the psychology of sales

Many traditional sales training companies have made their millions focusing on the process of sales. On the contrary, the best way to unleash a salesperson’s true potential is to focus on the psychology of sales first. When psychology is mastered, then and only then, does process matter. We have spent a good bit of time over the past decade discussing this topic. Because it is so critical to the success of sales organizations and because I am still perplexed and amazed at how few in sales understand this concept, I thought it would be a good opportunity to revisit.

Let’s dig a little deeper. Sales is ultimately about results, wouldn’t you agree? Good. But there are many different kinds of results that one can achieve, so let’s talk about two simple types of results. The first is results that are sustainable and last through the test of time. The other is results that are attainable, but fade with time. Companies will pay big money to send employees through sales training, yet too often their happiness with the initial spike in results erodes when those results are not sustained through time.

So what then differentiates a sales training that yields sustainable results versus merely attainable results? If you said training that is focused on the sales mindset, you are right. Very simply, training that focuses on the sales mindset first and keeps with basic principles will generate sustainable results. Complex training is useless unless it can be understood and remembered. Socrates said, “Learning is remembering.” How many of you can recall coming out of training and feeling like you learned some pretty cool stuff? You learned some trendy new acronyms, some one-liners to use when overcoming objections, a step by step process to achieve closing. Now, how many of you can remember what those acronyms are today? Who remembers what those one-liners were? And who can remember in order all the steps of that “scientific” process to close the deal? AHAH! My point exactly. You were trained on process and formulas, but your mindset never changed. After three weeks most of you reverted back to old habits and were right back to being that same sales professional who entered the training.

So, stop and think about it for a moment. What part of the Paredo Principle (the 80/20 rule) do you fit into? Are you part of the twenty percent of people who achieve eighty percent of your company’s results? Why would you still be as successful if you changed companies and sold something completely different? The answer is because you have something that the eighty percentors don’t have. You possess the better sales mindset. We all have a variety of mindsets that we go through every day; but each of us has a prevailing mindset about our sales ability. The top 20 percentors simply believe they can sell anything. They have a superior mindset to the rest of the pack—the 80 percentors.

Mindset will always trump process over the long haul. With the proper mindset, any system, process or technique can yield outstanding results. The evidence is in the fact that the same people who are in the top twenty percent of one company continue to stay in that bracket when they switch companies and learn new techniques. Their process and techniques change. Their mindset stays the same. I am in no way discounting the need for an effective sales process. A process is critical once it has the foundation of a superior sales mindset.

So why aren’t all sales training companies or mangement consulting firms focusing on psychology first training? Why isn’t it talked about more often? Simply put, it’s just not as pretty. It’s too simple. It’s plain. We are in a society that believes in a quick fix; a society that wants a roadmap and process for everything we do. Psychology first training embraces the notion that sales is an art, not a science. It forces a sales person to look squarely in the mirror and admit that his or her results are solely dependent on who is looking back at them. The second reason we see so few organizations giving anything but lip service to the psychology of sales, is that it is more difficult to effectively train. Anyone can regurgitate a new technique or a new process that will temporarily increase results. But changing a mindset and creating new habits is a much more sophisticated, yet rewarding journey. And at the end of the journey all companies want—sustainable results that lead to serious profitability.

Be Your Best,

Joe

As the applause died down in the Board room, my stomach turned.  Linda Ferri, CEO of Advanse International, had an incredible story to tell about how her firm helps companies, governments and institutions in Europe, North Africa and North America with the tools and support to implement their plans globally.  Despite the accolades from the other five board members in attendance for her dry-run, I knew her presentation was doomed for failure in its current state.

The Numbers

• 10 – maximum minutes permitted for Linda’s presentation
• 25 – other vendors presenting to Algerian government agencies, businesses, and institutions
• 72 – hours remaining before her flight would take off for Algiers
• 100 – hours of preparation already sunk into project
• 500 – people in audience
• 4,200 – miles between Washington, DC and Algiers where Linda’s presentation would take place
• 10,000 – dollars invested in the presentation

When our meeting broke, I approached Linda with a restrained urgency, “Linda, um, would you be ok if I took a shot at re-working your presentation?”  “Absolutely, but my plane takes off in 72 hours Mark … I don’t think that’s enough time…plus I still have to translate it into French.”  “Linda, I can’t let you go half way around the world and tell your story this way.  I know how hard you’ve worked for this opportunity and how much you have on the line.”

Underestimated Power of Presentation

Linda’s scenario isn’t unique.  For their “moment of truth” opportunity, most people open up PowerPoint or Keynote and start typing.  The payoff for educating yourself on basic design and presentation skills is ridiculously high.  Nancy Duarte, author of Slide-ology and creator of Al Gore’s presentation in An Inconvenient Truth says, “presentation is the killer skill we take into the real world.  It’s almost an unfair advantage. “  So if it’s such a killer skill, why do so many get an early burial?

Four Key Reasons Why Presentations Fail

#1 – Confusing – Is there a logical sequence?  Are the slides straightforward and easy to follow?  Is there too much information on each slide?  Have you overdone animations?  Is there a beginning, middle, and an end?

#2 – Boring – Bullets in guns can kill people, bullets in presentations can kill your message.  As Alexei Kapterev illustrates in his slideshare Death by Powerpoint, we tend to  dump data; pack too much information for an audience to understand.

#3 – Irrelevant – Who is it intended to reach?  What message needs to get across?   What’s in it for them?  Too often, we get focused on us, on what we can’t wait to tell them – about our businesses, our project, ourselves.  If they don’t see the relevance for them… and quickly, they’ve tuned out!

#4 – Self-promoting – We must be careful not to turn our presentation into an infomercial.  Even if our purpose is to persuade, if our audience perceives us as snake oil salesmen, we’re toast.

The Antecdote

In their NY Times bestseller Made to Stick Chip and Dan Heath use an acronym, SUCCESs (yes, there’s no connection for the last “s” they admit apologetically) to explain why some ideas survive and others die.  Apply  the Made to Stick principles to your presentation:

• S – Simple
• U – Unexpected
• C – Credible
• C – Concrete
• E – Emotional
• S – Stories

There’s a lot to unpack from the book and too much to cover here but there’s good news below if you’re interested in diving deeper!

Results in Algiers

Remember Linda’s presentation and her gracious acceptance of my offer to re-work it for her?  Well we got it done in less than 48 hours.  She converted it into French, packed her laptop, and boarded a 747 for Algeria.

She hit the stage in front of an audience of 500 people and captured the hearts of the crowd with a message that blended her personal connection to the Mahgreb region of South Africa with a powerful and poignant story.  In fact, she was invited to share her message the next morning on Algiers’s equivalent of Good Morning America on live TV!!  She also received a request for three proposals for her services.  She said she could not have asked for better results.

Powerful Presentations

The Algerian presentation was the inspiration behind Powerful Presentations, a full day and half day training program that we offer live.  So far we’ve conducted it three times in the last year, most recently with Italian graduate students from the University of Bergamo.  My favorite part is the before/after of Linda’s Algerian presentation.

Good news – if you’re interested in learning the secrets of how you can create and deliver “sticky” presentations, we can bring Powerful Presentations to your location for a full day hands-on workshop.  Just contact us to learn more.

I couldn’t resist the urge to share this message from a childhood friend. His name is Nick M. and we were pretty close friends in high school. He has spent the majority of his career in sales (as have I) and we recently reconnected because of Facebook.

If you ever wanted to see, hear or feel what passion felt like… here goes:

Nicholas M. August 4 at 12:12am
“Joe, how is it going. Your short post is interesting and motivating at the same time. While I read this, I replay my day in my head of what makes a great sales person rise above, and stand out from the rest, that are telling the same story as you. I, like you, get this uforic feeling when accomplishing a motivated or unmotivated person to say yes, I ll take it. I am working 10-12 hour days and can’t get enough of it. I am literally sitting here and cant wait to get to work tomorrow to see how many people I can educate, overcome objections, and then firmly but not aggresively pursway from one side of the fence to the other with me. Most of my clients are refferals 50%, but the other 50% are people who just wanted a qoute online and after filling out name and phone number realize that they are not getting numbers, but they are getting a mortgage banker to call them back. Then it’s game time, and I love to win… So my quesiton reamains, how will I take the talent given to me to the next level… “

A few things to note in case you missed it:

• Notice the time of day he sent it… this is not a 9-5pm “JOB”
• Driving purpose: “to educate and help others”
• Can’t wait to wake up the next day – how many on your team are saying this right now?

More importantly this was UNSOLICITED… I would think we now can say we have seen PASSION and URGENCY, right?

Thanks to my man, Nick…

Joe