Read time: 5 min
Today, I will teach you why customers buy and how to leverage the most important persuasion levers into your sales process.
If you want to get good at selling, stop reading books on sales and start paying attention to human psychology. When you begin to understand and incorporate the different psychological levers into your sales process, it will drastically improve your ability to win deals.
The problem with most posts or books regarding founder sales is they focus on the execution, or the technique, without explaining the psychology of why people say yes.
Psychology leverages emotions, cognitive biases, and persuasive techniques to influence people to make purchasing decisions.
One of the best books ever written on persuasion is Influence by Robert Cialdini. In the book, he explains six principles that need to be engaged to close business. Those principles are:
- Reciprocity
- Consistency
- Social Proof
- Authority
- Likability
- Scarcity
I will briefly break down each of them and explain how we coach clients to implement and incorporate them into their processes.
1. Reciprocity
As humans, we are hard-wired to reciprocate favors. The principle of reciprocation leverages the human tendency to feel obligated to give back when we receive something from others. It creates a sense of indebtedness and increases the likelihood of compliance or a favorable response to a request or offer. This is exactly what we want with selling.
Implementation
One of the highest compliments you can give to another human being is to listen to them genuinely. Listening demonstrates respect, empathy, and a genuine interest in understanding their challenges, feelings, and experiences. It raises the price of your stock and makes the person feel more connected to you.
During the discovery call, when you ask questions, get into the habit of always asking follow-up questions to the answers they provide. This demonstrates genuine interest. People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. You can only do this effectively if you listen. This is the principle of reciprocation.
If they feel like you’re listening, they are more inclined to divulge more and more information. The more information you have, the more leverage you have. The more leverage, the higher the probability you will close. Listen to understand rather than listen to reply.
2. Consistency:
The principle of consistency highlights the human desire to be consistent with our past beliefs, commitments, and actions. Once people make a choice, they tend to stick to it to maintain internal coherence. It’s sticking to your word and following through on what you said you would do. You can achieve persuasion by aligning your value prop with the prospect’s needs. This is why the discovery call is so important.
Implementation
Consistency is the key to the entire sales process. We achieve this by understanding the prospect’s needs and walking them through the process. Each time they proceed to the next stage, they make small commitments to themselves. Small commitments are them being consistent with what it is they need. As they progress, they stay consistent with the problems they need solving, conveying that our process addresses those needs.
3. Social Proof
Social proof suggests that people tend to follow the actions or behaviors of others, particularly when they are unsure about what to do or how to act in a specific situation. We look for what others do or say to validate our thoughts. Reviews, case studies, logos, and testimonials are all social proof. Landing one big logo can provide huge leverage in proving you are credible to prospects.
Implementation
We incorporate social proof into the process through case studies and testimonials everywhere and anywhere potential prospects live. We add logos, case studies and testimonials for LinkedIn profiles, websites, decks, and other customer-facing collateral. This is by far one of the biggest needle movers in gaining confidence and credibility.
4. Authority
People follow those perceived as credible, knowledgeable, or in positions of authority. This is the idea of uniforms. Police, firefighters, doctors, lawyers, and security all wear uniforms to convey authority.
Implementation
Throughout the buying journey, you have to convey you are the authority. You can do this in 2 ways.
- Knowing your shit. You’ve built a company around solving the problem(s) in the space. You need to be able to articulate that clearly.
- Controlling the conversation by conveying assertiveness and not being a pushover.
I see this last one often. Clients are afraid to be assertive. They allow the prospect to control the conversation. Don’t do this.
They come to you because they have a problem and believe you can solve it. You’re the one wearing the lab coat. That needs to be conveyed throughout the buying journey. People do business with other people who are assertive. This conveys confidence and competency, and confidence closes deals. Always be the authority by controlling the buying journey.
5. Likeability
People are more inclined to do business with people they like. You increase your persuasive power by building rapport, LISTENING, and establishing a genuine connection. Your vibe attracts your tribe. Ideally, your ICP should be your tribe. You need to understand them.
Implementation
The science behind selling is listening. When you listen, you can ask really good questions. Here are examples of how to begin questions.
- I’d love to zoom in on ______ and better understand ______.
- You mentioned ______; what does that look like?
- When you say ______, how do you define that?
- What do you see as being the______?
- What do you think about_______?
- Help me better understand_______.
Questions that begin with these statements build trust, competence and rapport in the eyes of the prospect. This is how you become more likeable and move closer to the close.
6. Scarcity
The principle of scarcity suggests that people perceive something as more valuable when it is limited or scarce in availability. It creates a sense of urgency and fear of missing out (FOMO). It drives individuals to take action or make a purchase to secure the scarce resource or opportunity before it’s no longer accessible.
Implementation
This is why we create the offer. The offer is designed to do four things. (1) To generate revenue quickly. (2) To get them using and validating your product fast, with zero risk. (3) Identifying indications of PMF. And (4) creating scarcity (FOMO) that triggers them to decide quickly. Here’s an example.
We are willing to extend you an offer that completely protects your downside risk and maximizes your upside. The caveat is we will only extend this offer to you for two weeks.
Would you like to hear it?
For $1000, we guarantee that we can deliver on _______ and _________ in the next 30 days, and if we can’t deliver, we’ll refund you the $1000 for the inconvenience and allow you to use the platform for free for the next 30 days. Again, we’ll extend this offer to you for the next two weeks. All we ask is once you’ve validated that our tech will work, I want two favors from you (i.e. the principle of reciprocation) (1) To move forward on an annual agreement. And (2) to use you as a case study to share with other potential customers. Is that fair enough!!
6 Takeaways (A Recap)
- Reciprocity: Listening and asking great follow-up questions.
- Consistency: Having prospects make small commitments.
- Social Proof: Sharing wins with case studies, testimonials and logos.
- Authority: Controlling the conversation and conveying confidence.
- Likeability: Build trust, rapport and competence by listening.
- Scarcity: Make them feel special with a limited, exclusive offer.
Before you go, I need a favor from the community…
I’m overwhelmed and blown away by the sheer volume of messages I receive every week on how much this newsletter is helping. It’s very fulfilling. We need to help more founders. There is a massive need for what it is we do here at Rampd.
I ask you to share the newsletter with other founders who need help or support with their customer acquisition. Maybe posting in book face or forwarding the newsletter to a friend would be amazing.
I’m trying to reach and help as many founders as possible. You guys are the link to that channel. Thank you for your support! Here’s the newsletter link to share.
That’s all I got for today.
See you all next week!
Darren
P.S. If you’re interested in booking a call and learning more, you can do so here.
