What Is Sales Psychology and How You Can Use It to Do More Sales [With Expert Tips]

“Up to 40% off on Indian Wear”

Have you ever gone Diwali shopping and ended up buying two or three ethnic attires when you are looking just for one?

Now think, what made you buy another dress? I am sure you didn’t need the second one, but still, you felt more satisfied by purchasing two or three dresses at a discount.

This is nothing, but you just witnessed a sales psychology trick.

Sales psychology tips you never saw coming

When it comes to purchasing any goods or services, the human brain works in a specific pattern that forms the basis of sales psychology. As a salesperson, you must understand those human behaviors and their decision-making processes before pitching them for any sales. This will help you to increase your conversion rate and boost your sales process and growth with best practices. 

So, why wait? Let’s get started with understanding sales psychology tricks that really work and how you can use them to nail sales engagement with your prospects and hit your sales goals:

Building Rapport

You must build an empathetic relationship with your customers to convert your sales because people can feel your intention as stated by sales expert Patrik Dang! You can follow this four-step formula to build rapport:

• Understand the customer’s perspective: think like a customer. 
• Research your prospects: learn about their concerns. 
• Make the product customized according to the requirement: give customers a solution, not a product.
• Present it with a personal touch (aka personalization 🙂).

Let’s see how all these points work out together. 

For instance, many people are concerned about the skin care products they use as they may contain harmful chemicals. Realizing the problem, The Derma Co. introduced products consisting of specific ingredients like salicylic, vitamin C, niacinamide, etc, which provided consumer confidence to use the product without harming their skin. 

So here, The Derma Co. understood the customers' perspective, learned about their concerns, customized the products per customer needs, and finally presented the product as the solution to all their problems.

By following the 4 step approach, you not only demonstrate that you comprehend the client's worries, but you also address those worries. As the customer feels heard and that their needs are being met, this can help forge a rapport with them. As a result, the customer may be more inclined to buy something and even make another purchase.

Every touch point is an opportunity to build rapport and increase sales engagement with customers. But in today’s rapidly changing world, you need an exclusive and efficient platform for managing sales engagement to ensure you do not lose out on your customers. So, besides leveraging on all sales tips and tricks, do ensure to use a modern sales stack to ensure you also get the best of technology to achieve your goals. 

Creating Urgency

The founder of Sales Insight Lab, Marc, a published author and sales speaker, says that do not bore your customers with sales pitches. Instead, give them something more. Give them some thrill, which can be done by creating urgency for a product. 

For instance, look at how Amazon introduces flash sales and prescribes that the mobile phone is available with a discount of 27% only for the next one hour and thirty-five minutes. Now, some of the buyers who were not even planning to buy a smartphone end up ordering it quickly because it makes them feel more satisfied to purchase a phone at a 27% discount compared to the normal price.

The satisfaction one gets from saving money is the dopamine rush, creating urgency is one of the most effective sales psychology tricks. After all, who does not like saving money?

Now you understand why you ended up buying two dresses at the price of one? 🙂

Because the seller had created the perception that the discount offer is exclusive and you need to act quickly before it is too late.

Besides creating urgency, discounts have also been proved to be a sales booster in general and dearly loved by all people! As per discount statistics released by Shopper, about 30% of all people look up for a discount coupon before buying anything online. That makes discounts a vital part of the overall selling process in creating urgency and getting people to buy more of whatever you are selling!

Overcoming Objections

Customers can have objections regarding the price, features, or substitute of the product. As per the sales expert Tom Hopkins, you need to start seeing objections as their pain points. Only then you will be able to tackle them.

Once you understand customer problems, only after that use sales psychology tips to handle the objections and close the sales. The technique will vary with the type of leads, so make sure that you have an understanding of different types of prospects in a sales process.

“People don’t just buy the product that they can see, they buy your attitude that they can sense.” —- Roxanne Emmerich

Objection handling seems easy in theory but can be tricky when implementing them. So consider this example where a customer is reluctant to buy a motorbike because it is beyond their budget's price range.  

Feel-Felt-Found Technique

Being a salesperson, you can say to him "I understand how you feel. Many other customers have also shared a similar concern regarding the price. However, they found that this motorcycle model is durable, and most of all, it gives you good mileage, so what can be better than that?"

No customer will mind spending a little extra if they get good quality with an even better ROI. Furthermore, this technique makes the customer feel that you understand their concern. 

Boomerang Technique

You can also reply to the customer differently. You can say that "I understand that the bike's price is a little high, but this bike model has some exceptional features like a lightweight yet sturdy body. In addition, disc brakes give you more control than conventional brakes, and the bike gives a mileage of 83 kmpl. So you are getting a lot of features that you would need to find elsewhere at this price." 

Instead of pushing your customers to buy the product, bounce back with a convincing reply to their objections. Give them reasons for why they should invest a particular amount of money in your product. And you will quickly see them closing the deal with you!

Closing the Sale

“Don’t celebrate closing a sale; celebrate opening a relationship.” — Patricia Flipp

Closing the sale is the final step in your sales process. When you feel that the customer is influenced enough, you make a final call to action and ask directly to the customer, “Would you like to make the purchase now?” 

If the response is yes, then great! If not, then you know it is time for you to stop pushing a sale and start building a bond instead.

Building relationships is a crucial aspect that is a part of every sales psychology tip! By building bonds, you create a trust factor; if you are unable to close with them today, maybe you will be able to do so after two months! Who knows, hah!

Tips on implementing sales psychology techniques  in your daily sales life

Learning sales psychology is easy, but implementing it is altogether a different task. I have listed some ways you can execute the sales psychology tips correctly and get desired results 👇

Listen More Than You Speak

You should focus more on listening to what the customer is saying rather than speaking on your own. Apply the 70/30 rule when it comes to any conversation with the customer. Listen to the customer 70% of the time and talk only for the other 30. 

Add relevant qualifying questions for sales and listen to your customers and understand what their requirements are

Active listening will help you understand the customer and their pain points. Just validate your customers and be empathetic towards them. End the call on a positive note by assuring them that you will be able to help them and then automate your workflow that will remind you to follow up on them.

Listening actively to your customers will provide you following edges:

• You can understand customers’ needs, wants, and preferences.
• Customers will feel heard.
• You can build trust and rapport with the customer.
• You can clarify customers’ objections more effectively.

Avoid interrupting, rushing, or dominating the conversation with customers, as it makes them feel ignored and disrespected. 

Focus on Benefits for your customers

“Don’t find customers for your products; find products for your customers.” — Seth Godin

Explain to your customers how the product is beneficial to them instead of speaking about the general specifications of a product. In other words, focus on customer-centric selling. One of the methods of such selling is consultative selling method.

For example, as a customer, would you like to know how many features an air conditioner has, or would you prefer to know how fast it would cool down your room on a hot, humid day? Of course, you would go with the latter! 

So, benefits should be presented in front of customers in a very clear, concise, and compelling manner. When you think from the customers' perspective, it helps you in several ways.

Benefits to list that you can list that will make your customers buy your products 

While your prospects are in the middle of a buying decision, you can help them make a closing move by highlighting these benefits:

Better quality

According to Harvard Business Review 96.7% customers out of 3000 reported that product quality comes over everything. Now if that is not evidence then what is? So tell your customers that your product quality is nothing less than the best. 

Improved Performance

Everyone wants an upgrade! Tell your prospects how your product or service will rock them in whatever they wanna achieve!

Long Lasting

Along with quality, your product must come with good life expectancy too. Make it a point while chatting with your customers on how they buying your product will benefit them for the long-term.

Cost Saving

Who doesn’t like a penny saved? 

For example, Zixflow lets you know you can save up to 90% of the cost of sales software. Similarly, you can tell your customers about the financial benefits they will get with your product.

Do not use technical jargon, complex terms, or generic claims that can confuse or alienate the customers.

To simplify this process further for your customers, you can add a Leadbot to your website that will help resolve customer FAQs, tell the benefits of your products, and capture leads- one arrow to accomplish 3 targets 🎯

Use Social Proof

When other people have benefited from the same product, customers are more likely to purchase that product. Customers tend to follow the actions or opinions of others. You can use feedback from ‘other people’ (aka your current happy customers) as social proof while pitching for your goods or services.

What should you include in social proof? 

Customer testimonial

Sharing customer testimonials will help your prospects add an element of trust to their minds. In addition, it makes them believe your product is worth trying since someone in the same position has benefitted. So please do not hold back when sharing your customer experiences.

Reviews and Ratings

Numbers make everything simple. You know that if someone has rated a product 1/10, then it's a no-no. However, if someone has rated it 8 and above out of 10, you immediately know it is worth trying. Reviews and ratings give you confidence before purchasing because they come from users who have already tried the product and are genuine experiences. 

Just like you, your customers feel the same. Before your customer buys your product, they will search at 10 places for the kind of reviews you have received. So why not let your customers know the first time around only how much everyone loves your product?

Endorsements

Leverage the reputation and image of celebrities and influencers in the market. If you want to reach your target audience, find someone with an idea that appeases your target audience and put it to use. It builds the trust of your audience since their idol or inspiration is putting your product to use, which will eventually make them try it too.

Popularly known as Superman, world famous actor Henry Cavill's endorsement boomed MuscleTech's sales manifolds.  [Source- Adweek]

Happy customer experiences and case studies

The Nestle brand Maggi- 2 Min Instant Noodles is a marketing genius and has one of the top market shares in India. It came up with a fantastic idea to get happy memories of people with their product. They made people share their stories and then featured them in their advertisements. 

As a marketer, knowing very well that it is a great marketing tactic, the stories still impacted me, and hey, let's be honest, Maggi is tasty! 

There was an immediate surge in their sales. Sharing user stories of your product with your prospects positively impacts them. It builds your brand image as a 'caring brand' that helps its customers resolve their problems. 

You see what case studies and user stories can do for your business, so start telling the real stories of how your product solved problems.

This technique is most effective during online sales, where customers can not experience goods before buying them and the social proofs and stories are easily accessible through various social media channels. So, you must attach the required social proof to boost your sales via social media platforms.

Follow-Up. Follow-Up. Follow-Up 

The "follow-up" sales psychology technique entails getting in touch with a potential client after the first point of contact to carry on the conversation as further as possible and possibly close a sale. Following up makes your customers feel valued and builds their trust in your business.

“Before LinkedIn and other social networks, in the sales world, ABC stood for Always Be Closing. Now it means "Always Be Connecting.” — Jill Rowley

As per the sales expert Jill Rowley, focus on connecting more than focusing on closing, and that is the best psychology technique that every salesperson must use. Staying connected helps your customers know that you care about them. 

How to follow up and build real connections with your prospects?

You can use these proven and result-oriented step-by-step follow-up techniques to ensure a smooth and winning follow-up with all your prospects 👇

Initial contact 

Establish contact with the potential client via phone, email, social media, or during a face-to-face meeting. This is precisely what sales cadence software helps with. It helps you engage with your prospects systematically, making it much easier for you to build the connection. 

For instance, first, you research your prospect; then, you engage with them on their social media platform; then, send them an email and arrange a call. Not only this, but you can also track your engagement efforts and the results they gave you in the sales cadence.

Assess interest 

During the first conversation, assess the customer's level of interest in the product. You can proceed to the next stage if the customer expresses interest. Also try to understand customer’s problems. 

Establish a follow-up appointment

Arrange a follow-up with the client, either right away or at a later time. Drop a quick email, or maybe a text message. 

The smart way to do it is to automate your workflow and follow-up efforts with Zixflow. Doing this manually is impractical and not sustainable and scalable in the long run.

Prepare for the follow-up

Before the follow-up, you should get ready by researching the client's needs and interests and formulating possible responses to objections. To not miss anything while following-up, you can quickly go through the prospect’s contact history in your CRM and see what things you last talked about. Picking up conversation from where you left will help you start the conversation on the right point. 

To ensure timely follow-ups with customers, you can use automated sales activities and sales workflow automation. Those automated workflows remind you of follow-ups just on time. 

Conduct the follow-up

During the follow-up, keep the conversation going with the client, responding to any queries or objections. The objective is to strengthen the relationship with the customer and encourage them to buy.

See how Jio Mart follows up with each and every customer after noticing no purchase activity for a long while 👇

If you see, the above follow-up message is automated because no business has got time to reach out to every customer individually. So, the smart move is to use software like Zixflow that helps you automate your follow-ups and keep engaging customers without manual efforts.

Sales psychology is also a sales tool that can help you win big

You should think of sales psychology as a sales tool that you can blend with modern-day automation and engagement tools to build better connections and bonds with your customers. And then, utilizing that bond, you can do relationship selling to achieve your business goals. 

Since sales psychology is not just any other sales technique but one that impacts your relationship with your prospects at a deeper level, you must always make sure that you are authentic to your customers while using any of the sales psychology tactics. You cannot build a long-term foundation based on lies and false claims. So use intelligent sales psychology techniques while being transparent to your customers, and watch how your sales and business thrives!

Go on now! Hack sales using these actionable sales psychology tips.

If you have made it this far, kudos to you for reading it all about sales psychology and making yourself familiar with the world’s finest tips on using psychology to build real connections with your prospects and closing deals just like that! 

Now, since you are so well-versed with all these psychology tips and tricks, go on, put all these tips and tricks into your daily sales workflow and see yourself win more deals and hit your sales goals faster than ever. 

[P.S. To help yourself do it all with less effort, don’t forget to take help from Zixflow which can automate a big chunk of daily sales work.]