{"id":879,"date":"2023-03-27T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/?p=879"},"modified":"2023-03-24T12:04:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T16:04:39","slug":"the-biggest-problem-in-sales-and-its-not-what-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/the-biggest-problem-in-sales-and-its-not-what-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"The Biggest Problem in Sales (and It\u2019s Not What You Think!)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Where do you typically go for answers when sales numbers hit a slump?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The usual pattern we have is to blame the lead quality, blame the prospect, blame the weak economy, or say our salespeople lack enthusiasm or motivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what if none of that were causing your numbers to stay the same or even dip?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, odds are high that it\u2019s something you said, or questions you haven\u2019t learned to ask, that are the real reason prospects aren\u2019t buying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent decades, many societal and technological changes have taken place that deeply affect how buyers today like to buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A buyer in 2023 would sooner trust their research on Google than trust in what you, the salesperson, has to say.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Add to that the estimated 4,000 to 6,000 messages vying for an average person\u2019s attention daily, and what you\u2019re left with is a culture of highly cautious and skeptical buyers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the question needs to be asked: What can be done in our sales conversations to address this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you come across as too enthusiastic, needy, or attached, it quickly triggers most prospects to go into fight-or-flight mode \u2013 causing your prospects to put their guard up and emotionally shut down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, once you learn how to come across as more neutral, calm, and detached, it causes prospects to become curious enough to want<\/em> to open up and engage with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now what about our sales techniques\u2026do they pass the persuasion test?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what I mean.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When I started selling, I was also at college majoring in behavioral science and human psychology. This was a deep dive into the study of the brain and how human beings make decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also how I came to understand why people are either persuaded, or not persuaded, to do something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to behavioral science, three forms of communication relate to persuasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first form of communication is the least<\/em> persuasive.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It mirrors the Wolf of Wall Street<\/em> boiler-room selling, as in telling <\/em>people why they should buy.  It involves \u201cpitching,\u201d \u201cpressuring,\u201d and \u201cpushing,\u201d which causes most prospects to run the other way these days!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second form of communication is more<\/em> persuasive.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consultative selling came out in the 1970s and 1980s and taught that you needed to ask logic-based questions (we call those surface-level questions) to find out the needs of the client. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the problem with asking logic-based questions? Well, it\u2019s that you\u2019re going to get logic-based answers in return.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And do human beings buy on logic or emotion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brain studies show that humans make buying decisions with emotion 100% of the time.      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why you can never simply sell to what the prospect thinks they need.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth is, most prospects don\u2019t really understand what it is they need when you first talk with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third form of communication is highly<\/em> persuasive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s when we ask what are called neuro, emotional, persuasion questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are skilled questions that, when asked in a particular sequence, serve to pull out emotionally pressing problems the prospect didn\u2019t even realize they had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sales methodology of asking skilled questions with the right tonality causes prospects to feel comfortable enough to want<\/em> to open up and go below the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It works like a key that unlocks buying decisions from skeptical Information Age buyers because its questions extract emotion and get the prospect to \u201cpull you in\u201d and persuade themselves<\/em> they need to change, and then make that change with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Headshot<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jeremy Miner is the chairman of 7th Level, a global sales training company ranked the fastest-growing sales training company in the United States in 2020 and 2021 by INC magazine\u2019s INC 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list. He is a contributor for INC magazine and has been featured in Forbes, USA Today, Entrepreneur magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and a host of other publications on the topics of sales, persuasion, and the role of psychology and human behavior in the buying process. His new book, <\/em>The New Model of Selling: Selling to an Unsellable Generation \u2013 co-authored with Jerry Acuff, CEO of Delta Point Consulting \u2013 is available in all major bookstores!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to behavioral science, three forms of communication relate to persuasion. In this blog, you\u2019ll learn if the problem could be your behavior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions\/883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sales30conf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}