247: Four Client Focus Areas For Salespeople

<p>I was studying an online learning programme from Professor Scott Galloway, where he talked about Appealing To Human Instincts.  His take was from the strategy angle, but I realised that this same framework would be useful for sales too.  In sales we do our best to engage the client.  We try to develop sophisticated questions to help us unearth the stated and unstated needs of the buyer.  Professor Galloway's pedagogical construct can give us another perspective on buyer dynamics.</p> <p> </p> <p>The first Human Instinct nominated was the brain.  This is our logos, our rational, logical, analytical mode.  What are the unanswered questions and key internal conversations occupying the minds of our buyers.  If we can meet the buyer in their thought process, then we are more likely to be able to understand their needs and then be in a position to meet those needs. </p> <p> </p> <p>We know that some buyers will be analytical types, for whom three decimal places is unremarkable when considering data.  Often though salespeople are big picture. Macro types who shun this level of detail because they feel it is boring.  They love the sale and abhor the paperwork which goes along with it.  I had two insurance salesmen in my home trying to get me to buy various policies.  What astounded me was they were middle aged, well experienced gentlemen and yet they couldn’t fill out the paperwork correctly, so we had to do it again.  They loved the conversation with me but not the conversation with the fine print in the contract.</p> <p> </p> <p>The next instinct was the heart.  Our emotions are there for all to see, if the right stimulation is provided. We laugh, cry, get angry, become determined and give up, based around our emotional configuration at any point in the day.  Salespeople walk into a mine field of buyer emotions, with no way of knowing which particular configuration we have bumped into today.  Our job is to gauge as quickly as possible where the buyer is emotionally and how they prefer to communicate at that moment.