In his teens, Midwesterner Buck Reed set up his own business, mowing lawns in the community. He enjoyed his work and was very good at it, as well as at attracting new clients. This is why, by the time he was 20, he was running a successful landscaping company. Always striving to do more, he became involved in self-development classes and found his true calling: training others in the art of making a sale. Specifically, he has focused on the psychology of sales, and how that can be used to become better and more efficient. In fact, he believes that there are just six steps to making a sale, all of which are based on subtle psychology.
Buck Reed’s 6 Sales Psychology Steps
- Salespeople must make comparisons. However, this is something the used car salesman of the past used to do and people are now distrusting of that. A sales person is expected to know everything about their own product and about the competitors product. Because this is nearly impossible, it is too easy for a salesperson to use false comparisons, something that most customers will now see straight through. Hence, salespeople have to learn all of the important details, whether they like her or not.
- Salespeople should emphasize any existing social similarities. People like the things that I trust so being able to show something that is for sale is very much like something that already exists is a great tactic to make a sale.
- A salesperson should attempt to create an illusion that a demand exists. It is important that they do not venture into the world of lies however, as, again, customers will see straight through that. However, finding a way to make it sound like the products is in high demand, particularly if that isn’t dishonest, is an excellent tactic.
- A salesperson must make it clear that their product has a lot of different benefits, bundled together in a single cost. In fact, people wouldn’t even mind waiting for some of the benefits even if they pay for them now. Indeed, it is actually a good tactic to show people that if they make a purchase today, they will benefit from it in future.
- Sales people will try to make customers feel as if they are obliged to say yes. The sounds very negative and it is certainly true that it could be very easy for a dishonest salesperson to take advantage of this. However, there are ways to do this in an honest way, for instance by allowing customers to return a favour.
- A good salesperson is able to recognize emotional triggers. Various pieces of research have demonstrated that our emotions significantly affect our commercial decisions. In fact, one study showed that people would happily spent 30% more on something they wanted to buy if they had just seen a sad movie. A separate study demonstrated that this may be because of the fact that emotional individuals find it more difficult to understand the difference between numbers and the value assigned to numbers in a rational manner.
