The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible pdfdrive com

1. Listen Attentively
First, listen attentively, without interruptions. Listen without any attempt to
leap in and share your own ideas.
Face the prospect directly. Lean forward. Nod, smile, and agree. Be an active
listener rather than a passive listener. Focus on the mouth and eyes of the
prospect when he is speaking.
Here is a good exercise. Imagine that your eyes are sun lamps and you want to
give your prospect’s face a tan. As you listen, keep moving your eyes up and
down over your prospect’s face, hanging on every word, as if she were about to
give you the winning lottery number and she would only give it to you once.
Imagine that your eyes are sun lamps and you want to give your prospect’s face a tan.
Listen as though you have all the time in the world. Listen as if you would still
be here if she wanted to talk for eight years, and you would love to hear every
single word she says.
Listening Affects People. When a prospect is intensely listened to, he
experiences specific physiological changes. His heart rate goes up. His blood
pressure goes up. His galvanic skin response increases. Most importantly, when
a person is intensely listened to, his self-esteem goes up. He feels more valued.
He likes himself more, and as a result, he likes the person who is listening to him
so intently.
Listening is the most powerful of all techniques in selling. All of the highest-
paid sales professionals are described as “very good listeners.” They “seek first
to understand, then to be understood.” They concentrate all of their attention on
understanding the thoughts, feelings, and needs of the customer before they
make any attempt to sell.

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make any attempt to sell.
2. Pause Before Replying
Second, pause before replying or continuing. When the prospect finishes
speaking, pause and wait for three to five seconds before you answer. Even if the
prospect has asked you a question to which you know the answer, you must still
discipline yourself to pause for a few moments.
There are three benefits to pausing. First, when you pause, you convey to the
prospect that you are carefully considering what he just said. This tells him that
you value him and his words. What he has said is too important for you to
respond too quickly. As a result, you raise his self-esteem and self-respect. You
make him feel better about himself, and by extension, better about you.
The second benefit of pausing is that it allows you to hear the prospect at a
deeper level of mind. It’s almost as though words soak into your mind as water
soaks into the soil. When you allow silence after the prospect’s words, you
actually understand what he or she really meant, much more than you would if
you replied immediately.
The third benefit of pausing before replying is that you avoid the risk of
interrupting the prospect if he is just reorganizing his thoughts and preparing to
begin speaking again.