Why should buyers choose you?

There are certain things that are commonplace in every industry:
1) You rely on customers and clients for your success, and
2) You will have competitors. 
Creating perceived value is subjective and depends on individual perceptions. Even if a product or service offers great features or benefits, its value is only meaningful if it is perceived as valuable by the target audience.


I think that understanding consumer psychology and using data to uncover insights about preferences and motivations will help businesses create perceived value in the minds of their customers. Effective marketing, branding, and communication strategies can influence perception and enhance the perceived value of your product or service. Contact me via e-mail for a confidential meeting about your organisations value proposition.

““The essence of power is the ability to define someone else’s reality and make them live according to that definition as though it were a definition of their own choosing.””

— Dr. Wade W. Nobles

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What do you know about your buyers?

Psychometrics is a scientific discipline concerned with the construction of assessment tools. Being able to identify the psychometrics of B2B buyers - for example, their needs, challenges, and motivations - will help you effectively tailor marketing messages and sales strategy for what your buyers are looking for, and ultimately winning them over in the sales process. Creating buyer personas gives you an inside look into your target audience’s buying decision process, and what they hope to achieve. This will save time and overhead by allowing you to create the most efficient and concentrated marketing strategy based on your most profitable targets and how they act and behave. Contact me via e-mail for sales and marketing workshops.

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Seeing things from another perspective

Buyers think about desired outcomes, for example, “I have a problem that needs to be solved.” Now, if all products are solutions or platforms, how do you present that to a buyer? Ask questions that will enable the buyer to quantify the impact of change on their organisation, team/dept., and also on them personally. Take time to personalise this for the buyer as one size does not fit all. Here’s a great discovery question:

Dear buyer,
By doing business with my company, what will this do for you both professionally and personally?

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Anxieties darken the skies

Look at what the world believes about selling, the world believes selling is about pitching and persuading. The way targets are set up are for example, how much did you sell this month? The problem is salespersons dive into pitching before creating an urgency for the product or service they are selling and this causes pipelines to clog, and sales cycles to slow down. Just imagine if the sales managers better understood the psychology of selling and trained their sales teams to listen to the buyers and understand the problem they are trying to solve. The better the salespersons understand what it costs them by not solving the buyers’ problems, the more likely they will change the way they approach sales meetings and presentations. 

A need is a necessity arising from a certain problem, a real problem; and a want is what people think or say they need. I think salesperson’s really need to learn how to listen to their buyers and not to pitch or persuade them before clearly understanding their needs. Contact me via e-mail for sales training and workshops.

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A simple buying process

I love to simplify complex things and I think that buyers go through 3 stages before purchase:

⁃  Awareness: What’s the problem and what’s the desired outcome?
⁃  Consideration: How can we achieve these things?
⁃  Decision: Who are we going to do this with?

The first two platforms are a battle over ideas and as a salesperson you must come into buying meetings with good questions and ideas. Buyers usually do their research and will get the facts and figures online, so salespersons have to step their game. We have start getting salespersons to start having conversations instead of giving presentations - true storytelling with references and testimonials. Contact me via e-mail when you are ready for a sales training and storytelling workshops.

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Selling to do good

When I think about all the salespersons that I have trained over the years, they tend to forget the listening part really quickly. After they have done enough sales presentations and they know what’s facing them and can predict where the conversation is going, they “fall asleep at the wheel.” They forget that it is for their benefit, find the buyer’s needs and fulfill them. I think the greatest benefit of listening is the impact it has on the buyer.

Great selling really starts with great listening and understanding what the clients need really truly are. It’s essential to listen and make the buyer feel that you hear them and understand their problem. If the buyer feels understood, then they will be open to building a trust relationship with you and this will put you in a position to influence their choices and decisions. I think when you really listen to the buyer, you will discover their problem at a much deeper and profound level and that’s where the magic happens.

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Each buyer is unique

Success in sales depends largely on the salesperson’s ability to adapt his or her skills and pitch when selling to different personality types. With just a little bit of communication, observation, and research, you can use your knowledge of these decision-making styles to build better and longer lasting customer relationships and increase your close rate.

What are those personality types? 

The four types of buyers whom I have met the most during my sales career are as follows: management, user, technical and economic buyers. I use the acronym M.U.T.E
- The management buyer is all about seeing the actual solution being implemented and how your solutions can be used.
- The user buyer is the person who is concerned with the overall customer experience and the impact of the buying experience and ease of purchase.
- The technical buyer relies heavily on measurable and quantifiable data before engaging in a purchase and wants proof that your product or service performs as stated.
- The economic buyer is focused on the ROI and stay within or under budget, this type of buyer takes into consideration examples of work done for past and current clients and seeks case studies that prove the ROI of a solution. 

By identifying your buyer’s personality type and what motivates them, you can tailor your sales presentation to meets their needs. I can teach you how to put all of these four types of buyers on a grid and figure why they would buy, and more importantly document the reasons why they are holding back from buying. Contact me via e-mail and I’ll guide you through the process of addressing those reasons for not buying and fine tuning your sales presentation.

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Balancing the act of indecision

As human beings we have learned to associate certain feelings to certain situations. As sales professionals we have to discover the buyer’s beliefs and values, and then associate not buying with missing out on something. I’m not advocating that you become a salesperson who is pushy, one who doesn’t really care and tries to manipulate buyers. I’m trying to clarify that buying equals pleasure and not buying equals’ pain.

Persuasion is the process of getting your customer to clearly associate their desired feelings or stakes to your products and services. In other words, if we want someone to buy our products and services, we have to get them to link their feelings towards what they want most, and we have to make it compelling and very real for them. And we have to associate not buying with pain - “I’m going to miss out on this opportunity!” - leaving them with the feeling that someone else is going to have something that they don’t have.

Think of something that you recently purchased and be honest, was it something you really needed or was it something you wanted, and then you began to justify it as a need? Here’s another scenario: When was the last time you really wanted something, but you didn’t follow through with the purchase? You had an emotional reason to buy, but you could not justify it logically. Would you like to learn how to give buyers enough reasons to buy? I mean their reasons and not yours. Contact me via e-mail for workshops and sales training.

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Turn your wounds into wisdom

The best study of life is how it is, not how we think it should be. I think people will do more to avoid pain than they will ever do to gain pleasure, therefore, salespersons must sell consequences. Buyers will always think about whether you have their best interests in mind, in other words, “Can the buyer trust you?” When most salespersons say something, it tends to be just filtered through their needs and desires when in reality, it should be about the buyers. In my experience most salespersons sell what they love about their products rather than what the buyer would love about their products.

People don’t do things because we tell them to, people do things for reasons. For example, buyers must associate the action of buying with creating tremendous pleasure and the action of not buying with pain. I think that selling is the process of finding the buyers pain, disturbing it, and making them feel the hurt. The salesperson is then responsible for healing the buyer’s pain through different choices, usually through their products or services. Would you like to know how to guide buyers through your sales process? Contact me via e-mail for sales training and workshops.

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That's not my problem

As sales persons our job is to get the deal and when I say deal, I mean reduce costs, increase revenue or add commercial value. What I have learned over the years is that people mostly care about themselves. I’m quite meticulous around preparation and tend to go into sales meetings with right team and technical knowledge, as I don’t want to be the guy who turns up and is the idiot in the room. The penny dropped for me about sales training in 2010 after I stopped working for Aquascutum. I realised that sales is a performance and to perform well you have to practice, you have to analyse what you do - both the good and the bad - and you have to perform on the day and that takes a lot of effort and thinking and preparation. And this is the fundamental thing I take with me in everything - “Practice makes perfect”.


When you first get into sales you are taught about how to do the pitch (think about yourself), how great the product is and all that good stuff. It doesn’t really wash because everybody cares about themselves the most. The key to interpersonal skills is to try to be interested in the person that you are dealing with, and if you can build upon that and be authentically interested in the industry and domain that you are working in and this will ensure that you always will have great questions to ask. Buyers who are commercially astute and intelligent are formidable opponents when going into discussions or negotiations with them. Contact me via e-mail for your sales training and workshops.

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People have a persuasion resistance

We should always focus on the buyers’ needs and how we can solve them. Guiding the buyers through the decisions and tasks from an authentic perspective will make it more likely to get the deal done. The role of the sales person is to guide the buyer through this process. In the minds of the buyers, sales is not necessary.

Training is not about persuading buyers to buy your products as in general as most people have a persuasion resistance. Nobody want to be sold to! The real role of sales persons is to influence buyers through the buying process. In reality, the buyers are in charge of the selling as they have to sell to internal stakeholders. I think that influence is far more important than persuasion, we only have to tell one story - the customers story. Tell the story of what the future may be like with you in it based on a vision and values.

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Integrity issues

As a sales professional I think that we should always focus on the buyers needs and how we can solve them. How we can guide the buyers through the decision making process, and if we authentically succeed in this task, we will more than likely close the deal.


Recently, I wrote about how HR hire sales persons, perhaps HR would be better served by writing sales job descriptions from the buyers’ perspective. No one wants to be sold to, everyone wants to be guided through the process - therefore, sales persons do not need to be hunters, closers or extroverts.


I think the buying experience is the most crucial function as in the mind of so many buyers, sales is not necessary. The role of the sales person is to guide the buyer through this process:
1. Identify the needs.
2. Explore the potential solutions for the needs.
3. Define the requirements.
4. Select the potential suppliers.
Remember, influence always wins over persuasion.