Psychology for the
Top Sales Professional
I was standing before the executive assistant and the human resource development manager for a sales presentation. I was looking to sell them my training program for the sales team of their electronics company. As far as I was concerned, it had gone well. As always, when it was over I wanted to know where I stood. I also wanted to find out anything I could about the CEO and somehow get some face time with him. In fact, that was the downside of my presentation—that the boss wasn’t there to see it. First I asked his assistant, “Assuming you run into your boss in the hallway, what are the positives that you would give him regarding our meeting?”
The assistant replied that he liked my professionalism but wondered whether my domineering manner might not be a touch too aggressive for his people. OK, I get that a lot. I told him that it wouldn’t be a problem, I could easily tone it down. I simply came on so strong to show that I could. “You see,” I explained, “I always come out in high gear. Because if I had come out lukewarm and you wanted fireworks, then you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I could give you fireworks. Toning it down is never a problem.” He was amused by this, and it put him at ease.
Now I turned to the HR development manager and asked her the same question, to which she promptly replied, “I’m not going to tell you.”
I kept looking at her, smiled, and gave her a light nod. I knew she would say something else if I just kept my eyes on her. And she did. “Mr. Limbeck, I know that you’ve studied neurolinguistic programming and so forth, but to be honest, I don’t appreciate this kind of manipulation. Besides, there are three other sales trainers who have presentations to make.”
That’s OK, I thought. She’ll come around. First I have to get to the boss. That’s why I was sticking to the assistant for the moment. As he escorted me to the parking lot, he looked admiringly at my car and said, “Is this yours, Mr. Limbeck? Well, finally a trainer with a decent car. The last one pulled up in a beat-up Toyota and told me that he was forced to drive his girlfriend’s car because his was being repaired.” I winked at him and said, “What kind of man would allow his girlfriend to drive an old Toyota?” Again, he laughed. I had just struck a chord with the assistant. It was a good day.
On our next meeting, the HR manager was there again and this time—finally!—so was the CEO. My performance was a shade better than last time, and at the end of it I asked again where I stood in the running. The boss’s reply was similar to the assistant’s last time, and I had my counter argument ready for it.
Limbeck, why are you making the same mistake twice?
Then I made a slight mistake. I turned to the HR manager and asked her the same question, again. Her answer: “Mr. Limbeck, I told you last time that I’m not going to discuss that.”
I shouldn’t have done that. Now I had simply added fuel to the fire. But no, that wasn’t enough! Because then—and I have no idea why I did this—I deliberately took another shot at her. Maybe because she irritated me somehow. I said, “If you refuse to give me any feedback, it’s not exactly the best way to establish trust for a collaboration.”
A week later I got a polite rejection letter in the mail. Signed personally by her, the HR development manager.
So, what did the young Limbeck do at that point? Did he turn his attention to other, more worthy matters? No. Too stubborn to let it lie, he commits a third and final error, with the same exact person. Because an offense is the best form of defense, and considering I already had a rejection letter (NO is short for Next Opportunity, remember?), I wrote directly to the CEO and proposed two pilot training sessions free of charge and requested that the employees decide for themselves who they felt catered best to their needs.
Again, I got a letter. And again, not from the boss but from the HR development manager herself. This time, though, she was livid and laid into me about how tactless and disrespectful I had behaved from the moment I set foot in the firm. She stated that from this moment on the company wanted no more contact of any kind with me or my business.
Now she was really livid—and rightly so.
The door was slammed shut, the bridges burned. Way to go. And the worst part of it was that she was right. She was right to be angry. And do you know why? Did you notice?
Fool that I am, I failed to notice. Only now, with the second scathing letter before me, did the penny drop. The person making the decisions about the training program was the HR development manager. Not the executive assistant, not the human resources director, and not even the CEO; she was the decision-maker.
And I very stupidly didn’t see it. I had ignored her. I had disregarded the fact that from the very beginning, she had expressed mistrust in my regard. I had simply paid no attention to her, leaving her in the lurch instead. I had not been able to disarm her resistance, because I hadn’t shown her the esteem she deserved. I had wanted to plow through every wall before me and hadn’t even realized which wall was the right one!
Put another way, I had lacked compassion. I hadn’t used enough psychology in the matter.
With, Not Against
The Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research long ago established the motives that lead a person to make a purchase. These rules still hold today. According to the institute, people buy a product because it raises personal prestige, it is cost effective, it contributes to one’s comfort, it represents cutting-edge technology, it satisfies a social need, it is good for the environment or for personal health, or it fulfills the need for security or safety.
Seven solid reasons. For the overwhelming majority of consumers, it isn’t just one of these factors that is decisive; it is several, and in some cases, all of them play a role. But in most cases, it is one or two of them that stand out and determine the customer’s decision to act on the purchase or not.
Let’s take an example. A man in his mid-thirties strolls into a car dealer’s lot and stops in front of a minivan. The salesperson can already tell a few things from this: The man is probably not a student looking for a small, cheap car. He is also not a developer seeking a prestigious convertible for weekends on the golf course. He is most likely a family man interested in this type of car to ferry his family around in a secure, comfortable, and effective manner to shops, school, weekend tournaments, grandpa’s and grandma’s house, or holiday resorts.
Nevertheless, the average salesperson will likely focus on the technical innovations as compared to yesteryear’s model: the powerful engine, the torque, and the bragging rights awaiting any buyer who pulls this car into his driveway. And this very salesperson will fail to sell the customer a single car on this occasion.
The top sales professional, on the other hand, is bearing the most important buying motives in mind and can already begin to eliminate and prioritize. She already knows that cost effectiveness, comfort, and safety are decisive for concluding the sale. Prestige and technology will count less. She will have to find out which of the following factors are most important to the customer: the number of airbags, the variability of the seats, the storage space, the safe entry and exit of children, or the engine’s consumption value. That is why she has her questions ready and proceeds to inquire first, instead of talking the customer’s ear off. In short, she begins her approach with the motives of the customer, and therein lies her potential sale.
A good salesperson is like a midwife. Sometimes the baby is born of its own accord, almost sliding out into her waiting hands. Other times it is more difficult, and the midwife has to resort to forceps or a ventouse. At times the procedure feels interminable, without visible progress. Perhaps the baby is born by caesarean section. But regardless of how easy or difficult, how quickly or how long it takes, in the end all parties involved should be happy that the baby has seen the light of day.
The midwife doesn’t need to have studied medicine, but she does need a thorough knowledge of human anatomy, in particular of the woman’s reproductive organs. You as a salesperson do not need a degree in psychology, but knowledge of certain key elements of the human psyche are indispensable. Among these are the motives underlying your customer’s purchase.
Limbeck, the psychologist.
There are all sorts of psychological paradigms that serve to break down the transactions between people: neurolinguistic programming, transactional analysis, biostructural analysis, family constellations—countless methods are used for this purpose. Neuropsychologists teach us that for purchase decisions, it is the limbic system that is crucial. This area of the brain, which is relatively old in evolutionary terms, resides between the brain stem (old system) and the cerebral cortex (new system). This is also where endorphins are released, those hormones that help manage pain and trigger feelings of euphoria and joy. It is in the limbic system that emotion, intuition, and instinct are rooted, even though other parts of the central nervous system also contribute to their formation. Many studies suggest, however, that things like buying decisions of a consumer are first triggered in the limbic system. It is only at that point that rational explanatory patterns are formed in the cerebrum, long after the “gut decision” in the reptilian brain has been made.
The astute sales professional also knows that when a customer weighs her reason and her gut feeling about whether or not and from whom she should buy, it is invariably her gut feeling that prevails in the end, even if her reason subsequently provides wonderful justifications. This also means that depending on her motives, whether the salesperson is friendly or unfriendly has a lot of bearing on the transaction itself. The top sales professional succeeds in forging a common feeling with the customer. He feels with the client; he feels as the client feels.
The sales professional also knows that all of his acquired knowledge about neurolinguistic programming, transactional analysis, family systems therapy or family constellations, and neurobiology are too abstract and too complex for the current selling context. In the end, whoever stands before the customer and begins to ponder these abstruse methods is wasting too much energy and resources theorizing instead of focusing that energy on sympathizing with, observing, guiding, and seeing the customer through to the finish line.
Neurolinguistic programming (NLP), neurobiology, family systems therapy—all theory. Where does that leave the practice?
Seeing, Hearing, Feeling
The most powerful selling tools at my disposal are my curiosity and my knowledge of human nature. If I’m in top form, I can pretty quickly tell what emotional state my client is in. Initially, I observe how she presents herself, what she says and how she says it, how she moves. In the first few seconds and minutes of our meeting I use my inner radar to detect all incoming information. Then, I allow her feelings to guide mine; I begin to feel with her.
Psychologists employ the same motivational patterns as the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research: social recognition, safety and emotional security, trust, self-respect, independence, and responsibility. If I am able to discern, or better yet, if I can feel that social recognition is what is most important to my client, then I could say to her, “You will be one of the first to own a Porsche Panamera Turbo. You’ll be a ‘first-mover,’ and let me tell you, nothing beats watching everyone admire your car as you drive past.”
If I sense that independence is what she wants, I could say, “If you use this itinerary, you’ll be venturing off the beaten track.”
Whoever seeks emotional security likes to hear that she is in good company: “The five most successful companies in your sector use the same software you do . . .”
Those who value self-respect tend to weigh things meticulously. They are often opinionated and want to see proof for everything. Numbers, graphs, facts, and control are what sways them. They are often skeptical. Skepticism, though, is a form of resistance; skeptical people are usually not open-minded. They must first be made to relax. My way to relax them is to let them browse through my documents while I’m presenting something to them, to share precisely those elements that make them skeptical in the first place.
I disarm the skeptics by letting them
browse through my documents.
But it isn’t only their motives and needs that distinguish one client from another. Each one perceives their surroundings in a unique way. Each of the five senses of an individual is wrought and weighted differently.
A visually oriented type is more receptive to visual verbs and adjectives and retains them better: “See how vividly this software shows your employees how it is applied.”
The kinesthetic person will be more sensitive to phrases such as: “It will impress you how easy it is to handle this iPad, how information is always at your fingertips regardless of where you are, how the wireless keyboard is so ergonomically built and responds beautifully to every stroke of the key . . .”
Auditory people will respond more readily to things like: “Listen to how that twelve-cylinder engine rumbles as it’s idling and what an imposing roar it emits when gunned—even the resounding boom of the car door as it closes.”
You get the idea. A good salesperson employs a host of strategies to establish a solid connection to the client, strategies that can readily be explained in psychological terms. Some people use psychology unconsciously; if they used it deliberately, they would be even better at it. But in the end, it is better to master one or two methods with hundreds of clients than to ineptly muddle your way through Freud’s entire legacy.
As I said, it will come down to your own knowledge of human nature. After all, we are talking about practical applications here, not theoretical erudition. If the customer suspects that you’re mentally leafing through your Psychology 101 book, you may as well go straight to the chapter on “Coping with Loss”—because that’s where you’re headed with that customer. If your conversation is full of psycho-babble, you’re certainly not going to be mistaken for a good salesperson, which means you’re not going to make any sales, period. It is much more important and helpful to work on your own feel for human nature than to probe your customer’s knowledge of it.
I can’t say it often enough: It is crucial in the very first minutes with the client to keep all your senses alert. Take note of details: Is he wearing spotlessly polished shoes? Does he cultivate his outward appearance? Does he wear a watch? If so, is it a simple one or an expensive one, conspicuous or plain and old-fashioned? Are status symbols important to him? Cuff links? Haircut? Does he have a firm handshake or a flimsy one? What does his voice sound like? His tone and cadence? Is it commanding, loud, or hushed? Is his speech leisurely or frenetic? How does he articulate his own name? All of these mannerisms say something about the customer and go far beyond the mere content of his words.
When you’re a top salesperson, these are things that you register in fractions of a second and process just as quickly and intuitively. This constitutes the analytical part of learning about human nature. And the results from this can be processed and used further. What for? For the aspect of “feeling with” your client. The more precise the observation, the more accurate the judgment. The more accurate the judgment, the better the lesson in human nature. The better the lesson in human nature, the more powerful the connection to the client. The more powerful the connection, the more likeable the salesperson. The more likeable the salesperson, the more likely the sale.
One day I was sitting in a seminar room with the executives of a medium-sized firm. The atmosphere was tense and expectant. “We’re still waiting for the boss,” someone said.
I see. Obviously around here nothing happens without him. The door suddenly swung open, and even before anybody appeared, the executives gave a start and instantly straightened up. If they had been school kids, they would have sprung out of their chairs and burst into greeting in unison. Out strode a confident, jovial man with the spirited body language of a Julius Caesar inspecting his legions. He peered at me and said, “Aha, you must be the secret weapon of the sales sector who wants to show my employees how it’s done. However, do you even understand what our company is about? Have you taken the time to look at what we do?”
He strode in with the spirited
body language of a Julius Caesar.
This was a tricky cue. I replied, “That’s a great idea. Let’s start there.”
Naturally he insisted on taking me on a tour himself. The point is, I was able to take his cue and roll with his domineering and proud entrance. I showed him the esteem he deserved for what he saw as his life’s work. A man like him likes to lead and likes to showcase his accomplishments. So I let him lead. During the tour of his company I gave him the respect that he appreciated, telling him, “I’m very impressed with what you’ve managed to create here.” And I meant it too.
Limbeck in a Pigeonhole
I was at a large investment bank, dealing with the human resource development manager. She had just finished lunch with her company’s thirty-two top salespeople. She wanted to know from them how the seminar, to which she had sent their entire sales team, had gone. My seminar.
She said that the seminar had been a success with everyone in the team. But at one point, she seemed to hesitate, and her voice faltered. “My people said that you were a little eccentric. Can I ask you something, Mr. Limbeck?”
Sure she could. Now I was curious.
“Is there really a huge poster in the seminar room with your picture and logo on it? I saw the sign on the entrance door that said, ‘This is where the employees of company XY train for their future success,’ and I found that delightful. But is it true that you also wear cufflinks with your Limbeck logo on them? And do you actually drive a Porsche 911 with your logo embossed on the door frame?”
What can I say? That’s all true. I told her that she should tell her employees that Limbeck had a rough childhood. Hence, his assertive approach. And hence also the posters, cufflinks, Porsche, and embossed car-door frames.
She laughed.
“Well,” I said, “if it helps people to put me in a pigeonhole, then that’s OK with me, as long as they engrave my name on it—and don’t forget that I gave a good seminar.”
And of course I get pigeonholed: The self-made man who never got anything the easy way, who had to work hard for everything he has, and who is never at a loss for words. The sales authority, who loves the fast lane, impeccable suits, and exquisite cars. Of course he drives a Porsche, and he drives it fast. Or leisurely, to feel the wind in his hair. But this same Limbeck can also ride in a diesel-engine family minivan, to unwind and socialize. And in this case he relishes the fact that he only has to tank up once every five hundred miles. The same Limbeck can sit outdoors for hours on end at a fishing lake and keep his mouth shut, throw a steak on the grill if the fishing didn’t go so well, and savor a cold beer as the sun sets. A pigeonhole, after all, is no more than that.
But yes, the working Limbeck is flawlessly dressed. He comes with cufflinks and has his own display, his seminar folders, and so forth. Why? Because Limbeck embodies his own brand. Because this brand has a representative: Martin Limbeck. And because this brand has a logo.
Nobody is particularly surprised to see Nike shoes with the Nike logo. Every other Harley-Davidson rider also has a Harley tattoo under their leather jacket. Limbeck happens to have his logo on his cufflinks. It only means that I live my brand and stand behind it 100 percent. I’m proud of it because I have spent the last twenty years building it.
Nobody is surprised to see logos on shoes.
Whether a customer realizes it or not, a brand that is successful and uniquely identifiable also works on a subliminal level. There are no purely rational decisions. Even apparently rational decisions are driven by the subconscious and hence the emotional. That is why it is so crucial for a good sales professional to know exactly what he stands for to forge an honest, emotional bond with the customer. He must deftly strike the right emotional chord to bring the transaction to a successful conclusion for both parties. On one end, he must know the chains of reasoning, the effective wording, objection handling, and so forth. But on the other, he must also sense when to be dominant and when to hold back. And incidentally, in 90 percent of the cases, you should shoot for a shade more dominance.
If you have considerable control over the pigeonhole with which your client has identified you—in other words, if you are a brand that is infused with a wealth of positive qualities—then the mutual esteem between you and your client will be established much more quickly and will multiply your chances for success.
Pigeonholes, striking the right emotional chords, manipulation, psychology—in the end there are only two options. When the meeting is over, either the client will think, “Maybe I should have gone with someone else on this,” in which case your psychological approach was not good enough.
Or the client thinks, “That went well. I can trust that man, even if he didn’t budge on his price.” Then you’ve done your job.
