Selling More: Is It Down to Behavioural Science or Just BS?

What makes a sales strategy irresistible?

This episode promises to change your approach to sales and sales training through the lens of behavioural science. We kick things off by discussing how societal trends, can signal shifts in consumer behaviour — a key factor in shaping effective sales tactics. We sight insights from behavioural science experts like Rory Sutherland, and we examine how anthropology, sociology, and psychology, economics and political science influence purchasing decisions. Plus, we get personal, sharing anecdotes that reflect broader social patterns and their impact on the sales process.
 
As we peel back the layers of sales psychology, we tackle the science around competitive tenders, emphasising the power of timing and presentation order. By blending our professional experiences with established principles, we explore the art of convincing customers of a product's value and the significance of brand integrity. We discuss the importance of aligning a sales team's mindset with their company's value proposition and how this alignment can drive customer loyalty and improved sales metrics. And remember, it's not about catering to outlier customers, but rather, focusing on high-frequency behaviours that are your ticket to sales success.
 
Wrapping things up, we share actionable tips and strategies to enhance your sales conversations from average to exceptional. We dive into resources like Elmer Wheeler's language techniques and Dr. Robert Cialdini's persuasion principles, demonstrating how they can create a compelling sales narrative. Additionally, we talk about the importance of curiosity in understanding customer behaviour for targeting the right buyers. And for those hungry for more, our book The Perfect Storm is mentioned, offering 30 methods to weather any business climate. 

So tune in, absorb these insights, and let's transform the way you think about sales, sales training and behavioural science.

For more info, free resources, useful content, & our blog posts, please visit realitytraining.com.

Reality Training - Selling Certainty

Transcript

Bob: 0:09

Bob and Jeremy's Conflab the reality podcast.

Jeremy: 0:21

Hello Bobby. Greetings on this fine day so you're standing there looking like you've sort of come out of a shower, had maybe just a cup of coffee and only a banana. I don't know, am I right?

Bob: 0:35

You're absolutely right. That's my new regime which is changing me from the middle aged Camerjan. I was into a slightly thinner middle aged Camerjan, so it's good.

Jeremy: 0:49

So, ladies and gentlemen, just a banana and a coffee, and you too can be like Bob Morrell.

Bob: 0:54

And no cigarettes, very important, no, no no smoking, no vaping.

Jeremy: 0:59

It's a filthy habit. It's so funny. You sometimes driving or walking down a high street and somebody just lets the vape go. And it's as if they've spontaneously humanly combusted. This immense cloud of smoke just appears, and you think, what are you doing?

Bob: 1:14

Well, I saw the other day it was on the news that lots of young people are now moving from vapes, which are obviously things that you don't inhale with tobacco, back to cigars, which are going through a boon, and pipe smoking. And that's really interesting. I mean, I smoked pipe for years. It's becoming very, very popular again because I suppose you inhale less with the pipe and if you're vaping you get nicotine anyway and people are thinking what the hell?

Jeremy: 1:43

Pipes. Young people holding pipe, younger people looking like Harold Wilson.

Bob: 1:48

Well, you know, it's a very pleasant thing to smoke a pipe because it's quite aromatic. You don't have to sort of keep smoking it like a cigarette. You can put a pipe down and then relight it. It's a very clever thing. This lead-in what we've just been talking about is actually perfect for what we're talking about today.

Jeremy: 2:03

It is. It really is.

Bob: 2:05

Because today, listeners, we're going to be talking about sales training, which is, of course, what we do for a living, but, more importantly, behavioral science. So what we've just been talking about there is a trend. People go through trends. I remember when vaping first came out, there was a huge trend to vape even if you didn't smoke. You know that's the odd thing about vaping that people will choose to vape rather than smoke, even if they never smoked before. It's a thing that people will think oh, that looks quite cool, or I like the look of that, or I like the taste of that, so I'll give that a go.

Bob: 2:38

And trends are very much part of behavioral science. And we've been thinking about this because we've been training for over 20 years and more and more the various areas of behavioral science creep into what we do. Because if you're selling something, if you have a business that is commercial, then it's important to think well, what is it about what I have, what I'm selling that is appealing to people, and what are the things that are going to make them buy? But also, what are the habits socially that people are engaged with that are going to make them more inclined to buy? So we're going to spend a bit of time today thinking about those things and comparing the different elements of behavioral science and some of the things that we've read about it and seeing where the connections are between various elements of behavioral science and, of course, how you sell things. That's what we're really going to be looking at.

Jeremy: 3:36

And you just were talking about trends. It is definitely trending Lots more people writing about behavioral science. Previously they would just say sales psychology or the psychology of selling. I think we should start with letting people know what it is, and I'm going to give you which I like I looked at a few sort of explanations. This is the University of Chicago Booth and I'm in a booth right now, my recording booth.

Bob: 4:01

Yes lovely.

Jeremy: 4:02

So this is what they say on their website. They've got a whole school of behavioral science within their business school. It says behavioral science describes the study of human behavior through the use of systematic experimentation and observation. Behavioral scientists study when and why individuals engage in specific behaviors by experimentally examining the impact of factors such as conscious thoughts, motivation, social influences, contextual effects and habits. And then, what I think is the last bit to add to this, several disciplines fall under the broad label, including anthropology, behavioral economics, cognitive psychology, consumer behavior, social psychology, sociology, biology, and so on and so on. So have you got anything to add to help the listeners get what behavioral science?

Bob: 4:51

is no, those are the five. Well, you've given a number of the different behavioral sciences. Another University of Massachusetts, Amherst, defines behavioral science simply economics, anthropology, sociology, psychology and political science. So that's an interesting one, as well as biology insofar as it deals with animal and human behavior. So there's a number of elements there with which come into that and actually you could argue that all of those things cross over at some point, because political science crosses over the economics, sociology and psychology will cross over. Anthropology and biology definitely cross over, and so there's various areas where you have these different sciences.

Jeremy: 5:35

We'd even then go into biochemistry, wouldn't we, because of different chemicals in our brains being released and so on. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly come a long way from Jungian types or archetypes where which type you're selling to.

Jeremy: 5:48

Let's look at them. They introvert, they extrovert and all the other types and Myers-Briggs I mean there's a whole school of stuff that you can put into the sales training arena. But we're looking at this behavioral science. The other thing I think is nice for listeners to know right at the start, because one of the leading practitioners in this space is Rory Sutherland, who is the vice chairman at Ogilvy, of course, following on from that great name, david Ogilvy, and we can talk about him more. I've read all his books. He's tremendous. He says there's no right answers, but you're looking for patterns.

Jeremy: 6:23

And you see, if you're looking for patterns of behavior, then that might, as you were saying, bob, at the start, that might choose how you position your product, position your brand, timing of when you might offer it, what color, what style, what size, and so on and so on and so on. But what interests both of us is, instead, of behavioral science staying only within the realm of marketeers and people who work in advertising because, as we know, that world has changed dramatically.

Jeremy: 6:46

We're not all staring at ads in magazines or being influenced quite so much by advertising. We can skip it on our televisions, we can move past it. There's almost a trend to say what can we put into the mouths of salespeople, what can we put into the mouths of customer service people? So in their interactions with customers, both existing or potential, they might have some influence. And through understanding they might have some influence and, interestingly enough, not understanding behavioral science, but just following a method, they might improve the outcome.

Bob: 7:22

So I like to add into that that if you're thinking about the behaviors of customers and how they interact with a brand or a person or a sales person, what you're looking for is an area of predictability. So if you're looking for those patterns, then you think, ah, I realize that this marketing, this question, this statement, I can predict that a higher number of people will find that positive than something else. And I was listening to a really good podcast. It's the current today podcast with Amarajan about politics, and this links into the political science element where, of course, what's happened over the last 50 years is a change away from class into education and relative wealth.

Bob: 8:11

So if you go back 50 years, you could predict pretty easily that more working class people would vote Labour, more middle and upper class would vote Conservative, and that was a kind of a set thing at that time. Over the time, more and more people have moved, gone through university education etc. And have better education and earned more money than they perhaps would have done 50 years ago for the class that they're in, because that's the way that the world's changed, and so that predictability of who people are going to vote for has changed hugely. And of course, there's other factors, like Brexit and various things like that, but that's another point that, as a brand, if I'm looking for someone to sell my stuff to, I want to be able to predict the type of person, the income type and act accordingly.

Jeremy: 9:04

I mean, the political thing is fascinating about how certain leaders, of course, can position themselves as the right vote for across all classes, all incomes. Brexit vote was largely based on one sort of factor, that or a number of factors. But yeah, we're not going down that road quite so much as far as political behavioural stuff. So I was thinking of you and I were talking about, before recording this, that actually what we've been doing for some years is elements of behavioural science in our sales training anyway.

Jeremy: 9:37

But we've never bothered to call it that because, that's become the new phrase of it how to position choice to people, how to do all sorts of things and I've got a great example of this.

Bob: 9:49

So a classic element of behavioural science is if you are selling something in comparison to other companies.

Bob: 9:58

So let's say there's five companies up for a tender or a large piece of work and each company is going to present their proposal, their quotation, to the customer.

Bob: 10:10

There's a lot of behavioural science, psychology, around when you should do that presentation and what it says is that, statistically, if each company is going one after the other back to back, then you should always be the first company to present, because then every other presentation is going to be compared against your benchmark and that puts you in a very good position. However, if those presentations are taking place over a week, then you should be the last company to present, because time has gone on, people's decision making will have formed over time and then actually the last one may be the trigger they want. Statistically, you're much more likely to get it Now. That is, someone studying sales presentations over years and years and years and going OK, behaviourally, this is when you need to present, if this is the situation. So that's statistically a classic scenario. But also you must understand that statistically, that doesn't follow every time that's going to be the case, but more often than not, let's say two thirds of the time.

Jeremy: 11:14

So I was sticking with the idea that in the training room, we brought in elements of behavioural science, which either we've called how to position yourself as the right choice, and so on. But let's not get away from the fact that vast amounts of reasons why companies contact us and other people in the field is they're struggling to justify a price. They aren't making enough money, they want to sell their higher priced products, they want to sell more of them, they want to increase their average value order, they want to increase the frequency of transaction, so on and so on and so on and so on. So we tend to do our diagnosis, we listen, we see the various habits that are taking place that are not helping them and arguably, we're in that room.

Jeremy: 11:51

We're in, whatever the situation, is the program that we're in which is trying to help a group of people to be confident about the prices that they wish to charge. And so what we're getting into is just as you've said right at the start, is the who, who are the best people who are most likely to agree to this price? And the vast challenge that I see us coming up is not only have we got the behavioral science challenge of positioning it to customers. Most of what we're doing in the training room is working on the brains of the people in the room to be able to get them to understand that their behavior needs to change so that they can believe it is worth it. And the most basic line that we've used for years is stop taking decisions away from customers. But we have to go much deeper than that, because the people who are tasked with selling the products and services are struggling to believe it is worth it.

Bob: 12:43

It's quite common for us to present a scenario as a regular type of interaction, a regular type of call, a regular type of conversation, a classic scenario customer of some kind. And so often someone will put their hand up or just chime in and say, well, that's all very well, but what about this type of customer? Yeah, and of course, when you're speaking to lots of different customers, the ones that stand out are the unusual ones. And yet that person has taken that one example and says, well, look, that's a behavioral shift that your example doesn't cater for. Yeah, and that's such a common reaction to the kind of work that we do, because that's the standout and of course that's unusual, so you shouldn't necessarily worry about that so much. But because all the others are fairly mundane and fairly straightforward and same, very samey, then it's easier for you to latch on to that thing that doesn't quite fit that hole and think, well, that's a big shift, it provides comfort.

Jeremy: 13:48

It's the curveball that people want to say is going to be increasing in volume, which will make their job difficult Rather than ignoring it. It was a fairly fruitless, academic, theoretical discussion we could have in the pub afterwards about oh, I had this customer, did you? How exciting. Let's just look at the high frequency types and focus our behavior on them, Whereas people will say, ah, but we do get these customers. You say this and we're saying okay, okay, but it looks like you are being anxious, you are being anchored back to a way of thinking that is not going to serve you or serve the customer.

Bob: 14:20

So there's a really good question that anybody can ask. If they're thinking about either their team or themselves as a salesperson, where are the behavioral insights linked to the sales metrics? So if you're not a sales manager, you're not necessarily seeing the metrics. These are the types of customers, these are the average order value. These are the typical sales that we are making. If I can't convey that to my team in the right way, then all they're going to think about are the curveballs that come in and think, well, that's a behavioral change. No, that's a behavioral change for that.

Bob: 14:56

One or two examples that you've got. There's 90 plus percent of the sales here, which are the true behavioral insights. These are the majority and these are the ones that we can do most with, and in fact, people should definitely consider the Pareto principle 80-20. You know I'm sure that applies here where 20% of your customers will account for 80% of your revenue. Those 20% will be the highest spending accounts or customers that you should be focusing in on, and there will be a similarity in behavior from those people, broadly speaking. And then everybody else. You know lots and lots of customers. They will be spending much smaller amounts and maybe there will be some curveballs within them. But you know, you've got to think about what is the majority, or what are the highest spenders, or what are their characteristics. That's the true sales metric.

Jeremy: 15:45

And I think the other thing is that what you believe as an owner, what you believe as a product maker, inventor, engineer, may not be the case whatsoever. Rory Sutherland does give a very good example. You can play the video on his website where he tries to explain what behavioral science is and he talks about pizza delivery. And he says a company believes the only way that they'll get better and better is faster pizza delivery. But when they do some research and say to customers, if you were to order it and we gave you a definite time and the time was longer away and all that would mean is you might need to order it a little bit in advance, would that be OK? Nearly all customers, in fact more, said yes. If you said, ring us at eight and we'll say we'll get a pizza two at nine, is that OK? Ring us at seven, we'll get a pizza two at eight, yeah, that's fine.

Jeremy: 16:35

So it isn't believing because you think well, pizza delivery is quick, it was invented by speed of delivery. But if I ring for a pizza at seven and they say, yeah, we'll drop it round at eight and that's fine for me, then that is absolutely fine. So that's a good example of not following your own thoughts, but actually asking your customers do you mind? How would you feel if we gave you a specific time slot, and so on, and so on, and so on. So it's a very good example. And the other thing that Rory Sullivan continually says is that behavioral science is allowing yourself to not think. You have to be rational and follow some existing logic. Let's look at what is out there. Let's ask people questions. You see other things. Sales people don't ask customers does this matter or does this matter? They've made a decision themselves and beat themselves up trying to achieve a target that isn't worth measuring.

Bob: 17:22

Now that brings me on to something you mentioned earlier, the connection to marketing. So one of the behavioral science sales examples which is often talked about and I've read it on about five websites is what they call the principle of a decoy. Now, for years you and I have been training this as a reciprocal concession.

Jeremy: 17:42

Which is the language of Dr Robert Cialdini.

Bob: 17:44

Absolutely. I read this the other day where, if you go into the cinema and you buy popcorn, there'll be a medium carton of popcorn, there'll be a large and they'll be within a pound of each other. You'll go for the large and there'll also be an extra large, which would be way more Okay, way more, but you get way more popcorn. Now the idea of that is to make more people buy the middle option because you think, well, that's ridiculous, so I'm not going to go for the smaller one, I'm going to go right in the middle. It's a simple way to guide people to buy a bit more popcorn than they probably need, and they probably sell a few of the big ones too. But the point is that we were training that for years, as if you offer everyone everything or a massive amount of stuff. They may love it, but they're going. That's not quite right for us, but we'll go for the notch down and we'll have it. You, it's gold, it's platinum gold. So if you offer people lots of platinum, you'll sell way more gold.

Jeremy: 18:40

We could argue that Robert Cialdini is really putting forward in his most important work influence, the six weapons of persuasion he's putting forward in a sense behavioral science, things to test. You know, how can we test likeability, how can we test social proof, and so on. The other thing that he says about that reciprocal concession is if you stop people in the street and say hi, would you volunteer for one week a year at a special school where you go in and do reading? People go a week. He goes, okay, would you just do one day a year? People go, yeah, sure, and I used to give the. I don't know if you remember this. I used to give the thing about Angela, my mother-in-law, saying Angela, could you have my three kids for a week so Tash and I can go away? Jeremy, yours are quite a handful, a whole, or could you just have them over the weekend? And that's a reciprocal concession. That is behavioral science.

Bob: 19:31

Well, you could argue, in that case, in that example, it's manipulation. Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

Jeremy: 19:37

Well, that's a very good point to bring up is that we know if we're doing things in a dodgy way and we get people excited about things we can manipulate. Years ago we learned about a technique, and I don't know if you remember what the technique's called. So a customer asks about the price of something, you say it's more, but we'll check. And when you return from checking it's different. So you say, how much is that dress in the window? And I say, oh, that lovely little black dress. Yeah, that's £285. I'll just go and see. Are you a 12? Yeah, bear with me, I'll just go and see if we've got one. And you come back and say I was completely wrong, it's £180. So you think I've got £100 off.

Bob: 20:15

Yeah, that is manipulative, totally manipulative.

Jeremy: 20:17

I don't know what that was called. Price conditioning yeah, price conditioning, price conditioning, which is? And that that's the point about behavioral science. I'm sure that there are people who can use it to manipulate customers' choices very much. You're listening to Bob and Jeremy's.

Bob: 20:31

Conflab brought to you by Reality Training, selling certainty. We're a leading training and coaching company based in the UK. For information on how we help our clients improve their businesses, check out our website, realitytrainingcom. Now we're talking a bit about pricing here, and I think it's really important to make this case as well. Many brands will set pricing levels, especially if they have a range of products, and in the back of their brain will be this thought that, and the good news is we've got people on the phone or face-to-face who have the skill to upsell the customer from the level that they're talking about.

Bob: 21:22

Now I think over the years that that behavioural science has definitely shifted. If you think about the senior sort of trading level of organisations who are looking at the people who are on the front line, I wonder do they think to themselves well, the good news is we've got some great people here who've got great skill at upselling and therefore, whatever level we pitch this at, there's a chance of enhancing that? Or do they think actually we haven't got a lot of faith in our people at all because they're under-trained or underskilled and therefore we're going to make sure that the price point is such that there doesn't need to be any upsell, which is a terrible behavioural judgement on your own people, actually, and shows that you've under-invested in them, if you're choosing price points at which your people are essentially taking orders, rather than engaging in a good customer experience, which gives the opportunity to upsell. So I think that's another clear differentiation.

Jeremy: 22:20

We could argue that the entire thing about price and teams whatever they call themselves trading teams look at the marketplace, decide what offers to bundle together. What will be more persuasive? Which pattern of these three offers will be most likely taken up over this Easter weekend? What are the price points we're going to suggest? And, of course, interestingly enough, they don't test for long enough. Usually it's a short-term thing and they hope it just has a spike in sales and then they'll come up with something else.

Jeremy: 22:53

But I think what sales people in the sales training room in the scenario of price is we're encouraging people to downsell, which is kind of the trend that we have done in sales training. As we've not really trained upsell, we've said look, this is perfect for you based on everything you've told me. You need these four things and they're going four things. I just was ringing you today to talk about one thing. Well, having talked to you, you need that, that, that and that you don't just need the sheet, you need the duvet cover. You want the pillowcases, you know, and the throw, you know.

Bob: 23:22

People are buying bedclothes all the time. Oh, absolutely. Now what that also links to and that's another key sell psychology, which again is underused. For years, for 20 years now, you and I have been training alternative closing, alternative openings, which the psychology of which it is the, and still remains, the most underused question in sales all the time. Not enough people, even if they have a range of products, not enough people are making clear comparisons and saying which of these would you like, rather than do you just want this?

Bob: 23:58

Now, that is an interesting behavioral science thing, because if that's the case, as a consumer, I like to make a selection, I like to have the luxury of choice. Why aren't you giving it to me? And if you are giving it to me, why aren't you making it explicit and clear that that is my choice? And again, that comes down to language Are these people who are having these conversations skilled enough to show the different options and then help that customer to make a clear choice? Because, if we think about the internet and the way that behavioral science has changed the way that we buy things, we are now going online, looking at products online, looking at what the different things are, the website service people who looked at this also looked at this thing as well. You can make a comparison of these two things here. The internet absolutely helps us make those choices. So, therefore, where is the skill in the individual to go? Ok, there are two major options for you here, and I want to make sure you're clear on both of them.

Jeremy: 24:55

And then you have the choice.

Bob: 24:57

Yes, you still have the choice, you can make that selection, and that is again something we've been training for years and years and in some ways I wish we had said here's a really fascinating piece of behavioral science.

Jeremy: 25:09

People are much more likely to buy if they have a choice than if they don't.

Bob: 25:12

We just give the example of people go OK, but I think sometimes I'm not sure they take it on board and maybe that's because they don't necessarily buy that way or don't realize that they are buying in that way.

Jeremy: 25:24

Or the power in the organization is held in another department. Well, yes, it's held in pricing, trading, marketing. Something else Do you remember? We got an inquiry from a major coffee chain? Oh, yes, and I was literally having kittens going. Wow, we're going to use which, we're going to sell a coffee and say now, we've got three fresh cakes in this morning. Which one would you like to go with your coffee? We didn't even get to that. All we did was the complaints training, and their highest complaint was from commuters who, when the cake they had five days a week was not in there, they would lose the plot with them.

Jeremy: 25:57

So they didn't even get that right Amazing. What I wanted to talk about was, in this history of behavioral science, regardless of the study and the intrigue and the positioning it has to come out of a sales person's mouth, they have to be, trained to look at their language.

Jeremy: 26:13

They have to be trained to perhaps change the default words they would use. And we must mention, in a sense, possibly I'm sure he wouldn't know what we were talking about. If we reanimated El Mawila and brought him back to life and said you were one of the first behavioral scientists, sales trainers he'd go what do you mean? So what he did was he would experiment, he would go into stores, try and buy wallets, try and buy ties, all kind of consumer fashion goods, foods, etc. And he went off and created a thing which he called his word laboratory, because he realized that people weren't using persuasive language. He also was constantly trying to position choice to consumers, just as you said, by saying here's the facts which you're going to have. You're going to have the milkshake without the egg or with, but he would have.

Jeremy: 26:58

I know it's bizarre. In the US there was a whole trend of whipping it up with an egg. Right, which size are you going to have? All of these sorts of things Large one, letting customers be choosing a large drink over just a small one. So I think it's still a great book that is under read, tested sentences that sell. You could listen to this podcast and go okay, what is behavioral science about? How could I use it? With my team, you could study the language that's coming out of people's mouth, because what elmer said is that most people are using language that is growing whiskers or shiny in the seat. It's just so out of date but it's wonderful. It means they're just not even considering the words they're saying and how compelling and persuasive they may be.

Bob: 27:40

I'm just thinking that many listeners won't have a clue who elmer wheeler is. Elmer wheeler was, as Jeremy says, one of the pioneers Of sales training and sales language. He was active in the 30s, 40s and 50s, and if you go on to YouTube and look up elmer wheeler, you will find some black and white footage of him talking about his various principles. They're well well worth a look. Now, what, of course, has changed since elmer's day is the fact that those sorts of more basic products, like wallets and what have you, we now buy online and we just see them and order them and in they come. And when it comes to something larger, then we are in the hands of the current combined strength of a marketing strategy, campaigns, years sometimes of branding and the sales person, their ability to translate the value of that brand for the customer. And I was reading a thing the other day and it really stood out for me.

Bob: 28:49

For years, years, you and I have been talking about the fact that customers buy from the individual because they like the individual, this person's good. They also think, well, this person's really good and they're working for this company and this company must be good and the company has a reputation. I'm gonna trust their recommendation because the whole thing kind of ticks my quality boxes and makes me feel that this is a good thing, and the term for this course is brand anchoring. If I feel an affinity with the brand, either through marketing or past experience or through reputation, then actually to a point, regardless of price, I'm more likely to buy from this brand because of that strength, and I think this is a huge missing that, again, we've been talking about for years, and in the UK in particular, there seems to be a block when it comes to selling yourself and, very importantly, selling the company, especially in B2B, but also in B2C.

Bob: 29:48

When do you hear anyone say let me just explain how the company set up, how we work, what our strengths are, what is really important for you to understand about the way that we do our work that has value. Now in America, you and I know that the loyalty that people feel for their organizations and how they come across to customers is essential, that they live and breathe it. Even waiters in restaurants will be very, very positive about the place that they work for. If you're speaking to a professional sales person in the US, they are ambassadors for their brands 100%, or they wouldn't be doing the job, whereas I think over here we are much more reticent when it comes to even for you know people I've known for years. Let me just remind you a couple of things you may have forgotten. The reason that we are where we are is that we do things this way and we don't do enough brand anchoring to support the strength of what it is we're offering.

Jeremy: 30:42

That's one of the reasons why internal marketing communication to sell the company back to the employees when you're a business of scale is so important still, because otherwise you get what we've talked about on other episodes you get disloyal bonding, you get people slagging off the organization, and so on and so on. The other thing I thought I would talk about that is, I would say, a behavioral science trend that's come over the pandemic period to where we are now. You've already mentioned that we go online more. More of our research is done online before we speak to a sales person. So often when we're in a sales training room and we're taking a brief from a client, they'll tell us that they get inquiries via their website.

Jeremy: 31:20

People have come on and seen either their business to business service or their business consumer offering, whatever it is, and one of the things that they forgetting is that they're already in what child in the cold in his second book? They're already in preswasion, which, of course, is persuasion in advance of talking to the sales person. And I think one example of this that is a really easy one for people to grasp was two bed companies. One decided to make the entire website about Great economy bed savings. You're going to get a deal. It was full of dollar signs, dollars dropping, imagery of pounds coming down.

Jeremy: 31:58

The whole thing as you logged on, the website started look for bed. It was economy was the only thing they put in your mind. An alternative one they ran a beat a a b split test with was only about comfort. Luxury was full of pink clouds, feathers, floating, luxurious thing. What the preconditioning did, before they spoke to a sales person, was the people looking at the luxury, the comfort, were more conditioned to spend more money on the bed.

Jeremy: 32:24

The people looking at the dollar signs, the dropping the pounds, the savings, the sense, were more conditioned to try to get a deal. Now, if you are engaging us or another company, you're wanting sales training. What is the conditioning that you're doing in advance? So that when people are looking at your materials and in our day, bob, they were looking at our business, to business magazines, they were reading about the company what's the conditioning you're doing? So when the inquiry comes through, you're trying to get a person in a sort of mindset to have the right conversation because they're the right kind of buyer, rather than what we're often dealing with company, say, does we keep getting the wrong inquiries?

Bob: 33:02

And I think that's a lovely point, because the big chunk of behavioral science is around language and, as we know, we are all creatures of habit and at the beginning of all of our training course to say look, this is what happens, these are the habits that you're in, these are the, the routines that you have when you're talking to a customer, and to some customers that's going to work, to some it isn't. And, as any type of communicator, you've got to be curious about what you say and how you say it, because you know that your ability to adapt Is going to make a big difference to you. Now I've got one great example here. You just talked about the fact that that person comes through and they they're presuaded to be interested and they could be face to face or sitting down. I'm quite far along my journey at this point.

Bob: 33:50

Now we, ever since we started, have been talking about how do you personalize what it is you're selling to this person? Okay, how are you describing this to that person? That represents the value to them? Simple personalization. Now, many people that we train go. Well, I just think that's a little bit much. I'm no, that's really important. And, in fact, if you go online, what are they doing on the internet?

Bob: 34:12

But trying to personalize the recommendation to suit your habits, to suit your algorithm. That's what you're trying to do as a salesperson. So again, we've never called it behavioral science. We've called it asking the right questions to then create the value statement for that customer. It's straightforward stuff but it is under done and people think, well, I'm not selling enough today it's because you're not taking that motivation, asking the right questions and personalizing your recommendation. It is not that scientific, it is language based, is conversation, it is some stuff which is much more about the attitudinal shift in that person's head, because I think behavioral science can predict only so much. It can't predict that you're going to get through to somebody who has low energy, low motivation, low belief in their products, low belief in their company, low belief in what they're being paid, low belief in their manager. All of that comes across through a conversation and that's something which is essential well, you hit on a very important point.

Jeremy: 35:13

It's funny we've got about two or three clients running at this time. Where motivation is quite a key thing is that they're feeling pressured. There's more competitors, price points are sensitive, so We've been asked to come in and do quite interesting sales training when actually just try to make people feel better about their product, their company, what they're doing, so you can be distracted sometimes. You know what you actually want to invest in. You try to invest in the very specialist sales training. Are your leaders not exciting enough and motivating enough? Where do you point it first?

Jeremy: 35:45

I think the other thing that I would say is that if people are thinking, oh, this behavioral science, this could work for us, what you might not be doing in the very first instance is trying to find out why customers buy from you. And even if we go away from behavioral science, if we look at the very first sort of huge business pioneers who talked post-war as the economies were growing, again the very basic concept of studying demand, don't try and guess why people are coming. Are you keeping a clear record of why people are coming to you and what they're asking you? If you just study that, then you know what's in people's heads, the queries and questions they have, the concerns they have, the desires they have, and you can start to train your salespeople to try to meet current demand rather than sticking with your existing train of thought.

Bob: 36:31

Now you have a great example of this that you told me years ago, which I will praise you, and it's a great way of showing how behavioral science can be used on a team.

Bob: 36:41

So you were selling something, it doesn't matter what it was. There were a number of different things that were available and the lowest the lowest was a £55 thing. The sales manager came in one day and said oh, we're stopping doing the £55 quidder. The lowest price is £110, off you go. So all day you sold everything at £110, and then she said look, I was winding you up. Of course we still did the £55, but it just goes to show that so many of you are selling the lowest cost every time.

Bob: 37:07

Now, that is classic stuff, that is, I want to make some sales, I don't want to have to make much effort, so I'm just going to get a few sales at the lowest price. Now, that is another element where, as you said earlier, the salesperson takes the decision away from the customer. We have heard people in the last year or two say to us whatever is the lowest price the company are offering, that's what I'm going to offer the customers. Because why should I try and get more? Well, that's because A you haven't been trained, incentivized and have the right motivation to do it. But also it's because your company, I'm afraid, doesn't care enough to make that point that the lowest cost is a last-ditch attempt to sell to a customer and that most customers will buy at this particular price point. There are people who just will not believe that because they've got the wrong attitude, the wrong motivation and no one's actually explained to them how commerce really works.

Jeremy: 38:01

And there it is One absolute fact, whether we call it behavioral science or something else, is the first price that you sell to a customer is their initial evaluation of you, your organization and what your products were. If that's a bronze product, you're selling them. They've classified you as bronze and then when you come back and say, hi, year two, now do you want to have gold? The upsell of that is astronomically difficult.

Jeremy: 38:25

Gyms have looked at this that if somebody joins at the lowest amount to get them to take everything else in the gym, they don't do it Clubs, service levels, car washes. So it goes on, the habit that you get into and you have a long customer conversation and you sell them a bronze. You're going to have a lot of bronze reselling and even struggle to keep that. So you're much better taking the real time, as you said, to personalize, to try to understand your customers and also get rid of the customers that you don't want. I find that quite attractive that if you're a business that wants to revitalize yourself and you realize that you've got certain customers that are just not good for you and that rapport for morale and non-profitable, then you need to make a big decision and discontinue certain lines or discontinue certain offerings that are not worth it. So should we do three as the magic number? Yeah, go for it.

Bob: 39:24

Ding, ding, ding. I don't have three questions for you today. I've got one question for you.

Jeremy: 39:29

Yeah, I've only got one as well.

Bob: 39:30

OK, so my question to you is if an organization was to identify you through your behaviors as a particular type, how would they define you? Very good.

Jeremy: 39:46

I don't know what terms they'd use, but I think they would. They'd probably put various brands against me that they think I could afford and would be in the market for you know that I'm sure they'd waitroseify me. Oh yeah, they'd Audi me. They would talk about levels of disposable income. They would come up with all sorts of stuff Some of it true, some of it not of course I think you've thrown them a bit with the Audi.

Bob: 40:09

Yeah, you were Volvo for years, which was a very different. I was Volvo for years, but they messed up. There we go.

Jeremy: 40:13

Dogs, kids, countryside yeah, it's absolutely clear, isn't it Lovely?

Bob: 40:19

You're actually. You're a gold customer type for so many organizations. No doubt about it, I am.

Jeremy: 40:25

And I wish they could try and sell to me. So my question is different. I want you to think of all the stuff that we have done over the years in our sales training Without knowing it or half knowing it. If we were to give our listeners now our biggest kind of behavioral sales training tip that they could test we're not going to say it's going to work, but they could go and test this because we've been training this for years it's in the realm of behavioral science. Go do this. What would your thing be?

Bob: 40:53

There's so many that I would immediately leap to. I can stand back from that and just say one thing that I have observed is that when people have a pretty standard conversation, lots of organizations go, wow, that's outstanding and they have a good opening, ask some great questions. They set an agenda, ask some great questions, put together some value, handle an ejection and close the sale Classic sale people go, whoa, that's outstanding, that's amazing. And I think over the years people have got used to average as being good and I think that the truth is, if you are well trained, you can have amazing conversations, because you and I know what it's like to go into a place or to bring up an organization and go in for one thing and come out with five and go. That was an incredible experience and I'm going to recommend it to others. That's so rare these days and it's a real tragedy, and I think that the missed opportunity is to take average and make it amazing. So that's a broad look and the examples of that I will give there's so many that you could leap to, but I think the one that's given our conversation today is around the strength of the organization and holding your price. I think there's so little of that.

Bob: 42:15

These days. People are so ready to give a discount, so reluctant to handle the price objection, so reluctant to re-prove the value, so reluctant to stand by their brand, so reluctant to say this is amazing and these are the reasons why it works for you. That's the area that I think people need much more strength in, because I think that the brands that do that now over the next few years, that have a robust pricing strategy and I can think of a few who are in that situation right now brands like Apple and Microsoft too if you want it, you want it why are they the biggest companies on earth? Because they don't discount hugely, they don't give things away, they don't devalue their brands or their products. Why aren't other brands learning from that and thinking okay, we need to have better salespeople selling at a higher level at higher prices, because we're worth it and that's our objective and we should stand by that with some integrity. I think if that area was looked at, it would make such a difference.

Jeremy: 43:13

That's great, nice, lovely. If you want some resources for this episode, I'd say check out Elmer Wheeler, because in a sense he was looking at the science of language and the power of saying the right thing. Check out Dr Robert Cialdini, his book Pre-Swasion and also the Six Weapons of Influence. Check out Ogilvy. They've actually got a tool on their website called Mindspace where you can do ideation, which is simply a sort of grand word for coming up with ideas. That's quite fun. If you look at that, it's got quite a bit of Cialdini's Six Weapons of Influence in it. But also, just read about this, try and get into it. If you're doing your own internal sales training, don't just guess the behavioral science, but even just the topic, just even getting across to people. Let's ask our customers more questions. Let's study their patterns of behavior, let's study demand. Just try to get curious about it, because it's here and it's growing.

Bob: 44:08

I'd also steer you towards our own blog on realitytrainingcom, which has hundreds of articles and posts on all sorts of subjects, but loads around this about value selling and things like that. That's freely available to you. Also, if you like to read something slightly more long form. Twice now we've done editions of our book the Perfect Storm, which was written at a time where the economy was going through a tough period. The Perfect Storm has 30 different ways to drive your business. I would like to steer you towards that, which is available for a very low cost on Kindle. Look for that. So, ladies and gents, thanks for listening. This is a subject I know we'll be returning to, but in the meantime, thanks very much and, Jeremy, I will see you on another podcast very soon.

Jeremy: 44:53

Yeah, cheers for now, bye.

Bob: 45:04

Bob and Jeremy's Conflat the reality podcast.