Are You Wasting Your Time And Your Customer's Time?

In today's busy commercial world sales professionals cannot afford to be wasting their time. The highly successful sales professional makes maximum use of their time, working efficiently and effectively.

However, poorly planned and qualified sales visits to customers happen far too often. Far too may sales people are visiting their customers without a very specific goal for the meeting and wasting time as a result.

This also wastes the customer's time. If the customer perceives the meeting as a waste of time they are not going to agree to another meeting!

So what should we do to make sure that we have very specific goals for our customer meetings?

The amount of research that has been done into goal setting and its impact on performance is impressive.  One of the most robust conclusions to come from all of this research is that goal setting improves task performance.

As I state in my book “The Inner Winner”:

“Goals influence performance in a number of important ways:

• Goals focus attention and action on important aspects of performanc
• Goals set specific standards that motivate individuals to take action
• Goals increase not only immediate effort and intensity, but also help to prolong effort and increase persistence
• Goals also prompt the development of new problem-solving and learning strategies”

In short, setting a clear goal (or goals) for your meeting gives your brain something to focus and lock onto.  On a day to day basis our brains are bombarded with sensory information, and in order to manage this certain information is “filtered” out.  

A part of the brain called the Reticular Activating System is decides which information is important to pay attention to and what can be ignored.  It helps the brain to decide what to consciously focus attention on. 

People who live close to airports or railways are not as aware of the noise that the planes and trains as their Reticular Activating Systems dampen down the effect of the repeated stimuli.  This helps to prevent the brain being overloaded.

By contrast, if you have ever become interested in purchasing a particular model or colour of car, because the goal that you now have in your brain influences what your Reticular Activating System pays attention to, the world will seem to be full of exactly that model and colour of car!

Therefore, to maximise your chances of sales success it is very important to have clarity about the goals that you have for your meeting so that your brain is fully focused on the result that you want, and is highly receptive to information that will help you to do achieve your meeting goal.

 Fundamentally, every customer meeting should have one of four goals:

• To close the sale
• To advance the sale towards a close
• To identify a new opportunity
• To qualify an opportunity

In many industries, particularly where the sale is more complex or where the level of expenditure is high, it is not practical to close the sale in one meeting.  It will take several meetings for the sales process to be concluded. In these cases you need to have a clear goal to advance the sale.  This will prevent unproductive meetings and the sales cycle being lengthened more than is absolutely necessary.

Your ultimate goal is to close the sale.  This goal can be broken down into several sub-goals that will support this.  The sub-goals could include information you need to gather in order to move the sales forward, understanding the buying process that will be followed, identifying who will be involved in the buying process, determining what it is you want the customer to believe about you and your organisation so that they feel comfortable about working with you, and so forth.

It is important to make these as clear as possible so that you have clarity over what the goal is.  Without some clear evidence you cannot know if you have been successful or not. 

Poorly articulated objectives such as “build the relationship with the customer” or “keep in touch with the customer” will deliver poor meeting results, waste your time and, most importantly, the customer’s time.  Make your meeting goals very specific.  Give you brain something to lock onto.

Here are some examples:

• At the end of this meeting I will be able to articulate the nature of the customer’s specific challenges and problems and gain the customer’s agreement to these.
  
• At the end of this meeting I will be able to articulate the financial cost of the customer’s specific challenges and problems in both the short and long term and gain the customer’s agreement to these.
  
• At the end of this meeting I will have identified the steps in the customer’s buying process and which people will be involved at each stage and gain the customer’s agreement to these.
  
• At the end of this meeting I will have defined the criteria that the customer will use to determine which supplier they wish to place the business with and gain the customer’s agreement to these.
  
• At the end of this meeting I will gain the customers agreement that they believe we have the experience, expertise and capability to be their new supplier.
  

By having a very clear goal for the meeting, with evidence that you can use to determine if you have met your goal, you give your brain something very concrete to lock onto.  You will have opened the specific sensory filters that will support you in achieving your meeting goal, making your brain more attuned to noticing the information that it needs to locate.

The simple but powerful step of defining the specific goal or goals you want to achieve in every meeting will powerfully support your sales success.

Good luck and good selling!

Simon Hazeldine

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

To subscribe to Simon's "Neuro-Sell" newsletter please visit:
www.neuro-sell.com

Brain Friendly Selling Tips #6: Certainty & Credibility

Your customer’s brain likes certainty.  At a deep level the primitive part of their brain links certainty to survival.  100,000 years ago the more certain your environment was, the safer it was.  Uncertainty felt like a threat to survival.  Fast forward 100,000 years to the present day and your customer’s brain is still constantly automatically and unconsciously seeking certainty in preference to experiencing uncertainty.  Our brains are always looking to move away from the discomfort of uncertainty towards the comfort of certainty.

Human beings are creatures of habit.  We follow the same routines, travelling the same way to work each day, sleeping on the same side of the bed, eating the same sort of food, watching the same sort of television programmes day in and day out.  Yes, we also like some variety in our lives but we have a deeper seated need for certainty.

Our affinity with branded goods is linked to a certain degree to the certainty that these branded goods will provide.  We feel comfortable that they will deliver what we are expecting which increases our sense of certainty, leading to the higher psychological levels of comfort that our brain craves so much.

Your customer will want to be as certain as possible that you are a safe and reliable supplier who will deliver on your promises.  The customer may be feeling somewhat insecure, nervous, exposed, concerned or that they are taking a risk when choosing a supplier to work with.  They are feeling uncertain.  You must communicate a strong degree of certainty.

Firstly, it is vitally important that you come across as an experienced, knowledgeable professional who knows what they are taking about.  You must become an expert in your field with exceptional levels of knowledge in your products and services.  You must ooze authority and confidence (but no over-confidence) from every pore of your being.  The customer has to buy you first before they will buy from you.

Secondly your sales pitch must contain certainty and credibility drivers.  Certainty drivers are things that you can use to drive the customer’s level of certainty upwards.  Credibility drivers show the customer that you have done it before and are capable of helping them.  Certainty and credibility are intertwined.  The more confident they are in your credibility the more certain they will feel, and the more likely they are to buy. Examples include:
 

• Testimonials from existing customers.  Dr. Robert Cialdini’s research references the power of what he calls “social proof”.  People use the behavior or beliefs of other people to decide how to behave and act themselves.  The more uncertain people feel, the more likely they are to use the behavior of others for guidance.
  
  In addition, Cialdini found that people are more inclined to follow the lead of people who are most similar to them.  So you may need to develop a series of powerful testimonials that allow you to match them successfully with the customer you are selling.  Large companies need to see testimonials from large companies.  Small companies need to see testimonials from small companies.  If you can match industry then that is even better.  I recently closed a piece of business to provide sales manager coaching and sales training for a large international company.  The training will be delivered in several languages across a number of countries.  Therefore the testimonial I used was from an existing customer where we had worked successfully on that scale of project.
  
  
• Perhaps the most powerful form of testimonial I can recommend is for you to connect the new customer with one of your existing customers directly.  Allow them to talk about you and to meet together without you being present.  The power of this form of testimonial has closed many deals for me.  Sometimes just the fact that you have the confidence to offer to connect them directly with one of your existing customers is enough for the potential customer to feel a sense of certainty.  Even though it is obvious that you are only going to connect then potential customer with a happy and loyal existing customer who will say positive things about you, the transparent nature of the offer to connect them to discuss directly is powerful.
  
  
• Client lists – in addition to specific testimonials prepare a comprehensive list of the sort of organisations you work with.  I know from analysing data from the website I use to promote myself as a keynote speaker that after looking at what topics I speak on, people usually visit my client and testimonial page.  They are looking for certainty.
  
  
• Case studies are basically more in-depth versions of a testimonial.  They need to be short enough to be read by a busy potential client but have enough depth to prove your capability and track record.  Your case studies need to explain the client’s situation, the solution you provided and the results you obtained.  Your client will need to be quoted and featured throughout the case study to build the social proof.
  
  
• Research from a recognized authority that proves the efficacy of your product or service can be a very powerful certainty driver.
  
  
• Guarantees are another way to provide certainty. The all too familiar money back guarantee is a strong certainty driver.  If you don’t deliver the client doesn’t pay.  This also communicates certainty as unless you were certain of your capability you wouldn’t provide the guarantee in the first place.   The marketer Jay Abraham popularised the concept of the “risk reversal”, where the business takes all the risk away from the customer by providing a rock solid, 100% no-quibble money back guarantee.  This has been proven time and time again to grow sales.
  
  
• Endorsements from people who are perceived to be influential or authority figures.  Celebrity endorsements are common place and that is because they work.  My books I have secured endorsements from famous, high profile business people for my books.  For example, multi-millionaire Duncan Bannatyne star of BBC TV’s programme “Dragons’ Den” wrote the forward to my book “Bare Knuckle Negotiating” and multi-billionaire entrepreneur Michael Dell endorsed the book “Bare Knuckle Customer Service” that I wrote with my co-author Chris Norton.  This is good for book sales as the endorsements from these authority figures provide certainty that the books are worth reading.
  
  
• A pilot programme, study or test allows the client to “dip their toe in the water” first before committing fully.  It allows you to prove your capability and minimizes the risk to the client.
  

Good luck and good selling!

Simon Hazeldine

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

To subscribe to Simon's "Neuro-Sell" newsletter please visit:
www.neuro-sell.com

Brain Friendly Selling Tips #5: Concrete

“If I can’t picture it, I can’t understand it.”
Albert Einstein

One of the challenges that many organisations face is the transition that their salespeople must make from transactional selling to consultative or solution selling.  Due to the competitive nature of most industries margin is gradually eroded as companies fight each other using price as the key point of differentiation. 

If the customer wants to purchase a product and perceives no clear point of differentiation between two suppliers, he will invariably place his business with whoever has the cheapest price.  And the margin spirals invariably downwards.

In order to differentiate themselves and protect their margin position companies increasingly have to shift their focus to be a provider of tailored solutions rather than a just a transactional supplier of products.

This has necessitated a shift from the more traditional “box shifting” salesperson to the more consultative solution- orientated salesperson. 

One of the inherent challenges that accompany this is the salesperson’s ability to sell less tangible and complex solutions, and finding or training sales people to sell successfully in this manner is a major point of pain for many Sales Directors.

Your sales pitch needs to be as concrete as it possibly can be.  Intangible and abstract ideas are difficult for the customer’s brain to process.  Such thinking is usually the domain of experts who are capable of processing in this manner.

When making decisions and solving problems the brain places heavy demands on a part of the brain called the pre-frontal cortex.  The pre-frontal cortex can become tired and overwhelmed when faced with confusing decisions to make. 

So make your pitch as concrete as possible.  Concrete language and concrete explanations are required for most customers’ brains to grasp and understand a concept.

If you are selling a tangible product bring your product (or at least part of it) with you. Let the customer touch and feel it.

If you are selling something more intangible make it more concrete by providing a visual representation of it or what it does e.g. a flow diagram

Showing the customer something is far easier for their brain than them trying to imagine it for themselves.

About 25% of the brain is involved in visual processing (more than any other sense).  Make sure you capture the brain’s attention with strong visuals.  A message accompanied by a picture is far more memorable.  In order to consider and weigh up a complex decision, the visual circuitry of the brain is frequently activated, so providing a more concrete visual input can help the customer to make an effective decision.

Visual images (such as flow charts, diagrams etc) can contain a lot of information and are very brain-friendly as they reduce the amount of energy the brain needs to use to take in the information.   

The use of visual imagery can reduce the demand on the pre-frontal cortex, which leaves it better able to process information and make a decision.

Good luck and good selling!

Simon Hazeldine

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

To subscribe to Simon's "Neuro-Sell" newsletter please visit:
www.neuro-sell.com

Brain Friendly Selling Tips #4: Contrast

This is the fourth in a series of articles about several powerful “brain friendly selling” principles that you can incorporate into the structure and content of your sales pitch to make them more effective. The fourth principle is the concept of "contrast".

Your customer’s brain (including the all important older parts) responds positively to clear contrast.  To help it make the right decision provide it with contrast including:

 Contrast between what the customer’s current situation is now and what the situation will be like once they have chosen to purchase your product or solution. 

 Your contrast needs to provide:

1) A summary of their current state or situation, the problems they are experiencing and the costs / impact associated with these.  This provides the "Stay Away From Pain" motivation for their brain to be motivated to move away from or avoid.

2) A 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 "Towards Reward" motivation for their brain to be motivated to achieve.

3) A positioning that shows your product or service as the enabler that allows them to move from where they are now to where they want to be.

A further point of contrast 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 your organisation might be different to what your customers think!

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

 

Good luck and good selling!

Simon Hazeldine

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

To subscribe to Simon's "Neuro-Sell" newsletter please visit:
www.neuro-sell.com

Brain Friendly Selling Tips #3: Clarity

This is the third in a series of articles about several powerful “brain friendly selling” principles that you can incorporate into the structure and content of your sales pitch to make them more effective. 

The third principle is the concept of "clarity".

It is important to provide your customer’s brain with clarity.  To help them make a decision we need to provide clarity throughout the sales process and particularly during the sales pitch. The greater the clarity we can provide the easier it is for their brains to draw conclusions.

When we provide the brain with clarity, rather than clutter and confusion,  it is far easier for it to process the information it is presented with and make a good decision.

Conscious thinking is a complex interaction that includes billions of neurons, and as a result the brain uses a lot of energy when doing it.  As a result of it evolving at a time when food could be a scarce commodity, it has evolved to be as efficient as possible and to minimise energy usage where possible.

When making decisions, and solving problems, the brain makes heavy use of the pre-frontal cortex.  The pre-frontal cortex can become overwhelmed when faced with confusing decisions to make.  When faced with such a scenario the brain may avoid making the energy sapping decision or to make an automatic or unconscious choice. This is quicker, easier and uses less energy.

The danger is that the automatic or unconscious choice could be to just keep things as they are, to stick with the existing supplier or to procrastinate on making the decision.  If you can minimize the energy usage by the pre-frontal cortex you will maximize the energy resources that the customer’s brain has available to make a good decision that will serve them well.

Sales people who understand their product or service very well can sometimes, due to their higher level of insight and years of experience, explain things at a more advanced and abstract level than suits a person with less knowledge and experience.  When this happens the customer can become confused and feel somewhat bamboozled.  Their brain is finding things too complicated and confusing and as a result decision paralysis can result.

The variable factors that the customer’s brain has to hold in mind to be able to make a decision need to be limited as much as possible.  The “Neuro-Sell” mantra is: Less is more!

The customer’s capacity to make a wide decision is limited by the resources available to the pre-frontal cortex.   The aim of the “Neuro-Sell” approach is to help the customer by making the buying process as brain-friendly as possible.  We can achieve this by providing clutter free clarity to the customer!

A good way to provide clarity is to start with where the customer is now.  It is a good idea to recognise where the customer is now with their thinking about the topic in question, what they believe and the opinions they have.

It is important to make sure that we are “on the same page” as our customer.  Showing that we understand their situation and beliefs helps us to build rapport with them.  It is good to summarise your understanding and check it is correct with the customer.  Getting them into an agreeable frame of mind by agreeing with your explanation of their current context primes their brain to being more receptive to agreeing with your sales proposal.

We can then use this current situation or context to demonstrate how we can move the customer from where they are now towards a more beneficial situation.  The brain works by connecting new incoming information into existing mental frameworks or maps, so linking your ideas or proposal to the customer’s existing reality will make it easier for them to understand and accept.

When people face a problem or challenge they usually attempt to apply strategies that have worked for them in similar situations previously.  The customer will be projecting their experience from the past onto the current or future problem / challenge as a way of dealing with it.

Their belief about what might work could be a barrier to your proposal being properly considered and accepted.  It is usually more effective to meet them where they are currently in their thinking and then build upon this and gracefully move them towards a new positive solution.

The first step in making sure the customer has clarity is to be certain you have clarity yourself.  That is, that you are able to articulate your proposal in a short, sharp, brain-friendly manner communicating the most important points with impact.

A useful framework is to use a technique I was told about by a communications consultant who trained company executives how to make a positive impression when being interviewed by the media.  He told me that it was important that they were very clear about the main messages they wanted to get across, and I have found his framework to be very valuable for sales professionals to consider the key messages in selling situations – both in formal pitches and in more informal occasions.

You can adapt this to use earlier in the sales process as part of your pitch, and you can also use this to summarise the key benefits or to provide your suggested options.

He told me that he uses the metaphor of a house – what he called “the message house”.

The “roof” of the message house, contains your most important point.  This is a point that you make reference to several times, for example at the beginning, middle and end of your presentation.  When building your sales presentation you need to give careful consideration to this message.

This message is going to be the number one thing that you want your customer to remember from your presentation. 

Make your main message orientated around something that provides a strong benefit to the customer.  For example, I often use the fact that I have a practical results orientated approach, agree success measures in advance of doing any work for a customer and guarantee to deliver the agreed results. 

In a nutshell my main message is: “You want improved sales results - I guarantee to deliver them!”  As simple as this may sound this frequently provides a point of contrast to my competitors who appear to spend more time talking about the service they provide rather than the results the customer desires.

Your main message is then supported by your three key points.  These can be, for example, the main three benefits that you can provide.  These should link up to and meet the customer’s three most important criteria that you should have identified earlier in the sales process.

Due to the limitations about the number of items or chunks of information that can be held consciously at any one time, one main message and three key points is a good number to provide.  This number can be processed, understood and decided upon by the customer’s brain.

You then need to prepare your “Fact Foundation”.  These are facts and proof points that you have ready to prove the validity of your Main Message and 3 Key Points.  Although we know that emotion plays a significant role in buying decisions, we still need to have rock-solid proof of the capability of our products and services.

Please remember that certain types of customers will need more facts and data as part of their decision making process and there is also a strong emotional benefit to providing this proof as it provides a sense of certainty, reliability and comfort that the brain wants to move towards.

Provide your customer’s brain with clarity and it will buy!

Good luck and good selling!

Simon Hazeldine

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

To subscribe to Simon's "Neuro-Sell" newsletter please visit:
www.neuro-sell.com

Brain Friendly Selling Tips #2: Chunk

This is the second in a series of articles about several powerful “brain friendly selling” principles that you incorporate into the structure and content of your sales pitch to make them more effective. 

The second principle is the concept of "chunking".

When delivering your sales pitch clearly outline the process that you are going to follow with the customer at the start of your pitch.  Chunk your sales pitch into a series of clear steps and explain these to the customer and tell them that you will be following these steps during the pitch.
.
This establishes a mental pathway which makes your pitch easier for their brain to process.

In addition this makes sure that you don't overload the customer's brain and will help to provide it with comfort (an uncomfortable brain never buys) and certainty (an uncertain or confused brain doesn't buy).

This chunking process also primes their brain to expect each step (this helps with comfort and certainty) and allows you to stimulate curiosity (as described fully in the first blog post in this series of brain friendly selling tips) by mentioning things that you will be telling them about – only not just yet!

Always chunk your sales pitch into bite size chunks and / or simple steps that are easy for the customer to follow and understand.

By using the concept of chunking your sales pitch your sales messages will be more easily received, processed and accepted by the buying brain inside your customer's head.

Good luck and good selling!

Simon Hazeldine

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

To subscribe to Simon's "Neuro-Sell" newsletter please visit:
www.neuro-sell.com

Brain Friendly Selling Tips #1: Curiosity

This is the first in a series of articles about several powerful “brain friendly selling” principles that you incorporate into the structure and content of your sales pitch to make them more effective. The first principle is curiosity.

The very first thing you must do with your sales pitch is to capture the attention of your customer’s brain.  And then you have to keep its attention.

If the brain encounters anything new, novel or unusual it pays attention!  When a person experiences anything that is different or unexpected norepinephrine and dopamine levels in the brain rise.  This causes the person to focus their attention and makes them alert and interested.

The best way to capture the attention of the customer’s brain is to surprise it.  Some of the methods that I have used when selling various forms of consultancy, sales training, negotiation training and management / leadership development include:

·       Decorating the meeting room the client was using to hold the sales pitch with materials we use when running sales training programmes.  I recreated the stimulating, engaging learning environment I create for programme participants with props like wall posters containing key learning points, inspiring quotations, music playing, cards on the desk and floor that participants use during exercises on the real programme.

I then invited the potential client to join us in their meeting room to start the pitch.  The people who were sitting on the client’s decision-making panel were very curious about how unusual the meeting room now looked!  I didn’t make any reference to anything that I had adorned the room with until much later in the pitch, thereby maintaining the sense of curiosity and the client’s attention.

·       Having an acronym or mnemonic that contains the first letter of six key concepts I will discuss displayed on a flip chart, and as the pitch progresses I complete the words that match the first letter.  I make sure I leave at least one incomplete until really close to the end of the pitch as the client’s brain is crying out to close the gap!

·       Asking a provocative and / or challenging question at the start. For example, “In your company how poor a level of performance can you operate at and still keep your job?” or “According to research at least 80 to 90% of employee’s behaviour is determined by the behaviour of the company’s leaders.  This means that the behaviour I see your employees exhibiting tells me what sort of leaders you are.”

·        Using a prop or device.  As much of my sales consultancy is orientated around the application of neuroscience, one of my regular travelling companions is a scale replica model of the human brain.  I will often have this sitting on the table or desk in front of me and deliberately not make any reference to it until much later in the pitch. As it is an unusual object it attracts the attention and curiosity of the client.

·        Walking in with a giant full colour graphical storyboard that provides a visual representation of a solution I can provide.  The entire pitch was conducted using this and this alone.  The client’s logo and references to their customers and employees were contained on the storyboard which showed that it had been prepared specifically for the client.  I left the storyboard with the client at the end of the pitch at their request.

·        Tell them early in the pitch that I will reveal several pieces of information that are compelling and interesting to them.  I open what I call a loop in their brain that they want to close.  I don’t close the loop until much later in the pitch, as a way of building curiosity and keeping their attention. For example, “As we progress I am going to show you three tried and tested and proven ways that we can deliver exactly the results you are looking for and provide you with rock-solid evidence of our ability.”  As I say “three tried and tested and proven ways” I count off three times on my fingers.  As I move through the pitch and reveal each “tried and tested and proven way” I mark each point verbally (“So the first way is….”) and non-verbally by marking off each point on the relevant finger.  This reminds the client’s brain non-verbally that there is yet more to be revealed.  I will explain in a later article why I choose “three tried and tested and proven ways” and why I specifically structure the phrase as “tried and tested and proven ways” rather then “tried, tested and proven ways”.  So you will have to wait a short while to find out the specific and powerful reason for that.  Hopefully I now have your attention and curiosity!

So please give some thought to how you can capture your customer’s attention, and make their brains curious to know more.  If you do this you will trigger the release of norepinephrine and dopamine in their brain which will focus their attention and make them alert and interested.

You don’t have to be wild and wacky to surprise the customer’s brain.  You can do this in subtle ways which will still be very effective.  Mysteries, puzzles, questions, unexplained things and incomplete patterns are all powerful ways to grab and keep the attention of your customer’s brain.

Indeed, please be aware that being too unusual and different can trigger a sense of anxiety in the older parts of the brain, as too much novelty could mean a big change, and change can be perceived as a threat to survival. 

As mentioned earlier the reptilian and limbic areas of your customer’s brain are highly attuned to notice any changes in its environment, so moving during sales pitches or doing something unexpected will grab its attention.

You can use movement to make sure you don’t lose the customer’s attention.  I would recommend doing something to attract attention every few minutes or so.  A few examples, would be if you are using visual aids such as PowerPoint or Keynote, then blanking the screen and walking across to the other side of the room, alternating between standing up and sitting down, passing something to the client to look at, moving closer to the audience to make a key point, asking a question, illustrating a point on a flipchart or whiteboard, displaying a visually impactful graphic or photograph before providing the reason for showing it and so forth.  When practising your pitch, plan to insert attention-grabbers throughout it.

Get their brain curious and they will buy!

Good luck and good selling!

Simon Hazeldine

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

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