Moments that make sales

Everyone has defining moments in their lives, deep meaningful experiences that stand out in our memory.  Many of these are not crafted out of design, the person you bump into that turns into the love of your life, the teacher who spots your talent and pushes you, but others are placed in your path to ensure that you have an amazing wonderful time and create lifetime memories.

Some industries are great at understanding that what they sell are "moments" in time that customers will never forget. Disney is obviously one of those, but hotels, hospitality events and concerts all go out of their way to ensure that the customers leave wanting more. 

There are some key lessons we can take from Psychology about these moments that translate into the sales persons world. If we take Disney as an example, if people were asked to rate their experience several times a day, the scores would be very different to feedback given at the end of the holiday. The reason behind this is that when people assess an experience, they tend to ignore (or forget) the length of time - a phenomenon known as "duration neglect" - but instead rate their experience on 2 key moments: 

• 1: The best or worst moment, known as the 'PEAK'  and
• 2: the ending,

Psychologists call it the 'Peak - End rule'. 

This research explains why people talk about certain aspects of the trip to Disney (their best ride(s) - The Peak) and probably the flight home (the end). Everything else seems to fade away. The result of this is that the memory of the event is far more favourable than each individual element.

With this in mind, how can Sales people bring the Peak-End rule to life in their sales scenarios. Below are some suggestions but feel free to provide some more in the comments or feedback below:

1: The sales call / meeting / presentation is an experience

The first thing to be clear in the mind is that the sales call, in whichever guise, is an experience for the prospect or customer. You need to plan the call accordingly. Ensure that you are not focused on yourself, your goals and aspirations of the call, but rather the customer and 'whats in it for them'. 

2: It must PEAK! 

Consider what in your call / presentation would be considered the peak. This must be a peak for the customer - not you. Demonstrating a Return in Investment might be exciting for some people - especially if it is their own money, but for many it is not that exciting - especially if it is corporate money.  Think in terms of the customers emotion. What part of your pitch will emotionally touch them and make them remember you and the call.

To do this you must understand the customer and their wants and needs. If it is an early part of the sales cycle and you don't know that customer too well, ensure your messaging is emotionally charged, preferably positively emotionally charged, customers want to feel good, not bad! 

Also make sure that you are someone the customer will remember and that this conversation will not be the one that is forgetful.

3:  The 'end' is as important as the beginning. 

What is the lasting impression you want to end them on that leaves them wanting more. We have spent a lot of time learning the elevator pitch or practicing hooks to engage the customer to talk more, but we must ensure that we finish the call on a high for the customer. 

Checking out of a hotel can be a negative experience, I have to queue up, they need to print out the bill, I need to review it, they need to take payment and so on. The good hotels have removed that negative experience and replaced it with speedy checkout, so the final part of the experience is simply dropping the key off in the box on my way out and the porter getting me a cab or wishing me a great day. 

What can sales people do to conclude the call and leave the customer on a high? One of the things to consider is the art of surprise. I don't mean some silly joke or a gimmick - it must be a genuine strategically driven surprise, or at least surprising and memorable. 

Here are a couple of examples but please post some more at the bottom:

Go full circle

One example is to come back to a story that you may have used at the start of the call, e.g. start the call with an anology, case study or thought provoking idea and at the end of the presentation come full circle with "Wondering what happened to customer x?" and then tell them the success story.

Quote

Finish on a quote. Quotes from people are often more memorable than the whole presentation. It seems to strike a chord with people. 

A call to action

Assume that your presentation has delivered the information needed by the customer to move them in a direction and make your call to action definitive and instructional. Use a compelling call to action that will raise emotions:

• Begin the process
• Join the fight
• Improve the process
• Donate now

All these types of calls to action are implied instructions and work on a sub-conscious level.

95% of all decision making is made by the emotional / irrational part of a brain and as such memories and experiences will ultimately define where we spend our money. Yes the product and / or service must deliver on the promise, but if you don't emotionally charge me, I simply won't buy. 

If you want to learn more about engaging customers, speak to one of our Salecologists at hello@salecology.com, or tel the number at the top of the screen.