« Guest Post: Has social media finally arrived in BtoB marketing? | Home | Sales Bloggers Union Site Launches »
Understand Your Client’s Beliefs to Learn How to Sell More
By Ian Brodie | December 3, 2008
His point was that when persuading - or in our case when selling - it’s critical to understand the underlying beliefs of the person you are trying to persuade.
People tend to demand far more evidence for a statement or recommendation that clashes with one of their existing beliefs than they do for one that is more in line with what they already believe. So as a sales strategy, it’s usually far more effective to work to position your recommendations as building on an existing belief than to have to challenge and overcome one.
In reality, most salespeople rarely think consciously about the beliefs that might be impacted by what they are selling. But a little thought can cast a great deal of insight and help shape a more effective strategy.
For example, if you’re selling some form of management consultancy services then it may seem that what you’re doing doesn’t challenge any significant beliefs in your potential client. After all, you are highlighting ways for them to improve their business by using your services - what could be challenging about that?
But if what you are proposing to do falls under the remit of the potential client or other person with influence over the buying decision then you had better be careful. It could well be that a belief you are challenging is their belief that they need to be seen as not having any weaknesses in their capabilities. In other words, if they need you to help them, doesn’t that make them a bad manager? Shouldn’t they be able to do this stuff themselves? Very often potential clients are seriously concerned about whether hiring you may make them look weak in the eyes of their managers, staff and peers. What you are selling challenges their belief that they need to be “on top” of all the activities in their remit.
For this reason, when selling consulting services I always look for a “get out clause” for my clients. A reason why it’s OK for them to need me that isn’t damaging to their self image and their fear of what others might think. I explicitly look for a rationalisation for why they can’t do this themselves. There has been a change in what customers need that they couldn’t have been aware of, for example. or perhaps they need to focus on managing their team and optimising today’s performance while someone with an “objective viewpoint” looks at their strategy. The logic doesn’t have to be iron-clad. Just something to make them feel at ease and comfortable hiring me without feeling they are admitting failure somehow.
Of course, different issues will arise in different selling situations - but it’s surprising how often what seems like a purely rational buying decision will have a powerful emotional dimension due to the impact of the decision on the underlying beliefs of the buyers.
Ian
* Image courtesy of Skeptical Enquirer magazine. You can find a very interesting article on the persistence of beliefs by psychologist George Lester here
Topics: Sales Techniques |
December 5th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Ian,
I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I wrote about this topic not too long ago. Your readers can check it out:
http://salesandmarketingloudmouth.com/2008/11/14/more-short-takes.aspx
Best,
Tim
December 8th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Yes beliefs have a big impact and so do the prospect’s values. And it’s so easy to find out their values by asking a simple question or two.
Greg
December 8th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Go on Greg, I’m hooked - what would be your questions to find out a prospect’s values?
Rgds
Ian
December 9th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Ian, got to agree with Greg… sell to values… values are emotionally stronger than beliefs.
Values help shape beliefs, beliefs shape attitude, attitude shapes memories and all four shape decisions. Our personality is made up of values, beliefs, attitudes and memories. Our motivation comes from our values. Our acceptances come from our beliefs. The context comes from attitudes and who we are comes from our memories.
If you want to start to uncover a person’s values you need to ask some open questions like…
“If you could change three things in the world what would they be?”
“If you suddenly came to have $100 million what would you do with it?”
“If you were the next president of USA (Prime Minister of UK) what 3 things would you look to change?”
“What would your ultimate job be for satisfaction and enjoyment?”
“If you took a year off work, and money not an issue, what would you do with the time?”
Obviously, these questions are asked over a coffee when you have full rapport and just chewing the cud, fat, rag or whatever one chews when wishing to chat in an aimless manner.
December 9th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Hi Colin,
What you describe is one model of how personality works - there are many others of course.
But I don’t believe Lakhani is drawing such such complex distinctions - he’s just labelling things which people have a relatively closed attitude towards (with or without evidence to support them) as beliefs. It’s a broad definition.
Beliefs could include big stuff like believing in God, or more pragmatic things like “givers gain”. It could even be simple stuff like “if I don’t hit my numbers this month my boss will fire me” or even prejudices: “slick salespeople in suits always try to cheat you”.
My view is that some of these are really difficult to uncover - some maybe taking years of therapy!
But Lakhani’s point is simple, and I think it’s a good one: when you are trying to persuade people (his book is about persuasion generally, not just selling) it is much easier to position what you are trying to get them to accept as being in line with an underlying belief than it is to try to convince them to change a belief.
Given people’s ability to hold conflicting beliefs, that may even be a matter of finding the right belief to align with, and downplaying elements that conflict with another belief.
Take my example. To a large degree, I don’t really care whether the manager believes they need to be seen as competent because of some underlying self-worth value they have, or because it’s been beaten in to them over years by their boss and they happen to know the boss is looking for an excuse to fire them. At that point in time, what I do know is that I must position my product to make sure the manager doesn’t see it as threatening their perceived competence - or I will struggle to sell. It would be possible - but far more difficult - to try to persuade the manager that in fact demonstrating competence all the time is not necessary (and it would need me me to try to figure out the underlying reason why the belief was held too and address that - which might not be easy).
So as I say, there’s no great philosophy or model of the mind in Lakhani’s statement. Just a simple truth really. But one that’s often forgotten.