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Overview

Businesses need excellent sales. A good way to do this is by hiring confident people, training them on how to force your product onto the customer and then selling tons of stuff. Right?

It’s not as simple as that. There are psychological mechanisms at work in the world of sales, and one of the keys to great sales performance is understanding what makes us tick. Scientists have discovered more and more about how we think, which can be used to sell things. In this article, you’ll discover some of those key points that show you how to use neuroscience for effective selling strategies like speaking into someone’s right ear; using a picture of a baby; or making your product smell good.

Big Idea #1: Reduce the feeling of pain during the buying experience and even tightwads will buy.

We’ve all had the experience of buyer’s remorse, where you regret making a purchase. Sometimes it can be more than just a feeling – shopping itself can cause pain. In an experiment by Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University, subjects were given money before being placed in an fMRI machine to record their brain activity while they were offered items at different prices. Some items were discounted or overpriced and others were priced fairly.

Scientists have found that they can predict whether or not a person will buy an item by looking at his or her brain scans. They can tell this just from how much pain the person is feeling.

However, it is not just the amount of money we spend that causes pain in our brain’s center. It also depends on the context and situation. For instance, losing 75 cents at a vending machine can be more aggravating than spending thousands buying a car.

If you want to sell products, you need to minimize the pain that people feel when they buy. Here are ways of doing that:

The most important thing is to make your price seem like a bargain. If you’re selling an annual membership for $120, you can make it seem smaller by saying that it costs “only $10 per month” or “33 cents per day.”

Similarly, appealing to important needs over unnecessary pleasures is a particularly good strategy for selling to tightwads. For example, a Carnegie Mellon University study began by using a survey to situate participants along the “Tightwad-Spendthrift Scale” and then offered massages. The results showed that tightwads were 26 percent less likely than the spendthrifts to buy a massage for pleasure but only 9 percent less likely when it was described as relieving back pain.

Big Idea #2: Captivate all the senses, especially smell.

When you’re selling something, it’s important to appeal to your potential customers’ rational side. However, you’ll have even greater success if you also appeal to their emotions. Appeal to all five senses and not just the sense of rationality.

Singapore Airlines is an example of how the sense of smell can be used to develop a brand image. They have flight attendants who wear uniforms that are coordinated with the color scheme of their airplanes, and they also use the same perfume for all of their services.

Singapore Airlines has consistently been ranked at the top of travelers’ preferences according to Martin Lindstrom, author of “Buyology” and “Brand Sense”. He found that smell is the most important sense for selling products. This can be seen in an experiment where 84% of people preferred a shoe over another when it was presented with a scent. Lindstrom also says that our sense of smell affects how we process information and recall memories. For example, simply changing a shampoo’s fragrance made buyers think it foamed better, rinsed out more easily and left their hair glossier! Unsurprisingly, these changes encouraged them to buy more as well.