You’ll over-bias to one or the other
Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2025 9:53 am
One of the problems with unconscious sellers is that they rarely link their outcome to the fundamental behaviors that drove it. Even when those behaviors are good and produce a positive outcome. I’m sure you know many wonderful people who are exceptionally skilled at selling.
My sister, for example, is a personal trainer and has a side business selling cosmetics. She’s knowledgeable, cares about her clients, and consistently demonstrates high conviction in the products, services, and advice she delivers. Despite making no investment in sales training her approach works and her clients love her. She is a blissfully good, unconscious seller. But there’s a problem. Because she doesn’t know why her approach works so well, she’s missing out on a huge opportunity to double-down on the specific winning tactics that will make her even more successful!
On the flip-side, we’ve all had the experience of interacting with unconsciously bad sellers. Most bad sellers aren’t bad people. They simply sell using poor, generic, outdated, and self-serving tactics that turn buyers off. Their tactics don’t work and yet, they rarely stop to ask why. That’s an even bigger problem because not only are these salespeople bad at their job and aren’t sure which tactics to stop using, but the distrust and frustration they leave in their wake propagates a historically negative stereotype of salespeople. In short, the bad sellers ruin it for everyone else.
Research into the scientific underpinnings of buyer iceland telegram data and sales psychology has flourished in the last 30 years. Today, key behavioral and emotional buying drivers such as status quo bias, abstraction, persuasion theory, reactance, reciprocity, and loss aversion, have been thoroughly vetted, although rarely taught in mainstream sales training programs. While it is directionally encouraging to see more and more sales professionals embracing their craft as a pure science, over-biasing to one extreme or another is dangerous because each alone doesn’t provide enough tools to succeed in all selling situations.
For example, suppose we devoutly believed that sales was pure science. That would mean a seller who describes her solution using a scientifically proven persuasive messaging technique would be sure to convince her customer of its value. However, that technique likely would not have the desired impact if she used it in a way that came off as inauthentic or condescending. Conversely, a seller with high integrity and charisma, who is sincere in their desire to help her customer may win favor with buyers in spite of not having perfect selling mechanics.
Without asking why that tactic worked, you run the risk of gravitating too far to art or science. Or worse, falling in love with the tactic and spamming the crap out of it until it stops working without knowing why.
My sister, for example, is a personal trainer and has a side business selling cosmetics. She’s knowledgeable, cares about her clients, and consistently demonstrates high conviction in the products, services, and advice she delivers. Despite making no investment in sales training her approach works and her clients love her. She is a blissfully good, unconscious seller. But there’s a problem. Because she doesn’t know why her approach works so well, she’s missing out on a huge opportunity to double-down on the specific winning tactics that will make her even more successful!
On the flip-side, we’ve all had the experience of interacting with unconsciously bad sellers. Most bad sellers aren’t bad people. They simply sell using poor, generic, outdated, and self-serving tactics that turn buyers off. Their tactics don’t work and yet, they rarely stop to ask why. That’s an even bigger problem because not only are these salespeople bad at their job and aren’t sure which tactics to stop using, but the distrust and frustration they leave in their wake propagates a historically negative stereotype of salespeople. In short, the bad sellers ruin it for everyone else.
Research into the scientific underpinnings of buyer iceland telegram data and sales psychology has flourished in the last 30 years. Today, key behavioral and emotional buying drivers such as status quo bias, abstraction, persuasion theory, reactance, reciprocity, and loss aversion, have been thoroughly vetted, although rarely taught in mainstream sales training programs. While it is directionally encouraging to see more and more sales professionals embracing their craft as a pure science, over-biasing to one extreme or another is dangerous because each alone doesn’t provide enough tools to succeed in all selling situations.
For example, suppose we devoutly believed that sales was pure science. That would mean a seller who describes her solution using a scientifically proven persuasive messaging technique would be sure to convince her customer of its value. However, that technique likely would not have the desired impact if she used it in a way that came off as inauthentic or condescending. Conversely, a seller with high integrity and charisma, who is sincere in their desire to help her customer may win favor with buyers in spite of not having perfect selling mechanics.
Without asking why that tactic worked, you run the risk of gravitating too far to art or science. Or worse, falling in love with the tactic and spamming the crap out of it until it stops working without knowing why.