremendous buyers remorse for the Doctor.

We all know that there some reps that will do anything to get the sale... even state untruths about their competition. What if a company says they will “throw in” a competitors laser IF you buy theirs? They then would most obviously be including or selling you something that they were at first trying to counter, right? And would it come with training, manuals, warranty, parts, protocols?

Does it feel sometimes like buying a laser is like bidding on eBay? Will you be the highest bidder in the auction game?