Tag Archives: Your Buyer’s Mind

Get Through the Mind’s Spam Filter

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Has this ever happened to you?  You present to a prospect and you know you did a great job because you covered everything.  But in subsequent meetings you realize that your prospect didn’t really retain what you said.

Are you like your prospects? Test your own retention. Watch this video and then read the rest.

Don’t worry, you’re completely normal.  There’s even evidence* to suggest that you’re more efficient if you didn’t notice the obvious.  When you “keep your eye on the ball” you filter out irrelevant information.  Your brain’s capacity depends not on the amount of storage but on how efficiently that space is used, therefore filtering out distracting information.  The better the filter, the more efficient you can be at assigned tasks. Your memory’s temporary storage is limited to about three or four items.

What does this mean when it comes to selling?

Imagine how much information you give in any one of your presentations.  What do you think your buyer is filtering out?  It’s anyone’s guess.  If you want the buyer to remember the most important things, you need to keep the presentation focused on 3-4 key messages.  A discussion focused on highly relevant areas of the value ensures engagement and retention.

Three ways to get your message through the mind’s spam filter:

  1. Set your agenda in your buyer’s world with 3-4 things they need that only you can provide.
  2. Contrast their life without your solution versus their life with your solution.
  3. Ask for feedback, early and often.

* Reference:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=your-inner-spam-filter

Buying Criteria: Fact, Fiction, or Feelings?

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What creates your customers’ buying criteria?

Before we begin, let’s start with a definition of Neuromarketing as defined by Wikipedia: Neuromarketing is a new field of marketing which uses medical technologies such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study the brain’s responses to marketing stimuli. Researchers use the fMRI to measure changes in activity in parts of the brain and to learn why consumers make the decisions they do, and what part of the brain is telling them to do it.

I have a great friend that I have known for the past twenty-three years.  He loves anything with a motor in it.  If there is a NASCAR race that he is unable to watch live, he will record it, and while he is away from his television, turn off all media (newspaper, radio, etc.) so that he does not hear the race results until he is able to watch the replay.

Over the years, I have seen my friend purchase Chevrolet trucks, Cadillacs, a Corvette and many other vehicles; however, always from the General Motors family of cars.  My friend recently purchased a new Cadillac.  Fred is careful about spending money.  He always attempts to get the most for every dollar. With months of research and analysis, Fred found his Cadillac and got a great price.  Recently, I asked Fred if he had considered any other brand of car.  He had not.  I then asked him if he ever owned any vehicle other than General Motors.  After some thought Fred said, “I owned a Mercury once. It had the best ride of any car I have ever owned.” Now, I was puzzled.  Knowing that Fred is highly analytical and always looking for the best value, I asked him, “When you purchased your last vehicle, did you look at anything other than GM cars?”  When he indicated that he had not, I asked him why.  Fred quickly responded, “I guess I am a GM man; always have been, always will.  I guess it is in my blood”.

I found this discovery perplexing knowing that my friend is an individual that is always looking for the best value and is cautious about his purchases.  Why wouldn’t Fred look at Ford, Chrysler or all of the other options available today?  Is Fred typical of most buyers?  Don’t we all buy the best product for our needs, at the best price?  I decided it was time to do some research.

I found a study that was conducted by researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine assessing consumer preferences regarding soft drinks.  Think about it – do you drink Coke* or Pepsi*?  If you are like many of us, you probably have a strong preference of one over the other.  Surely you could pick out your brand in a taste test!  But, are you sure?

These two brands were specifically selected in the Baylor study because, “Coca-Cola* (Coke*) and Pepsi* are nearly identical in chemical composition, yet human beings often display strong subjective preferences for one or the other.”

When the subjects received an “anonymous delivery of Coke and Pepsi”, it was often a toss-up regarding which brand was preferred.  Without knowing which brand they were drinking, results were nearly fifty-fifty.  However, when the brand of the product was introduced in the experiment, researches found an interesting observation:  those that had selected Pepsi without awareness of brand, when brand was introduced, now nearly 75% preferred Coke.  The study concluded that “there might be parallel mechanisms in the brain cooperating to bias preference.”  The Baylor study also concluded that “in the brand-cued experiment, brand knowledge for one of the drinks had a dramatic influence on the measured brain response.” Simply put, brand awareness significantly changed the results of the “preferred selection.”

In addition to brand preference, these researchers made another interesting discovery.  This study was conducted implementing new FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) techniques to study how and where the brain is stimulated in decision making.  The FMRI imaging technology was able to observe and capture brain activity throughout the test.  In comparing the anonymous test, the researchers “noticed that the neural activity changed once the subject was aware of which sample was which brand.”  When made aware of one product brand, “the medial prefrontal cortex – a part of the brain that controls higher functions – lit up like a Christmas tree. The brand itself was trumping the quality of the product.” Brand awareness accessed a different part of the brain resulting in a significant difference in choice.

How could these results be so different?  Why would participant responses change once they became aware of the brand they were tasting?  Did the brand or the past “experience” with the brand, affect their decision preference?   Was something associated with the brand of the product that affected selection of the best product?  Was there more to my friend being a “GM man” than just the engine, the brakes, and all of component of a General Motors vehicle?

I began to think back through my 27-years of sales experience.  I have always thought I did a good job of representing my products.  I knew them inside and out.  I memorized features, benefits, my competition, and understood my customer’s environment.  I began to wonder if past selling experiences were more complex than I had previously thought.  Could I have lost sales during the dot.com era, when I represented a great technological tool with little or no brand recognition?  Then, an even more subtle thought struck me.  When I sold for a huge international computer company and never missed quota, might it have had more to do with the powerful brand I represented than the selling abilities I thought I had developed?  Humbling thoughts!  I concluded that in many of my efforts, the sale had literally begun before I made my first contact.

What if you were able to go into every sale and correctly assess the perception or impact of your brand?  What if once you were able to establish rapport, you could use your discovery skills to determine your individual customer reaction to your brand (positive or negative)?  How much more effective could you be if you found out this information early in the sales cycle?  How would this information change your selling strategy?  Just knowing that this information is critical to investigate early is a positive start.  I immediately determined that with each new customer contact, I would attempt to seek as much information regarding these questions as possible.

All of this research is starting to wear on me.  I certainly am thirsty.  To keep my analysis and thought process simple, I think I will have an iced tea!  Good luck and good selling!

By Steve Hub, Consultant, Corporate Visions Inc.

Resources:
1.  Neural Correlates of Behavioral Preference for Culturally Familiar Drinks, Neuron, Vol 44, 379-387, October 14, 2004, copyright 2004 Cell Press.
2. Media Maze Neuromarketing: Part 1, Jim Meskauskas, Imedia Connection, Published July 13, 2005,  link:  http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/6317.asp


Grab Your Audience’s Attention

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The human brain craves novelty, so says Gregory Berns, a professor at Emory University.

“The old evolutionary model that the brain exists to help us survive and reproduce is fine but too broad. If you go beyond that, the thing that helps us to survive and reproduce is the capacity to adapt in the world and to learn. The world is so unpredictable; most animals have brains like sponges absorbing so much in their drive to learn. Our brains are just primed for novelty. Nature never said you had to be happy. It said you had to learn to adapt to the world” (emphasis added, read more here).

Professor Berns spent the last ten years in the field of Neuroscience. The last three of which he spent researching and writing a book on human motivation called “Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment.” His research discovered something amazing. For 50 years scientists knew that the brain released dopamine when experiencing pleasure – during sex, eating food, taking drugs, etc. But what Berns learned was that being exposed to novelty/unpredictability also sends dopamine pumping through the system.

Evolution engineered your brain to be drawn to those things that are novel/unpredictable – new experiences, new information. From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense. Your brain’s job is to make sure you survive. In order to survive, you need to assess things that are new to you. Will those novel things help you thrive or will they kill you? Your brain is also wired to ignore things that are predictable. Your brain doesn’t need to invest precious processing power dealing with familiar things, because it’s already assessed if those things will help you thrive.

What does this have to do with selling?

If your sales messaging has become predictable (i.e. you’re using PowerPoint, handouts and step-by-step demos to get your message across, just like your competitors), your customer’s will have trouble focusing on your messaging/presentation. It’s not their fault. It’s the way evolution wired their brains. Your challenge is to come up with novel ways to present your message, so that it’s easy for your customers to stay focused on what you’re saying.

Here’s where Power Messaging® techniques come in. Follow the Message Map, spike your audience’s attention with Grabbers and Stories so they stay out of the hammock, deliver messages that are unique to you, important to the buyer, and defensible, and you’ll win the deal.

By Erik Peterson, Consultant, Corporate Visions Inc.



Props – The Symbolic Tool

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One of the reasons props work so well in presentations is they come with their own story and emotions. A cell phone makes calls. A fireman’s hat has emotional stories embedded in the symbol.

In theater it is easy to see the value of a prop. They are integral to the story being told on the stage.

In sales, where you have to create powerful, emotional messages quickly and efficiently…well, by gosh, props work wonders here too! We are the professional communicators. Why not use a technique that makes our presentations more powerful and exciting? We see it all the time in political arenas. When the person is standing in front of the State Capital, he/she is using the building as a prop.

The secret of how to use props effectively is using the embedded story of the prop to get your point across. Props are incredibly powerful. They can work against you just as easily as for you, if you don’t pick them well and integrate their story into your story. When you pick props that people have an emotional reaction to, your presentations become even stronger. It is why car manufacturers use models to help them sell cars, or ad agencies use celebrities to promote their client’s products.

Kids, under the age of three, cannot do a good job of separating a picture from a real object. Their brains are not wired yet to make the distinction well. Slowly, as we get older, our brains begin to comprehend the difference between the picture and the object. You can almost sense the evolution of our brain over time. Soon we can distinguish between a picture and an object, but in no time, the object becomes a story, not just a thing.

And, as good professional communicators, we can harness that energy to create impact with our listener.

By Chuck Laughlin, Founder, Corporate Visions Inc.