The Master Salesman

“Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the Lord God had made. The serpent asked the woman, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” (Genesis 3: 1)

The devil is a master salesman. Watch his steps:

• He makes a suggestion
• We listen to him
• Then he states the promise
• We are enticed by the promise
• He urges action
• We act

These steps are not different from the model of advertising called AIDA. This stands for:

• A: attention
• I: Interest
• D: Desire
• A: Action

According to this model, to sell anything, you need to take the prospect from attention to action. You start by capturing the attention of the prospect and quickly develop her interest in the product. Then get the prospect to desire ownership of the product and at this point, urge action.
This also is the model for temptation. If we do not want to buy a product, we stop the sales pitch at the level of attention-grabbing. If we allow the salesman or the snake to grab our attention, we expose ourselves to the next level of the sales effort.