Why don’t confused brains buy? …and other selling tips

Grant Leboff: One of the things you talk about in the book is Brain Friendly Selling tips. So give us an example of some brain friendly selling tips.

Simon Hazeldin: OK, so this is not necessarily confined to what people might see as a sales pitch but they are very useful if you're in that situation. You have been brought in as a formal part of their buying process to pitch your offer and service to them. The first thing I'd say is that confused brains don't buy. So if there is a profusion of choice, then often people will do nothing. I used to work in fast moving consumer goods and category management principles. Sometimes the less items, SKUs we used to call them - Stock Keeping Units - on the shelves, the customer's perception of choice goes up.

It's easier to make a buying decision, because you have less choices. So you should definitely limit choice, if you if you want the customer to buy. And also I advocate a structure that I call the message house. So when you're thinking about how you're selling into the customer... so imagine in the roof of your house you have your main message is your most powerful... for example, your most powerful point of differentiation of you versus the competition. Then three key supporting pillars or benefits that you would bring in. And then a foundation on the floor of the facts that you need to go to:- case studies, testimonials, return on investment, arguments etc., but really general principle is less is more. The customer's brain starts to get confused or starts to get tired, then 'do nothing' starts to become an option and then, maybe, 'don't make that decision'.

Also the more primitive region of the brain, from a survival point of view, is very attuned to movement. So if you do, for example, move when you're making your presentation deliberately, maybe moving from one part of the room to another, to make a different point or sort of spatial association. You may stand over to the left hand side of the screen - if you're using Powerpoint and you definitely don't have to - we often don't. Talking about the problems and the challenges whether customer is, maybe then blank your screen, move over to the other side of the screen, where you're on the right hand side from the audience's perspective, where you talk about the solution, you're associating different things with different parts of the room. But also, you've moved, so the customer's eyes have to track across and follow you. So there are ways of doing that and go down as many senses as you possibly can. Good strong visual imagery and your proposals, your pitch, a lot of people will say 'Hey that looks good' So your proposal needs to look good, it needs to look colourful, but also how does it feel? High quality maybe heavy 90 GSM quality paper. Nice voice tonality. Describe it varying your pitch etc.. Makes it a very sensory, rich environment for the customer's brain. Excites and interests their brain much more will, therefore, maximize your chance of succeeding and getting the deal.

Grant Leboff: And one of the things you talk about, which I think is very interesting is obviously, like you said, confused brains down buy, keeping things simple and easy to understand. And the power of metaphors...

Simon Hazeldin: Yeah... we work with quite a lot of companies in the technology space and sometimes there that pitch, therefore, has to be quite technical. So they sometimes a metaphor... so it's 'like X' or it is 'similar to' and using those sort of metaphors really help the customer's brain to understand it. But also, it's quite evocative language. Metaphors and things people say such as 'as smooth as silk' etc. It's emotionally laden, sensory rich, language that really helps the customer's brain to to engage. But again, making it as simple for the customer to understand. Not saying the customer is not very smart, but the easier it is for them to understand it, the more comfortable they'll feel with it, the greater their chances of going ahead. Uncomfortable brains done buy.

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