The Psychology of Selling: What You Need to Know

There’s a very clear psychology for selling anything, in any industry and in any economy.

And it's not something any of us want to admit is true, but the way your customer perceives your product, brand, or company, dictates whether or not they're going to buy from you or one of your competitors.

Their decision is rarely determined by your price, or any of the other excuses that your salespeople are giving you.

Back in 2006, there was a study done that showed that people think wine tastes better when it’s served in a heavier bottle because the perception is that it's a more expensive bottle of wine.

It's also been shown that people think their car drives better, and smoother, and it makes less noise after it gets washed. 

They feel like it looks better, so their perception of how it drives is better.

This one’s even crazier… people feel like they get more relief from painkillers from a major brand instead of a generic brand, which might be absolutely identical to the major brand, but people perceive more value in the branded painkillers, so they believe their pain goes away faster.

We're building a new pet company right now, and we've spent months so far discussing the colors of the website, the label we're going to put on the products, the fonts that we’re using, the designs that we were using, and all the words we were using to describe the products.

Because we know that it's an amazing product, so amazing that I'm willing to put my brand behind it.

It doesn’t make a difference how great these products are, if pet owners don't perceive value, then we’ll never reach the level we've projected.

The success or failure of the salesperson on your team, or the success or failure of yourself when you're attempting to sell somebody either a product, a service, a company, or just an idea, is determined by the perception of value you create.

And to create a large enough perception of value in your product or service, you first need to know everything about your target audience.

And to do that, each of the companies in my portfolio uses something we call a “Target Demographic Analysis”, which we created, and it’s simply a form we use to get amazingly clear on every aspect of our prospect.

Because if you don't know what your customers' frustrations and pains are, what their deepest needs are, what kind of books they read, and what other brands they buy from, you're shooting in the dark with all your marketing.

So you need to build a document for your company that gives you deep insight so you know exactly how, where, and when your customers are most likely to be looking for the products you offer, so you can be in front of them when they’re ready to buy, and if you do that, it'll save you a lot of wasted marketing money.

Once you have this all filled out, you give it to your website person to update your site, to your copywriter to update your copy, to your marketing agency to better target your ads, to your salespeople so they know how to talk with your prospects, and to your customer support team so they know how to best help your customers.

It’ll take you a few hours to create, and it’ll save you years of effort and make your life much easier.