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.
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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

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

Do Salespeople Make Good Negotiators?

Do you think that your sales team you are as effective at negotiating as the procurement professionals they are facing across the buying table? 

I’ve got some bad news for you.  In the course of my work as a consultant and corporate trainer in the areas of sales and negotiation I have spent increasing amounts of time working the “other side” of the buying table.  Over the last few years I have trained both sales professionals and procurement professionals in approximately equal numbers to negotiate. 

And I have come to a disturbing conclusion - in the majority of cases salespeople just aren’t as good at negotiating as they need to be.  As this concerning reality became increasingly apparent I spent much time and thought working out why this is the case and what can be done about it. My conclusions are as follows:

At an early stage in their career sales people are usually told to “keep the customer happy”.  They have been taught that happy customers are good customers and go out of their way to placate unhappy customers.   Professional buyers know this and will deliberately make salespeople uncomfortable by appearing to be “unhappy” as a way of tipping the power balance in their favour. 

In addition selling and negotiating are two distinct skill sets.  Although selling and negotiating are inextricably linked there are distinct differences:

In selling we are attempting to persuade, convince, enthuse, justify and explain.  

By contrast in negotiation we are stating our position, considering, making and weighing proposals and making demands for what we want.

In the majority of cases sales people are far less comfortable with negotiating than buyers are.   If salespeople receive sales training the majority of the time will be spent on the process of selling and very much less time (if any at all) will be spent on the process of negotiating.  Buyers on the other hand will usually only receive training in negotiation.  Therefore when it comes to the negotiation stage of the sales process - buyers have the advantage. 

Buyers will attempt to short cut the sales stage and pull the salesperson out of their selling comfort zone and into their negotiating discomfort zone.  The experienced buyer will increase the levels of discomfort as much as possible using psychological ploys and tactics.  The uncomfortable salesperson will often pay their way out of discomfort in the form of (at best) some form of financial concession or (at worst) a non-reciprocated “give away”.  They will literally pay their way out of discomfort with their employer’s profit margin.  For salespeople to become more effective negotiators they need to recognise this and get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Having spent countless hours running realistic negotiation training simulations, I have often seen the salesperson’s selling comfort zone once again rearing its ugly head in terms of negotiation behaviour.  Salespeople will tend to do far too much information giving in the negotiation– driven by their predilection for persuading and selling.  In doing so, they miss out on gathering the necessary information that would enable them to make effective negotiation proposals.  They spend far too much time “in their own head” thinking about things from their perspective and not enough time where their focus should be – inside the buyer’s head, understanding things from their perspective.  Professional buyers will tend to exhibit higher levels of information gathering, giving them far more knowledge and information that they can the use to their advantage.  In negotiation knowledge is power.

If this situation continues sales professionals are going to continue to be taken advantage of by the procurement professionals they encounter.  The sales profession must put more far more emphasis than it currently does on equipping sales people to be more confident and capable negotiators.

Good luck and good negotiating!

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

How Thinking Like a Buyer Will Help You To Sell More Successfully

There is a process involved in selling successfully.  Indeed selling is a process.  Some companies have a structured sales process that their sales leadership encourage and train their salespeople to use – far too many do not.

In this case their salespeople do the best that they can and to some degree they “make it up as they go along”.  They will have some approach that they follow, but it is likely to be largely unconscious and based upon historical trial and error.  Although there will be successful salespeople within companies that have not adopted a structured sales process, their success will be more as a result of accident rather than design.  In general, an under performing sales force is usually the result, with all categories of salespeople from under performers to those at the top of the sales league table never fulfilling their true sales potential.

The degree of success that salespeople experience is often directly related to their ability to follow a tried and tested and proven sales process.  When a proven sales process is followed correctly the result is increased sales.

Even with companies who do have a structured sales process very few consider the customer’s buying process and how to align their sales process to it.

If we pause for a moment to consider then this becomes a concerning situation.  The salespeople will be orientating their sales process (if indeed they have a conscious process) to their own aims and agenda.  They will be largely viewing the sales process from their perspective.  It is a sales process that they, in some way, take the customer through.  The focus is largely on the result that the salesperson wants to achieve.

This is concerning because the customer is the most important person in the sales interaction.  It is the customer who will make the final decision whether to buy from you or not, and they will only do so if they believe that the purchase will benefit them in achieving their aims and objectives.  It would therefore make sense to consider things from their perspective, wouldn't it?

If you don’t do so already, I am going to invite you to consider the sales process in terms of the customer’s buying process.  Let us assume the customer’s perspective, identify the process that they will be going through as they move towards a purchase decision and then align our selling process to match their buying process. In doing this we will be providing the customer with whatever it is they need to move through their buying process to a successful conclusion.  When this is done well the successful conclusion will usually involve making the decision to purchase from you.

So they key question is - what does the customer’s buying process look like?

What follows is a typical buying process that your customer may follow:

1. Identify need / problem or become aware that a need / problem exists
2. Identify possible solution characteristics
3. Search for possible suppliers /solution
4. Request solution proposals from one or more suppliers
5. Analyse solution proposals
6. Evaluate solution proposals to determine preferred supplier
7. Negotiate terms with chosen supplier
8. Award contract
9. Integrate and induct supplier
10. Review supplier performance.

If the customer has an identified and structured buying process then they will usually share this with you if asked.  Your task is then to align your sales process to the customer’s buying process.   An awareness of their buying process allows you to get ahead of the game and be well prepared as each stage presents itself.

If, as is often the case, the customer does not have a formal or conscious buying process then it is important to elicit the process they will go through.

Asking questions to elicit their (largely) unconscious process will be useful.

Examples include:

“What process will you follow to make your decision?”

“How will you be making your decision about what is right for you?”

“How will you go about selecting the right solution / supplier?”

In helping the customer to get clarity about how they will make their purchasing decision will add value to the customer and help to position you as a credible, helpful and useful supplier.

Become involved in the buying process as early as possible.  If you can get involved in the first stages of need / problem identification (or are the catalyst that causes the buying process to start in the first place) and identification of possible solution characteristics then you will be best placed to influence and shape their understanding of what they need.

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