113: Sales Psychology: Expand Your Client Base by Understanding what Your Prospect is Thinking!

Sales Psychology: Ideas for Expanding Your Client Base by Understanding what Your Prospect is Thinking! You’re sitting in a sales meeting and you are looking across the table at a potential client. In your brain, you wonder, “what are they thinking?” What is in their head? When your prospect isn't saying anything, we fill that space by talking. Often, we've talked ourselves right out of the sale without knowing. Why don’t we give that prospect time to respond? Give them time to respond to objections and clarifying questions. These are classic buying signals. In this week's episode, Ursula Mentjes sheds some light on sales psychology and gives you ideas on how to expand your client base. Part One of ‘Sales Psychology: Ideas for Expanding Your Client Base by Understanding what Your Prospect is Thinking!’ If your prospect isn't saying anything, they just want to know if this is right for them. You simply have to help them figure it out. Often, we make up stories about what they might be thinking.  We have to give them time to think. When they're sitting across from you, most of the time they're not thinking about you. When they're out in the world, our prospects aren't thinking about us. They're thinking about themselves. They're thinking about their challenges in their business in life, their dreams, and their goals.  “The fastest way to build rapport with your clients is to make them feel you genuinely care for them.” — Ursula Mentjes (20:12-20:44) The reality is that nine out of ten people are prospects. They're not going to call us most of the time. They've got tons of stuff going on in their lives. Be prepared to create the space for them to think further. You should have three goals in mind: get a definite yes or definite no, or a next step on the calendar. If you're not getting those three things, then there's something that you got to tweak a little bit.  Psychology is defined as the science of mind and behavior. What are people thinking about? How are they acting during the sales process? In sales, we have to understand how prospects are thinking and feeling. Otherwise, we're not going to be able to help them. It can be so easy to get in our heads and get stuck in that sales process and start to talk a lot. We need to take time to pull back and give our prospects the gift of silence. Your job as a sales professional or entrepreneur is to guide them to the best decision. The first thing that they're thinking about is whether or not they like you. We tend to make a first impression about somebody, and that impression lasts for a long time unless we change it. Think about the first impression that you're making. How do you hope that people see you? Are you showing the best version of you? That most confident version of you? Give them the best opportunity to decide how they feel about you. If they don't like you, they're not going to trust you. If you can make your client feel like you're someone who's confident about resolving issues or meeting needs, they’ll want to accept your offer. They're going to think that your offer is a perfect fit for them. Part Two of ‘Sales Psychology: Ideas for Expanding Your Client Base by Understanding what Your Prospect is Thinking!’ Let's say you've made it to the second level. You've established a connection with your client. The next thing you need to help them figure out is if they're willing to make an...