Sales Psychology: Helping Humans Make High-Stakes Decisions

Power is neutral.

One can be incredibly “powerful” and evil.

One can also be incredibly “powerful” and good.

Power only amplifies and reveals who we really are.

If the word “power” wasn’t negatively associated with “mean,“ everyone would want to feel powerful. Everyone wants to be proud, happy, in control, and able to live 100% in alignment with themselves.

Power and Sales

Sales, when done right, allow everyone to be powerful.

The lead feels in control and truly is in control. The salesperson is also truly in control. Each of them playing the role they’re meant to play.

To be a good salesman, we have to start by understanding a simple dynamic.

1. A salesperson doesn’t sell something

A business sells something.

A salesperson helps a human make a decision.

A salesperson feels “powerful” when helping someone make the best decision for themselves.

That is the true role of a salesperson.

2. A lead needs help deciding

The human who has to make a decision (aka the lead) feels powerful when they’re helped, not forced, to make the right decision for themselves.

Some decisions can be hard on people.

They appreciate being helped to get past all the layers of excuses they use to avoid making a decision. They value being helped to make a choice, sometimes a difficult one, without lying to themselves.

What Selling Truly Is About

1. Selling Happens at All Times

• Engaging the lead ⇒ Helping them decide
• Qualifying the lead ⇒ Helping them decide
• Making an offer ⇒ Helping them decide
• Closing ⇒ Helping them decide

2. Getting Power Back

The common definition of power is: “The ability to influence events or people.”

As salespeople, we aim to help a prospect influence the people or the events that affect them so they get what they want.

In other words, we help them acquire power.

To do this, we enable them to become the person they want to be by making real decisions that allow them to stop hesitating, to take the plunge, and confidently say yes or no.

3. Feelings Fade, Logic Stays

Emotions change, pass, evolve. Logic, on the other hand, remains.

Many salespeople are emotional salespeople.

We are not.

Not in the sense that we don’t engage with emotions. But in the sense that we use logic first so that the prospect can never disagree with themselves.

We want them to never regret their decision to do business with us. So, we have to make logical sense and ensure they receive the value they expect from us (after the sale).

Generally speaking, there are emotional buyers and rational buyers. Emotional buyers want to buy from you. They want to believe you. They want to trust you.

In either case, all you have to do is help their logical brains justify the decision they already want to make.

They want to buy from you!

All you have to do is help them.

4. Your Beliefs Matter More Than You Know

On the field, you believe the wrong things, you don’t sell.

Here are the basic beliefs you need to update your system with:

1. People want to believe you. They want to buy. You have to help their logical brains justify their decision.

2. “Selling” comes before you make your ask. Closing comes after the ask. You sell the thing for a while. Then comes the moment of closing. This is the moment when you drop your pants and show what you’ve got between your legs.

3. It’s easier to deal with obstacles than objections (before making the ask rather than after.)

4. You have to expect a “no” and plan accordingly. “No” is not a failure. It’s what’s expected. Stop being surprised. If everyone were to say yes, salespersons wouldn’t exist. If leads could decide on their own, they’d just wire you the money. “No” is the job.

5. If they don’t gasp in surprise at the price, you haven’t gone high enough. You need to train your salespeople to listen for that little gasp of surprise.

6. Selling is about helping prospects make a decision to help themselves. You help them to help themselves. That’s where the power comes from.

7. You have to put the prospect before the sale at all times. The prospect comes first. It’s not about you. It’s about them. The more you can get out of the way and put them front and center, the better.

8. Seek to understand, not to defend.

9. Maintain a childlike curiosity at all times.

10. Closing is a dance, not a fight. It’s a game of seduction, not a rape. The goal is not to beat them. The goal is to help them help themselves.

11. Selling is a transfer of belief over a bridge of trust. That means: you have to believe in what you’re selling to be able to transfer that belief. If you can convince your salespeople to believe, they’ll sell the right way because they won’t be trying to make the sale. They’ll be trying to help the prospect.

12. You’ll build trust only if you sincerely want to help because humans are exceptionally good at sensing bad intentions. It’s a survival mechanism.

13. Belief and trust are not binary concepts. They live on continuums. So the questions are: How much do you believe? How much do they trust you?

14. Closers ask the hard questions because they sincerely try to help, not reassure. We need to have difficult conversations to sincerely transform lives.

15. The person who cares most about the prospect wins the deal. If you care more than they do, you’ll win. If you’re more convincing than they are, they’ll question their own excuses and beliefs because you’re so certain of yourself.

16. Record all your sales on video. Always. When you’re hot and cold again, replay your “hot streaks” to get in the flow. It’s also the best way to train your sales teams.

17. Power is the ability to lead or influence people. If you want to be powerful, you need to understand this skill.

The Selling Process

1. Make Them Face The Truth

All it takes is one decision to change your life forever.

We’re all just one decision away from radically changing our lives, and that decision can be made at any time.

For some, it’s having a nice chat with their life partner. For others, it’s having the most difficult discussion of their lives with that same person.

For some, it’s signing up for a gym membership. For others, it’s quitting doom-scrolling.

We all have the power to change our lives with a single decision. The thing is, most of us don’t make that decision. Instead of changing our lives, we blame (empower) things outside our control.

Power follows the blame finger.

We do this every day. Both ourselves and our prospects. That’s why so many people are weak and powerless. We transfer all our power to the excuses we hide behind.

2. Help Them Move Forward

During closing, prospects are faced with a dilemma.

They have three choices:

• They can go forward and choose A.
• They can move forward and choose B.
• They can stop and make no decision.

Our role is to help them move forward in all cases.

So, three things can happen:

• They decide to take our offer. They feel confident in their decision.
• They decide not to take our offer. They also feel confident in their decision.
• They are uncertain. We need to help them make a decision and ensure it gets them closest to where they really want to go.

In other words:

I don’t want you to buy. I want you to decide. Not for me, for you. This decision won’t change my life, but it will change yours.

We must be genuinely happy when a prospect decides not to work with us because they’ve made an actual decision for themselves and taken back the power that’s been theirs all along.

Once again, closing aims to help the prospect decide, not to sell them something. A closing call is a victory if we’ve helped the customer make the right decision for them. Even if they said no.

3. Tackle Obstacles and Disarm Objections

First we need to make the difference between obstacle and objections.

	Obstacles	Objections
When	Happens before you make your offer.	Happens after you’ve made your offer.
Why	It happens because we don’t agree with something the prospect says.	It happens because the prospect doesn’t agree with us.
What	It’s an expression of our opposition or disapproval.	It’s an expression of the prospect’s opposition or disapproval.

It’s much easier to help a prospect debunk their limiting beliefs before we make our offer than after we’ve made it.

Once the offer is on the table, there are only objections and no more obstacles.

When faced with an objection, we never disagree with the customer.

It’s not a fight! We’re on their side.

4. Closing — After Making the Ask

To close a prospect, they must be in a very specific state.

The prospect must really want to achieve their objective, and :

1. Sincerely believe that the product will enable them to achieve their goal in the way they want to achieve it.
2. Sincerely believe that we and others (colleagues, friends, family, etc.) will support them in their quest.
3. Sincerely believe that it will work specifically for them and not just anyone else.

We need to prove that our solution works, so it’s more reasonable to believe it will work for them rather than think it won’t.

If the prospect doesn’t check these three boxes or is unsure about any of these three points, they’ll object to something else during the closing phase. That’s why we have to expect a “no” by default at the beginning of the call.

Once again, if leads could decide on their own, they wouldn’t need our help and would just wire the money to us.