The Psychology of Selling

If you understand the psychology of selling you can improve your close rates and sell to prospects like never before. Here are our top tips to start selling smarter and faster by understanding the psychology of the buying process.

The Google Example: Psychology of Selling

There was a trend where offices in startups and software companies tried to imitate Google-like, colorful, and youthful decor. These offices encouraged fun, games, great cafeteria, bike riding, and a wannabe cool mentality. Companies did this to sell the picture of success and a relaxed workplace. They were tapping into the minds of their top talent recruits by associating themselves with these images of youth and success.

 

The trendy, start-up office is just an example where psychology matters to close a deal. That’s why the psychology of selling is a critical angle to consider for every salesperson because it can be the difference between losing a promising prospect and closing the deal with a tough one. In this article, we will focus on the psychological aspects of the sales process with advice for better sales results.

Be Genuine

There was a trend where offices in startups and software companies tried to imitate Google-like, colorful, and youthful decor. These offices encouraged fun, games, great cafeteria, bike riding, and a wannabe cool mentality. Companies did this to sell the picture of success and a relaxed workplace. They were tapping into the minds of their top talent recruits by associating themselves with these images of youth and success.

 

The trendy, start-up office is just an example where psychology matters to close a deal. That’s why the psychology of selling is a critical angle to consider for every salesperson because it can be the difference between losing a promising prospect and closing the deal with a tough one. In this article, we will focus on the psychological aspects of the sales process with advice for better sales results.

Google-like, colorful, and youthful decor. These offices encouraged fun, games, great cafeteria, bike riding, and a wannabe cool mentality. Companies did this to sell the picture of success and a relaxed workplace. They were tapping into the minds of their top talent recruits by associating themselves with these images of youth and success.

 

The trendy, start-up office is just an example where psychology matters to close a deal. That’s why the psychology of selling is a critical angle to consider for every salesperson because it can be the difference between losing a promising prospect and closing the deal with a tough one. In this article, we will focus on the psychological aspects of the sales process with advice for better sales results.

Be Genuine

Making a connection to a buyer is often a crucial part of making a deal. That means you have to be on the same level, not trying to be condescending to the customer. You can’t fake being genuine, but some tips can help you stay yourself.

Sales teams often have a scripted playbook, and some salespersons act overly enthusiastic. A positive attitude and clear guidance can help, but both could look fake. If you come hyped and excited pitching your sale, the customer can feel that you are only interested in selling, and not in solving his problem. If you run a pitch from the sales book, you will also sound fake, and no matter how good you are, it will seem scripted.

 

The best way to connect with the prospect is through conversation. If you listen, ask meaningful questions and have a discussion about their needs, maybe mention last night’s football scores and a Russell Wilson touchdown pass, you will get conversions much easier.

Don’t Put Pressure on Prospective Clients

In any aspect of life, pushing or pressuring someone to do something will make them pull back. When making a sale, pressuring prospects is a big no. You will make the customer uncomfortable, probably lose his/her trust and maybe kill your chances of making a sale. Just remember how kids are when they are made to do something they don’t want to do.

 

What you want to do is to take a step back and listen to the prospect. Instead of heavy pitching, try to work together and let them realize through conversation if the solution/product you are selling is the right fit.

 

Pressuring a prospect is a sign of panic, a Hail Mary move that has a slim chance of working.

Create Value Through Questions

A healthy conversation with a prospect will unveil their problems sooner or later. Another trap in the sales process is jumping on their complaint with your product as a solution. It’s still time to be patient.

 

When a prospect says he’s got a problem, the response is a thoughtful question.

 

“What sort of delays and costs is this problem causing you?”

 

“How has your team tried to solve this issue?”

 

With the right questions, you will look engaged and genuinely interested in solving the prospect’s problem. Ultimately, this approach can create additional value and lead you to more sales.

Dig Deeper to Understand Prospective Client’s Challenges

Impatient salespersons may act interested and ask a few questions before starting to make a pitch. Scratching the surface won’t do in the sales process. Before offering the solution, you should explore the prospect’s challenges in-depth. Similarly to creating value through questions, when the prospect lays its issue, your response should be: “Could you tell me more about this problem?”

 

Making a prospect go deeper into their issue and discuss the possible solutions will get you closer to the deal.

Re-engage people in conversation

We already concluded that conversation with the prospect is better than just pitching a sale. The essential tip is to make it a two-way communication. If you are in love with the product you’re selling and caught yourself talking too long about it, re-engage the client into a conversation. Keeping the prospect engaged in conversation means they are more engaged overall, and you are more likely to make a sale.

Fear of missing out/loss

FOMO or fear of missing out is a phenomenon connected to social networks, and more than 69% of millennials experience this feeling. It’s that moment when you check your smartphone to see if something groundbreaking happened in the last few minutes.

 

Knowing how efficient this fear is can help you build it into your sales pipeline. You will need to create scarcity and notify prospects about the limited or time-restricted offer. A flash sale or only today’s great discount could be one of the psychology of sales tactics for FOMO.

Reciprocity

Reciprocity explores underlying human uncomfortable feeling when you owe something. The idea is to create and give something of substantial value to the prospect. The most common way is through a lead magnet that offers a free tutorial, how-to video, e-book, free sample, demo, or other freebies. These people will feel obligated to give something in return. You can take advantage of the compulsion to return the favor by reminding them about the free magnet and asking them for a favor. This could be sharing the link, video, or other content with a note that others might also find enjoyable.

Social proof

Social proof is one of the most potent triggers in sales psychology. Did you know that more than 95% of shoppers read online reviews before purchase? Social networks and even websites with comments and reviews have social proof tools built-in already.

 

The idea behind the social proof is to show that other people are buying the product, or follow you, read a newsletter or other crucial activity. Most popular social proof tools include:

Testimonials — There are whole television programs dedicated to sales using testimonials. If a prospect finds people of authority or trust among testimonials, this could be very effective

Case study — Showcasing the whole process and the end result of using your product or service could tilt many prospects towards closing the deal

Ratings and Reviews — More than 70% of millennials find opinions and reviews essential for making a purchase. User-generated content, comments, and critiques are overwhelmingly powerful tools.

Emotion over intellect

Even in well-calculated B2B sales, emotion plays an essential role in purchase decisions according to this Peter Noel Murray article. The idea behind this sales psychology tactic is to lead the prospect to the way in which the product will make them feel. With the projected feeling, they will feel more connected than with showcasing features and specifications of the product/service. We are not advocating avoidance of technical details, but you should play the emotion cards along the way.

Rejection is not bad at all

Facing multiple rejections will shake even an experienced salesperson, but they can rebound faster. The sale is a complicated affair, and you might do all the steps correctly and miss out on a deal. How you handle the rejection can make a world of difference.

 

In a failed deal, there is usually blame on both sides, and you should use the rejection as a way to tweak and improve your sales tactics. If you blame yourself, your confidence could hurt, and if you think it’s customer fault, you will miss out on an opportunity to learn from failed sales.

It’s all about the prospects

Your exceptional product has cutting edge technology, advanced features that are miles ahead of the competition. But as for your leads, the only thing that matters is how can it benefit/help them?

 

The prospects must feel that talking about your product is worth their time and that your product can help them solve an issue.

 

Instead of listing the cool features, or making a pitch, engage with a prospect into a conversation. Everybody likes to talk about themselves, which gives you an excellent opportunity to listen to their troubles and goals. When making the sales process about them, you will put yourself into a much more interesting situation for closing the deal. Every prospect is different, and salespersons should use professional sales pipeline enablement/CRM software to keep track of the leads efficiently and effectively.

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