Top 5 psychology tricks in sales

1. Give your prospect fewer options

Providing your prospect with too many different options makes it harder for them to make a decision – which increases the odds they’ll walk away without buying anything at all. This is due to what in psychology is called choice overload.

2. Leverage loss aversion and FOMO

Even hesitant buyers have a hard time saying no to a great opportunity – especially if they’re thinking about what they’ll lose by turning it down. You can tap into this by framing your offer as something they’ll miss out on if they don’t make a purchase, rather than just highlighting the added value. Very impactful is to make positive comparison with a competitor, which makes your offer stand out even further.

3. Ask hesitant prospects to explain their reasoning

One of the easiest ways to poke holes in a prospect’s excuse for not buying is to ask to them walk you through their reasoning.

A simple, “What’s holding you back?” can get prospects to open up about their reservations. Whether it’s a matter of budget, timing, or product fit, knowing your prospect’s sales objections gives you a chance to reframe their perspective.

Another method is to ask your prospect to rate their readiness to buy on a scale of one to ten (with one being “not ready at all” and ten being “completely ready”). Regardless of their answer, ask why they chose the number they did.

4. Use storytelling to make an impact

Sharing a relatable customer success story is more powerful than simply listing the benefits of your product. Not only does telling a story allow you to connect more quickly with your prospects (by releasing the “trust hormone” oxytocin), it also helps you motivate your audience to take a desired action.

5. Use extreme anchoring
Anchoring is so powerful that it works even when you know it’s being done to you. You’re better off setting a high anchor that skews the entire negotiation your way than letting the client set a low anchor. The anchor serves as the mental reference point throughout the negotiation. Studies have shown that the higher the anchor, the higher the final price.

3 things today: psychological hacks of investor mindset

3 things today: investors (like other human beings) use mental shortcuts (called cognitive biases) in their decision-making process.

Top three shortcuts used include:

confirmation bias (investors look for confirmation of their beliefs/values when evaluating startups and favour those with most “confirmations”)
hindsight bias (investors think past successes of founders give them a good chance for a repeat success in future)
bandwagon effect (investors jump on an investment opportunity that has other influential investors, advisors or founders with good track record).

3 things today: survive the survivor bias

3 things today: Let’s talk about Survivorship Bias.

Why do we read and reread books/articles like “The Morning Habits of Successful People” or “The Six Characteristics All Billionaires Have in Common”? How many of these articles have you clicked on?

We love the idea that by learning about our idols, we’ll be able to emulate their success. A quick Google search of “Successful founders who dropped out of college,” gives names such as Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg as all examples of entrepreneurs who had an idea, took a leap, and became successful.

But by equating their success to hard work alone, we ignore a very important fact: for every successful college dropout, there are hundreds, if not thousands, who weren’t as lucky.

The founders we put on pedestals worked hard, but there were also many circumstantial events that paved their way to success. In fact, research shows the majority of the United States’ most successful businesspeople graduated college – 94%, to be exact.

1) Better and cooler products don’t necessarily succeed – check TiVO, which is still barely alive

2) Don’t neglect external factors that influence success – see how Skechers kicked Adidas from top position

3) Just because you don’t hear you customer complain doesn’t mean they are happy – many customers leave before they complain of their unhappiness

You must consider the other variables not immediately visible to you to avoid the survivorship bias.

3 things today: efficiency tools

What are your top 3 tools/mental hacks you use to be super efficient with your clients/at work?

For me, they are:

1) 80/20 approach to client work/communication.

2) taking meeting notes (in a pocket-size Moleskine OR in an email thread to the client to send immediately after the meeting) and ALWAYS putting action items to follow each meeting.

3) use Parkinson’s law (“work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”) when allocating time to complete tasks, i.e. give short/challenging timelines for tasks.