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Cognitive Behavioral Tips to Sell on Value

Posted by Carole Mahoney on 3/27/20 7:15 AM

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Have you ever thought about how your mindsets and beliefs towards your own buying decisions impact your ability to sell? Well it does, and it can shackle you from being able to sell on value and overcome objections, like price and delaying of a decision.

So what do I mean by beliefs and mindsets about how you buy influencing how you sell? I call it the, "how do you buy is how you sell dynamic.” Catchy, right?

But what does that look like?

 

 

Let me give you an example. When my husband and I traded the snow in Maine for the sand in Southern Florida, we were so excited to be on the beach in the sunshine not wearing 14 layers of clothes. Of course, as our luck would have it, halfway through our vacation / workcation... We got the one day in Florida that was actually winter for them.

I mean iguanas were frozen and falling out of the sky! At 40 degrees, this Mainer thought it was just sweatshirt weather, but everybody else is walking around in these big hats and scarves and as the temperatures were rapidly dropping, as well as the iguanas from the trees on top of other people, we happened to pass by the last t-shirt shop on the beach that was still open late at night.

I was so excited because I could get on to my morning walk the next day and not freeze. When I gleefully told my friends the next day that I had gotten the sweatshirt in time to go for my walk, they exclaimed, “Oh boy, they saw you coming didn't they ? How much did you end up paying for it?”

When I told them that I only paid $19.99 they said, “Oh you got ripped off!” Excuse me. It was worth it for me to not freeze on my sunrise walk the next morning and they were the last shop open. If I didn't get one then in there then I was going to have to drive all the way to the 24-hour Walmart, for what?! To save five bucks? I don't have time for that. I'm on vacation and I just wanted to get a sweatshirt. So for me paying the extra five bucks for the sweatshirt was worth it.

So when your buying process and the way that you make decisions influences the way that you sell, you'll be like my Florida friends were like, you got totally ripped off. I wouldn't pay that price either for my solution.

But what does the data have to say?

Out of nearly two million sales professionals who've been surveyed, the top 10% of sales people had 62 percent of the attributes to having a supportive buy cycle, whereas the bottom 10% only had 19 percent. Sales people worldwide have an average of 41 percent of the attributes necessary for supportive buy cycle, which means that this is very likely impacting your sales cycles and close rates with a lot of wasted sales time and activity.

But the good news is, that if a manager has a supportive buy cycle their team is 17 percent more likely to share that as a strength. Managers have a huge impact on their team. You don't need data to tell you that (but it does tell you that).

So what does coaching and training need to include?

Cognitive-behavioral tips to change this mindset that anyone can do

Tip One: First start small

For example, the next time you go out for dinner, challenge yourself to choose something in less than 2 minutes. Whenever we go out to dinner with my mother-in-law, she is infamous for taking forever to decide and she will ask everyone else at the table what they're having first and then she orders what she always orders. Don't be like my mother-in-law, love her to death.

You can try this as well- When you shop for a major purchase limit yourself to just three options to choose from and then set a deadline. Does that make you anxious? Then ask yourself on a scale of zero to death, what's the worst that can really happen by making a wrong choice? We all make mistakes. None of us are perfect.

My second tip is going to seem a little different...

Tip Two: Practice self-awareness

Practice some mindfulness; meditation, yoga, going for a walk, cut off all of the distractions. Because according to a 2013 study from the Central Michigan University, researchers found that just 15 minutes of mindful meditation a day can help people make smarter choices by counteracting a lot of deep-rooted tendencies.

Just that brief period allows us to consider the information that's available to us in the present moment which helps us to make better decisions that lead to us having better outcomes in the future.

 

Your Turn

So take this data and these tactics and start changing your mindsets and beliefs about how people buy and even your own buying decisions, so that you can sell on value and also help your buyers to make decisions in a timely manner that is best for them.

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Topics: sales mindsets