# The Psychology of Sales Calls

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Nick Kolenda
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksP9L5lwLEc
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/21641

## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

everybody needs to sell whether you are convincing somebody to buy your product or whether you just need to sell an idea i signed up for a sales demo from a software company and i'm going to walk you through this real-life conversation we'll look at five techniques to optimize the selling process to help make your sales pitch more persuasive i replaced the software name with acme and the two sales people with john and jane the first sales technique break the greeting ritual the conversation starts with pleasantries how are you doing good how are you good and this is a missed opportunity first impressions are critical even if a first impression changes over time you're always going to have remnants of the original impression because that was the starting point at the beginning of your sales call when prospects ask how you're doing they're expecting you to say something like good or fine so instead respond with something unique or different this does a few things first it's called the peak technique if you ask somebody on the street for money you should ask for a weird amount your question will be so unexpected that it prevents the instinctive behavior of just mindlessly refusing it likewise at the beginning of your sales call even something as simple as just responding in an unexpected way that's enough to snap them out of any type of mindless disposition they might be having and listen to your sales pitch the second benefit you look more competent it's called the red sneakers effect whenever you break a social norm people perceive you with higher status and competence the third benefit all of these qualities should transfer to the product much like a logo symbolizes a brand sales people are symbolic representations of a product all of their traits will seem representative of the product or service subconsciously the prospect is going to be grouping this salesperson with the product if the salesperson seems very happy or energetic it creates this deep belief that these positive qualities are originating from the product so if the prospect buys this product they will enter this group and if they enter this group they become endowed with this same happiness it sounds weird but i explain the detailed reasons in chapter 4 of the tangled mind so that's the first recommendation break the standard greeting ritual disrupt their expectations by responding with something unexpected yet upbeat the second technique schmooze over a similarity in this sales call john jumps straight into the selling but research shows that you should have a personal conversation before you start talking about business and ideally you should bond over a similarity here's an example from another sales call it's hard to tell but the salesperson might have looked at my linkedin profile beforehand and noticed that i moved from boston to raleigh because on the call he told me that he lives in the northeast but he's thinking about moving to raleigh and his choice of the northeast was smart he actually lives in new york but i lived in boston if he had said new york we would have been in different groups but he didn't say new york he broadened his location to the northeast which merged us into the same in-group similarities are persuasive because subconsciously your brain confuses your identity with this person in a way it feels like you are this person and naturally you're more persuaded by them because you want to help them it feels like you're helping yourself so that's the second technique before the sales call look at the linkedin profile of the prospect to look for any type of similarity and then bond over this similarity at the beginning of the call the third technique start with their goals john starts explaining how the business has two components software and research services and this is a mistake john starts selling the product without knowing anything about me or my goals in reality i'm only interested in the software component but john is going to start selling me on the research services component and here's why that's detrimental our brain experiences a dilution effect suppose that somebody is selling an exercise program that helps you build muscle and lose weight these are two reasons right so that seems good but it's not when you think of this exercise program you activate this node in your brain if you have two goals associated with this node activation is traveling to these other nodes but this activation is becoming diluted let's say that you only care about losing weight if we didn't have this irrelevant reason of building muscle this node for losing weight would have become fully activated and this stronger activation would have been more persuasive the same thing is happening on this sales call by focusing on this research services component john is siphoning activation away from the component that's truly important to me specialists are usually better than generalists so don't needlessly portray yourself as a generalist when you could have inherited the benefits of being perceived as a specialist also when you ask them to describe their goals don't ask so what are your goals instead ask so what made you interested in us both questions extract the same information but the second question and the wording of it is going to be more persuasive when prospects answer this question everything that they say is going to reinforce a belief that they are interested in your product and later they'll feel more compelled to behave consistently with this belief and identity here's the key takeaway before

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 08:00) [5:00]

you start selling ask the prospect why they're interested in your product use their response to focus on the most relevant and important aspects of your product so that you don't dilute this information with irrelevant stuff the fourth technique customize your examples later in the conversation jane starts demonstrating the software by writing tests in empty fields and she even says this makes absolutely no sense now in her defense my brain should be able to look at these test variables and think of my own applications but unfortunately our brain doesn't work that way in deciding whether or not to buy this software my brain is going to imagine myself using it this simulation is going to give me a way to predict and gauge the value that i would receive by using this software yet when i see things like test test it becomes harder for myself to imagine using this software because this isn't something that i would be doing with this software so because i can't imagine myself using this software i can't gauge the value that i would receive from this software instead you need to customize your examples to the prospect let's say that one of my clients sells vitamins instead of writing test variables jane could set up a hypothetical project for this client because this example is grounded in reality i can easily imagine implementing this project and thus i can easily gauge the value of this software here's the takeaway instead of using examples that make absolutely no sense use examples that make sense immerse your prospects into a realistic narrative so that they can imagine using your product and thus imagine the value that they would receive from it and finally avoid unnecessary disclaimers throughout the conversation jane uses a lot of disclaimers it won't be the cutest demo in the world this is my very messy demo environment that's not organized at all in one study researchers called these dispreferred markers and they actually boosted persuasion but in our context these are going to reduce persuasion for two main reasons first you need a positive statement suppose that jane said it's not the easiest software to learn but you become addicted once you get the hang of it mentioning this negative aspect heightens her credibility because she just admitted to something negative when she then delivers this positive statement right afterward this benefit seems stronger because of her heightened credibility but you need this positive statement in order to benefit from the disclaimer in the sales call jane was only including these negative statements this is my very messy demo environment and here's the second reason why it weakens persuasion your words mold the reality that people see if i say look at this rabbit your brain will see the ears and the mouth but if i say look at this duck your brain will see the beak and the back of the head your words dictate how people perceive the world on the sales call her screen really didn't look messy or disorganized but simply because she framed it that way my brain was forced to interpret her environment in that way i also noticed that jane felt obligated to fill silences she would make noises whenever her computer was doing something whenever you feel nervous like in a sales call your perception of time is slower because you're experiencing a heightened state of arousal silences really aren't as long as they feel one second is going to feel much longer than it actually is so don't feel pressured to fill them if anything silence can be good because it allows the prospect to ask questions the takeaway avoid unnecessary disclaimers don't say things like this is the worst demo ever because your words are going to be painting this reality so those are five techniques that can help you with selling now i realize that it's easy for me to sit here with the written transcript and look for ways to improve it obviously it's much tougher in a real-time conversation but the more that you study these responses and techniques the more natural they'll hopefully become and if you want more of my commentary on sales i'll put a link to my sales course below or you could pick up my books and i'll see you next time