Are You Providing Enough Contrast?

In our modern, busy world the brains of people that you want to persuade and influence are being bombarded with sales and marketing messages every hour of every day. For your sales message to get through this cacophony you must provide their brains with a clear contrast.

Your customer’s and potential customer's brains (including the all important more primitive reptilian and emotional brains) responds positively to clear contrast.  To help it make the right decision to buy what you have to offer you must provide it with a very clear contrast.

For example:

Provide a very clear contrast between what the customer’s current situation is now and how much better the situation will be once they have chosen to purchase your product or solution.   Show them how their future (if they make the right decision to buy from you) will be an improvement on their present circumstances.

Your contrast needs to provide a   summary of their current state or situation, the problems they are experiencing and the costs / impact associated with these problems.  This provides the "Stay Away From Pain" motivation for their brain to want to move away from. This "Stay Away" response is hard-wired into our brains and is a powerful motivating force.

Then provide them with summary of their desired future state situation that shows the rewards and benefits that they will experience once their problems have been solved by the purchase and implementation of your product or service.  This provides the "Toward Reward" motivation (which is also hard-wired into the brain) for their brain to want to move towards.

Then show your product, service or proposal as the enabler that allows them to move between these two contrasting situations - from where they are now to where they want to be.

A further point of contrast that is important for you to consider is to demonstrate how you differ from and are superior to your competitors.  A good way to find out is to ask your existing customers why they buy from you and the advantages they perceive you to have.  What you may think differentiates you might be different to what your customers think!

If you ask your key customers your points of difference then you will rapidly develop clarity about what they are as common themes will occur.  You can then incorporate these into your sales pitch.   Your message needs to clearly differentiate you from your competitors and provide a strong point of contrast.  

Provide the brain with the contrast it needs to make a good decision - the decision to say "yes" to you.

Simon Hazeldine MSc FinstSMM is an international speaker and consultant in the areas of sales, negotiation, performance leadership and applied neuroscience. 

He is the bestselling author of five business books:

• Neuro-Sell: How Neuroscience Can Power Your Sales Success
• Bare Knuckle Selling
• Bare Knuckle Negotiating
• Bare Knuckle Customer Service
• The Inner Winner

To learn more about Simon's keynote speeches and other services please visit:

www.simonhazeldine.com

To subscribe to Simon's hard hitting "Selling and Negotiating Power Tips newsletter please visit:
www.SellingAndNegotiatingPowerTips.com

Are The Two Most Powerful Motivations To Take Action Missing From Your Sales Presentation?

Neuroscience research shows us that a fundamental organising and operating principle of the human brain that drives your customer’s thinking, behaviour and action is to avoid and move away from anything that is perceived to be painful, dangerous or threatening, and to move towards anything that is pleasurable, comforting or rewarding.

At its core this is a hardwired survival instinct of the human brain.  It has played a vital role in our evolution and although it may not always be as practically useful in our safe, modern world (our brains have not changed significantly in 100,000 years) at an unconscious level it is still driving our behaviour and that of our customers.  

 “Everything you do in life is based on your brains determination to
minimise danger or maximise reward.  Minimise danger, maximise
reward is the organising principle of the brain.”
Dr Evian Gordon
Author of “Integrative Neuroscience”

Although the “stay away” and the “towards reward” drives are active all the time in the human brain, it is the away from drive that is stronger and faster.  If we consider the almost constant dangers our primitive ancestors experienced it makes evolutionary sense to prioritise keeping us safe.

This perhaps explains the fact that metaphorically speaking people will be prepared to pay more for help to climb out of a hole than to stop themselves falling into the hole in the first place!

At a conscious and particularly unconscious level (about 95% of all cognitive activity occurs below conscious awareness in the more primitive parts of the brain) your customer’s brain will be constantly asking “stay away” from pain and “towards reward” questions such as:

Does this ease my pain / solve my problems / ease my frustrations / reduce my stress / keep my job safe / get my boss off my back / stop me getting sacked / stop me looking stupid, incompetent, incapable?

Does this bring me pleasure / make me look good / get me approval / get me some more time / make me more money / help me to achieve results / make a wise decision / be positively recognised / achieve my targets / get my bonus / get me promoted?

When you are asking questions of your customers in order to understand their needs, make sure that you uncover the problems and pain they are experiencing.  If you can show their brains how to move away from these to something more rewarding then they will be interested.

Take a close look at your sales proposals and presentations.  Do they incorporate and harness these powerful motivating forces?  Do you clearly show your customer’s brain how it can “stay away” from pain and move “towards reward”? 

Help your customer to understand the costs and impact associated with the current problems or challenges they are experiencing. Help them to realise what this is costing them.  The more “stay away” motivation you can stimulate the less likely they are to do nothing.

If you are selling business to business three types of "pain" that you can stimulate are financial (money wasted, lost or not gained etc), emotional (stress, frustration, low morale etc) and strategic (things that are preventing the customer from getting to where they want to get to with their business.

Then show them the rewards and benefits of a desirable future state that they will experience once their problems have been solved by the purchase of your product and service.  Provide the “towards reward” motivation for your customer’s brain to move towards.

When you have these two motivating forces activated position your product or service as the vehicle that will take them from where they are now to where they want to be.  You can position yourself as the enabler that helps them to achieve their desired goals.

When you do this your customer’s brain is going to say “yes” to your proposal.

Simon Hazeldine MSc FinstSMM is an international speaker and consultant in the areas of sales, negotiation, performance leadership and applied neuroscience. 

He is the bestselling author of five business books:

• Neuro-Sell: How Neuroscience Can Power Your Sales Success
• Bare Knuckle Selling
• Bare Knuckle Negotiating
• Bare Knuckle Customer Service
• The Inner Winner

To learn more about Simon's keynote speeches and other services please visit:

www.simonhazeldine.com

To subscribe to Simon's hard hitting "Selling and Negotiating Power Tips newsletter please visit:
www.SellingAndNegotiatingPowerTips.com

Why Salespeople Get Rejected

The reason that so many sales people get rejected by their prospective customer is to do with their lack of understanding about how the human brain functions.

According to neuroscience research, we are aware of only about 5 percent of our mental processes, so the vast majority of our decisions, actions, feelings and behaviour are dependent on the 95 percent of brain activity that is beyond our conscious awareness.

“At least 95 percent of all cognition occurs below awareness in the shadows of the mind while, at most, only 5 percent occurs in high-order consciousness.”
Gerald Zaltman
Author of “How Customers Think”

This unconscious processing influences feelings, decision-making, behaviour and actions. Indeed the vast majority of thoughts and feelings that influence your customer’s behaviour and decisions about whether to purchase your product or service occur in the unconscious mind.

“Most of what we do very minute of every day is unconscious”

Paul Whelan

Neuroscientist University of Wisconsin

 Although the human species has evolved, the brain has not changed significantly in over 100,000 years and the largely unconscious and more primitive parts of the brain (known as the reptilian and limbic systems) continue to exert a powerful and largely unconscious influence upon us.   And it is this unconscious influence that can lead to salespeople getting rejected.

When the human brain meets a stranger for the first time, such as meeting a salesperson, the primitive parts of it conduct a threat response and decide if the stranger is friend or foe. If the primitive parts of the brain feel uncomfortable or threatened by the salesperson then the automatic fight/flight/freeze response is triggered.  This can happen in a fraction of a second and part of this process includes the shutting out of some message receptors in the brain to shut down, effectively rejecting the salesperson and their potential sales approach.

Salespeople are largely ignorant of the influence the primitive, instinctive and unconscious areas of the brain have on people’s decision making processes and as a result they experience very high levels of rejection from prospective customers.  Salespeople who are too pushy will experience high rejection rates because they are making the unconscious parts of the prospective customer’s brain feel uncomfortable.

When a salesperson makes a prospective customer’s brain feel higher degrees of psychological comfort by being non-threatening and welcoming then their success rate will improve dramatically.

Simon Hazeldine MSc FinstSMM is an international speaker and consultant in the areas of sales, negotiation, performance leadership and applied neuroscience. 

He is the bestselling author of five business books:

• Neuro-Sell: How Neuroscience Can Power Your Sales Success
• Bare Knuckle Selling
• Bare Knuckle Negotiating
• Bare Knuckle Customer Service
• The Inner Winner

To learn more about Simon's keynote speeches and other services please visit:

www.simonhazeldine.com

To subscribe to Simon's hard hitting "Selling and Negotiating Power Tips newsletter please visit:

www/SellingAndNegotiatingPowerTips.com

How Neuroscience Can Power Your Sales Success

As a result of the challenging commercial environment that has become the new reality we are all operating within, sales professionals need an edge – and the latest neuroscience research provides it.

Knowledge and understanding about the brain is growing rapidly with the vast majority of major discoveries and knowledge about the brain being made in the last ten to fifteen years.

We are starting to get a better understanding of how the brain functions when it is making decisions. The more we understand about how the brain functions when deciding to take action (or not), the better able we will be to understand how to tailor our sales approach, messages and behaviour accordingly.

Neuroscience research is shedding new light onto how people actually make decisions - and the truth may surprise you.

“According to cognitive neuroscientists, we are conscious of only about 5 percent of our cognitive activity, so most of our decisions, actions, emotions, and behaviour depends on the 95 percent of brain activity that goes beyond our conscious awareness.“
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak
Journalist

The vast majority of human thinking (including decision making) takes place below the level of conscious and controlled awareness – in our unconscious mind.  In addition, emotions are an integral part of people’s decision-making process.  Emotion and reason are intertwined elements of our decision-making process.  They influence and are influenced by each other, and as a result if we want to sell successfully then we need to consider three areas of our customer’s brain:

The Sub-Cortical “Reptilian” brainIn evolutionary terms this is the oldest part of the brain. It connects the brain with the spinal column and all sensory nerves travel through it.

This primitive and unconscious part of the brain is primarily “concerned” with well being and survival.  At first contact with a stranger it will instantly conduct a threat response and decide if you are friend or foe.

It prioritises survival first (the avoidance of pain and danger) and then with achieving comfort - so it will respond to pain avoidance first.

The Emotional Brain

This is comprised of the limbic system and is also referred to as the “mid-brain”.

It is important to realise that although this part of the brain is also unconscious in function it has a profound effect on us because it links the brain stem with the higher reasoning functions of the brain and feeds information to it.

The limbic system can become easily aroused and can dominate and control the thinking of your customer, exerting a huge influence over your customer’s behaviour and decision making.

For example if initial contact with a salesperson stresses “the gatekeeper” (the Reptilian and Emotional brain) the automatic fight / flight / freeze response is stimulated. Part of this process includes shutting out all other message receptors which means your opportunity to persuade is severely limited.

Therefore, your first and most important task when meeting a new customer for the first
time is to appear non-threatening to the more primitive parts of their brain.

If the primitive part of their brain feels unconsciously uncomfortable then you have a mountain to climb to be able to successfully sell them anything!  If you get this part of your customer’s brain to feel comfortable then they will become receptive to you and your message.

The Rational Brain

This is comprised of the cortex and the neo-cortex and is also referred to as the “new” brain.  This part of the brain processes information received from the senses and regulates cognitive functions such as thinking, speaking, learning, remembering and making decisions.

To sell effectively we must make sure that we and our sales messages are “brain friendly” and target all three areas of the brain so that we can arouse the reptilian and emotional brains in a way that supports our selling rather than handicaps it. 

Simon Hazeldine MSc FinstSMM is an international speaker and consultant in the areas of sales, negotiation, performance leadership and applied neuroscience. 

He is the bestselling author of five business books:

• Neuro-Sell: How Neuroscience Can Power Your Sales Success
• Bare Knuckle Selling
• Bare Knuckle Negotiating
• Bare Knuckle Customer Service
• The Inner Winner

To learn more about Simon's keynote speeches and other services please visit:

www.simonhazeldine.com

To subscribe to Simon's hard hitting "Selling and Negotiating Power Tips newsletter please visit:

www/SellingAndNegotiatingPowerTips.com

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