I was on a sales call recently, I wasn't that confident about the call being worth my while, but I have a sales process I follow regardless. So I smiled and dailed, half way through the sales call the balance of my Paypal account had increased by more than $2000.
Now this doesn't happen to me everyday, in fact my experience of the business world and capitalizing on opportunity as been very asymmetrical - feast or famine; when it rains it pours. My experience is that it's not a numbers game, good fortune is due to almost invisible meta factors, which conspire in rare moments to create windfalls, when they do it's worthwhile to analyze why.
When I'm selling a deal my modus operandi is:
To discretely create a neurotransmitter cocktail in the minds of those I am seducing comprised of one part Serotonin and one part Norepinephrine; one part desire, one part fear of loss.
The anticipation of pleasure or reward. This is the molecule that flows in the mind as...
- You walk into a swanky restaurant and smell delicious food being prepared.
- As you watch a bartender make a stiff cocktail for you.
- As an addict breaks up a rock of cocaine.
- While a customer watches a stripper taking off her clothes.
A positive neurotransmitter of stress and motivating tension.
- When a student focuses hard on the reference material to prepare for exams.
- When athletes walk onto the field to compete in a championship.
- When a business person works hard to do a lucrative deal.
- A single person puts on their nicest clothes to go on a hot date.
These two sensations in concert create decisive motivation and give dead in the water deals momentum. As a seducer (or salesman), I consider my primary job to find the point of pain or worry that the prospect has and twist the knife. We all know that fear of loss is a little bit more powerful motivator than greed, however many salespeople expend superfluous energy selling features and benefits when they should be seducing by painting a grim scenario of loss. This is a dark art of persuasion and I encourage you to use it for good not evil.
This concept comes from one of my favorite sales psychology books, Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff. This book details the author's process, with which he has raised +$400 million dollars, for applying neuroscience and evolutionary psychology to the sales process. Check out my full review here or just order it on Amazon, it's a relatively short read and is full of stories and examples.
So what exactly did I do on the 50 minute call?
- Review; fail to plan, plan to fail. I spent about 10 minutes reviewing my proposal and his emails before making the call.
- I started with the Serotonin; I told the prospect that I thought he was sitting on a potential cash cow. I dropped figures of how much other web sites I had (or had worked on) were making based upon X amount of traffic in comparison to his site.
- Story telling, to hook the attention I told a couple stories of past clients and similar experiences I had. Particularly the story of the Navy Seal snipper that once hired me, which seems to be a crowd pleaser.
- Then the Norepinephrine, the pain point I pushed was the threat of attack and destruction of this man's little online empire from hackers, spammers and phishers (not the kind that spend a lot of time on boats). His site had been taken down a couple times before and he was overwhelmed by spam messages he was receiving.
- Listen, I applied some the mindfulness training I've quantified, to get present, avoid multitasking and focus singularily on his voice while he was talking.
This is a protocol for seduction in all domains of life, in the future I will share more examples in other areas of lifestyle.
