Salespeople have their own unique ways to selling to people, along with upselling and improving sales and marketing and promoting products. In fact, most salespeople are successful in their sales tactics.
So, what is the secret to their success? One word: Psychology of Selling.
Why? Salesperson use psychology to get a good understanding of their customers and how to approach them to ultimately close a sale. Whether you’re a seasoned sales professional, or you’re a novice salespeople still trying to acquire your first 100 customers, it’s essential to have a few extra tricks up your sleeve.
Psychology of Selling Tips
With that said, here are 7 tips on how you can cleverly use psychology of selling in your next sales venture:
Offer What Buyers Want
Value shouldn’t have to be reserved for only fixed numbers,” says Katherine Fox, a blogger at Academic Brits and Next Coursework. “When it comes to selling to prospects, value involves anything and everything in the sale.
As such, value is relative to the following:
- What you’re selling
- What others will charge
- How much prospects are used to paying for a product
- How badly prospects want a product, AND
- How prospects perceive the difference between your offer and others
The idea with value is to outdo your competitors with the ‘better offer,’” adds Fox. “If you can make the offer greater than the asking price, or at least match it, the more likely people are to buy.
Offer Scarce Options
Believe it or not, less is more, when it comes to selling to people. If you try to provide your prospect with too many different options, it’ll only make it harder for them to come to a decision. And, if your prospects wastes time with decision-making, they’ll most likely grow frustrated, and then walk away not buying – period. This is called “decision paralysis.”
First, let’s think about how you can prevent “decision paralysis”:
- If your company sells a large range or products, research your prospects ahead of time, so that you know which products you should pitch to them.
- Instead of showcasing products in bulk, chunk them into categories to simplify the offering.
- Be sure to ask qualifying questions in order to build on your knowledge of what consumers want, and then narrow down the type of product they’ll most likely be interested in.
- Only pitch solutions that match their needs; or, package select products together so your prospect understands what solutions work well together.
Build Credibility With Your Expertise
One of the first questions that consumers might ask you during a discovery call is this: “Why should we buy your product?” In other words, they’re asking you: “Why should we listen to you?” That’s why it’s important to establish yourself as an authority for the product(s) that you’re selling. In this way, potential customers are more apt to trust your sales pitch.
According to getphilosophyessay.com, Here are some great ways to build credibility with your customers:
- Tell your prospects about the years of experience and expertise behind your product or service.
- Talk about your workplace culture, and boast about your workforce and visionaries behind your product(s).
- Talk about the research behind your solutions.
- Talk about the achievements, awards, and recognition that your product(s) have received.
Display Social Proof
Showing social proof of your product’s effectiveness is another great way to build credibility. In fact, consumers will turn to other consumers before they trust marketers or sales reps. So, if a product is shown to be popular among consumers, it’s because of how fast the word spreads, thanks to the following:
- Word of mouth
- Online reviews
- Social media
Therefore, when it comes to social proof, you can post the most glowing ones on your site – just don’t overdo the popular signals, or else you’ll come off as “selling out” or “too good to be true.”
Help Them “buy” Something
Let’s face it: People want to be sold something. They want to discover new things (i.e. products, services, experiences, etc.) – regardless if they want to buy something now or later.
However, being “sold” isn’t everything. In fact, people don’t want to be cheated or tricked into buying something, and they’ll sense that right away.
Instead, why not “help” them, not “sell” to them. Maybe they have a problem that needs to be solved, and you happen to have a “solution” for them. So, when you change your analogy of the marketing process – by selling useful products, making appealing offers, and treating people fairly – consumers are more likely to trust you.
Appeal to Their Senses
“All salespeople must appeal to the senses to sell a product,” says Anna Yu, a psychologist at Origin Writings and PhD Kingdom. “That means allowing the prospect to actually experience and visualize your product before buying it.”
You have to appeal to the following senses, when you sell something:
- Sight
- Smell
- Hearing
- Touch
- Taste
“The reason why people want to try before they buy is so that they check out the quality of it,” adds Yu. “If they see it as good quality, then they’ll most likely buy. Therefore, you may want to enable a sensory buying experience for shoppers.”
Create Urgency
Finally, consider playing off shoppers’ FOMO (or, Fear of Missing Out). The psychology of selling behind this is that you’re creating a sense of urgency for shoppers – using the threat of scarcity to make them act quickly to buy something.
Though, make sure that your product is something that consumers want. Plus, use FOMO wisely, or else you’ll come off as annoying and persistent. In the long-run, it’s all about what the consumer wants – what their heart wants.
In the meantime, the “get it before it’s gone” mindset can apply to both products and special offers. You can even use social proof to pull this off, because that’s suggesting that your product is at risk of running out due to high demand.
Conclusion
Although these 7 tips are only a handful of ways to use psychology in your sales practices, the concept itself – psychology of selling – goes a long way to creating the ideal salesperson who won’t nag people into buying products, nor pestering them to make some buying choices. Once you keep in mind these tips (and perhaps, perfect them), you’ll be on your way to selling like a pro, thanks to psychology of selling!
Katrina Hatchett is a business writer and blogger. As a business writer, she has been involved in many projects nationwide. As a blogger, she uses her business expertise to talk about effective solutions to project problems.
Katrina Hatchett is a business writer and blogger. As a business writer, she has been involved in many projects nationwide. As a blogger, she uses her business expertise to talk about effective solutions to project problems.