While my number one book recommendation for sales is “SPIN Selling” by Neil Rackham, “The Psychology of Selling” remains a classic book in this field. This is part one of my notes on “The Psychology of Selling”, part two will cover the specific tactics and techniques he advocates using for sales calls.
Proof of fear of rejection: if you had a list of prospects that would be guaranteed to buy from you today, you would start calling as soon as possible. Yet most salesmen only start calling at 11:00 in the morning.
It’s difficult to get people to buy from you unless they’re confident that you are their friend and that you’re acting in their best interest.
Tracy claims that 51% or more of closing ability comes down to enthusiasm.
The top 3% of salespeople all consider themselves self-employed. They take full responsibility for their results.
You can never make your customer believe in your product more than you do.
If you’re into concrete things, you won’t have the same amount of passion for intangibles; if you’re into intangibles like psychology, philosophy, and metaphysics then you’ll be better off selling intangibles rather than concretes.
Tracy states that 90% of all sales books are sold to less than 10% of salespeople.
Tracy urges people to constantly read and listen to tapes; he even goes as far as to say that if you’re listening to your car radio instead of tapes, you’re not taking your profession seriously enough.
A psychological habit that stifles most people’s productivity is that they think about their lives in terms of days or hours; so if they accomplish a lot in a short amount of time, they’ll just write the rest of the day or the hour off. Instead of falling into this trap, think about your life in terms of MINUTES.
The basic law of all of human destiny is the law of sowing and reaping: you will always reap exactly what you sow, but you must do the sowing first.
-Brian Tracy
