“And when you hear customers talking logic, it’s your job to go try to seek out the feelings that are really driving the behaviors and the decisions, because you can do something with those.” – Todd Caponi in today’s Tip 279
How do you make a decision in sales?
Join the conversation below and share your ideas!
Todd Caponi on LinkedIn
Todd Caponi on Twitter
The Transparency Sales Website
The Transparency Sale Book
Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]
Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Todd Caponi is back. Todd is a top-rated keynote speaker and trainer as Principal of Sales Melon, LLC and he’s also Managing Director of Chicago’s VentureSCALE. Here he is with his tip:
Todd Caponi: Hey everybody. Todd Caponi here, author of The Transparency Sale and I want to nerd out with you for a minute here and think about a concept that neuroscientists have figured out over even just the last 15 to 20 years. Is that we as human beings make all of our decisions the feeling and emotion center of our brain and only use logic to back it up. Thinking about a neighbor of mine, he’s in his mid-forties he was driving a Toyota Corolla and one day he will drives down the street in a new Corvette. When I asked him, “Hey, where did this come from?” His answer was very logical. He talked about the idea that his old Toyota wasn’t giving him the acceleration that he needed as he was pulling onto the expressway every day going to work and that the car dealership was offering great finance rates 0% APR for 60 months. It just all lined up. Dude, that’s not why you bought a Corvette, you could have bought many other cars that have great pickup and window cost less. It was a feeling. It was an emotion. When we talk about individuals who are lined up on the street before the launch of a new iPhone sleeping intents in the middle of the night and when they’re asked, “Hey, why are you here? Why are you so excited about this?” And they name all the features of the phone. That’s not why you’re camped out on a sidewalk at four in the morning with a bunch of people. There’s a feeling being first of being a part of something, so we need to think about that when our customers either tell us they are going to buy from us or they’re not or they stall or a current customer decides to leave.
I’d encourage you to look at a neuroscientist. Dr. David Rock came up with something called the Scarf Model. So when we think about feelings, we’re not talking about love and hate, we’re talking about SCARF, which is the “S” is Status. We buy things to get validated, recognized, get positive feedback. The “C” is Certainty. We buy things because we are wired to try to predict what our experience is going to be. So why we look at reviews before we buy things and why we specifically seek out the negative reviews before making a purchase. The “A” is Autonomy. We are looking for control and we will not buy something that in some way takes away our control. The “R” is Relatedness. Am I part of something? Am I part of the pack? We’re trying to be like all the cool kids, right? And so relatedness is a key feeling in the drivers that drive decisions. And the “F” is Fairness. Is the return of my investment of both my time and my dollars worth it? And when we look at that and hear customers say, “Well, this isn’t a priority and that’s why we’re not going to buy, or you don’t have this feature, or we just weren’t able to calculate good enough ROI on this project.” There’s likely a feeling or an emotion that’s coming behind that. So I encourage you to think through that right out SCARF. And when you hear customers talking logic, it’s your job to go try to seek out the feelings that are really driving the behaviors and the decisions, because you can do something with those. I hope that helps. Good luck.
Scott Ingram: Now do yourself a favor and follow Todd on LinkedIn and go get your own copy of The Transparency Sale. You’ll find links to do both of those things and you can see the video version of Todd’s tip at DailySales.Tips/279
Then make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast in your favorite podcast app, you’ve joined the listener list at DailySales.Tips and come back by tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!