The Psychology of Selling: 5 Steps to Selling that Actually Work

One of the most impactful realizations I made early on in sales is that closing deals isn’t just about the numbers. You also need to tap into the psychology of your prospect and get buy-in on a fundamental, biological level. That’s why today we’re looking at the psychology of selling—5 steps to selling that actually work. You’re going to love seeing your close rates skyrocket after incorporating these steps into your pitch. The Numbers Objection How many times during a sales call have you heard, “Let me check the numbers and get back to you.” Or “The numbers just don’t work on our end.” Numbers, numbers, numbers—most reps think closing sales in the B2B biz all comes down to the numbers. Does your product make logical sense for the buyer? What a lot of sales professionals miss out on though is the emotional aspect of a deal. Sure, there’s still a big place for logic in sales. But when it comes down to it, we make decisions based on emotions. President and CEO of Whetstone Adrian Davis broke it down for me like this in our interview: “Fundamentally, we make decisions emotionally, and if all we're doing is spouting features and benefits, we're really engaging the logical part of the brain. The logical part of the brain does not make decisions. It analyses and captures information to weigh pros and cons, but decisions are made emotionally” The question is, how can you appeal to the psychology of your buyer to better sell your product? What tactics can you leverage to boost your selling power tenfold? And what framework can you use to consistently and effectively tap into the psychology of sales? That’s exactly what I’m covering today. This five-step method is based on the Storytelling Framework from inside the Selling Made Simple Academy, but more on that in a sec. Right now, let’s jump into the steps. 1: Help Your Buyer Understand Their Current Reality The very first step to tapping into the psychology of selling is helping your buyer understand their current reality. What is the biggest problem your prospect faces today? Is it a stall in business growth in recent months? A team not working as efficiently as they should? Have they hit a success roadblock that they just can’t overcome? Summarize their unique pains and verbally confirm those pains with the buyer. This gives them the opportunity to correct or clarify what you understand as their biggest problem. Beyond that, it also immediately puts you and the buyer on the same team—you are both trying to solve that problem. And you’re also scoring points for showing you understand what they’re going through. 2: Make Them Feel the Pain of That Reality Next up is making them feel the pain of that current reality. This step is also known as “agitating” the pain in copywriting terms. And it’s an essential step to engaging the emotions of the prospect. So ask yourself—what are the consequences of this pain? Who do they look stupid in front of because of that pain or problem? Who is judging them? And what’s really, truly on the line if that problem goes unsolved? Acknowledge these consequences with the buyer. Bring them up. And let them know you understand the stakes of the decision. And don’t just stick to monetary consequences here. Reputation, career advancement, bragging rights, and much more besides money are motivating factors for making business decisions too. Now that you’ve identified and agitated the pain points, it’s time to move on to step #3… 3: Outline What’s Stopping Them From Moving Forward Outlining the current barriers that are stopping them from moving forward. In most cases, these barriers fall into one or more of five specific categories. Step #3 involves pointing out which of these barriers your buyer is currently facing. I go into greater detail about these five forces in the Storytelling Framework from the Selling Made Simpl...