When it comes to sales, a certain mindset needs to be adopted. One that understands that it’s all about communication. Sales happen every day, even outside of the business world—it’s how we present ourselves, forge friendships, and even find a life partner. It’s all about communicating with others and with the world, not just to prospective buyers. 

This mindset allows a CEO, director or partner to best position themselves and their salespeople to find out how their buyers and target market thinks and how to convert those leads. When you have a sales mindset, you’re able to see things from the perspective of the buyer and know how to approach them.

If you understand your buyer better through their motivations, what they resist or accept, and how they operate when it comes to purchases, you are best placed to land the sale. 

You need to understand that sales aren’t necessarily about you, but about the buyer. Find out why they need or want this purchase and listen to them. Instead of flippantly gesturing them towards an array of your products, be more communicative and attentive. Make the buyer and their needs the priority and give them a good experience.

With this in mind, you dramatically increase your chances of closing a deal and making a buyer happy because you adopted that sales mindset and sought to understand them. 

Why having the right sales mindset is important 

Embracing the sales mindset means that you can communicate effectively. It’s one of the most important skills to have in life because it means you can connect with others and have meaningful relationships—business or otherwise. And that applies to buyers, too.

Many think that making a sale is as easy as memorising a dull, prepared script that is supposed to address every potential customer but that’s definitely not the case. If that were true, every salesperson would be flourishing. Sales is definitely 80% mindset and 20% process. 

We’re all salespeople at the end of the day because we sell ourselves through how we interact, communicate, and engage with others. And to be our best salesperson-selves, we have to be confident both in our professional and personal lives. When you’re confident about how you carry yourself, you will feel more self-assured about attracting your target market. 

How to create the perfect sales experience 

When your product or service meets a buyer’s motivation for purchasing, you’re landing what’s called the “perfect sale.” Your product or service meets a buyer’s precise expectation and ultimately adds value to their life and circumstances. It takes minimal effort on your part, quick decision-making on the buyer’s part, and them getting exactly what they wanted. 

This kind of sale is difficult to replicate because there are always elements out of your control. Sometimes they’re comparing different brands and are still unsure of what they want. Sometimes they don’t know the difference between want and need when it comes to your product or service. If they’re not clear about their motivations for a product or service or you take the wrong approach, your chances of landing that perfect sale decreases dramatically.

Understanding your buyers means that you have to know your target market and their pain points in order to address them and make your product or service the solution they’re looking for. By attracting these customers, you’re more likely to secure the sale.

The perfect sale is not just doing the right things but also avoiding errors. These errors can come in the form of ignorance or ineptitude. 

Errors of ignorance emerge when you don’t take into account what the customer wants and just pitch blindly. You don’t take the customer’s wants and needs into account and what kinds of problems they want to solve.

Errors of ineptitude occur when there’s already a set process to convert customers but rookies to the business aren’t adequately taught by the top salespeople. It can be frustrating because it’s already set in the business, but those without as much experience can fall short.

Avoiding these errors requires you to identify mistakes and be honest about them, despite how difficult it is to give your staff that kind of feedback. It’s necessary for the business to grow.

3 things to consider to understand your buyers

Understanding your buyers will be simpler once you adopt that sales mindset. These three things are what you should consider in order to best know your target market and what they need from you. 

1. Their motivations to purchase

When it comes to purchasing, buyers have two motivating factors: Avoiding pain and acquiring pleasure. Whether they’re looking for a solution (avoiding pain) or want to add value into their life (acquiring pleasure), it’s possible they’re looking to you and your business to solve that. 

A director or equity partner has to do their due diligence to study their buyers and see how they can address those motivators. 

By understanding what a customer wants or needs, you will best position yourself to understand what language to use aside from the overused “how can I help you?” Approaching the prospect knowing if they want to avoid pain or acquire pleasure will give you the leverage you need to show off the features of the product or service and what outcome it will offer them, whether it’s to make their lives easier or add value to them.

Consider where you are in the minds of your buyers and question what your buyer is getting from your business. Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself: What do they think of you? What value are you adding? Why choose you over other brands? 

2. Buyer resistance and acceptance

Buyers are often reluctant to buy and are “window shopping” still to compare prices or value and find what works best for them. This is buyer resistance. They’re not quite ready to commit to a purchase because they’re still weighing up their options. You have to be convincing in order to reduce buyer resistance and increase the possibility of purchase.

Buyer resistance is inversely related to buyer acceptance. If buyer resistance is high, acceptance is low and they’re less likely to convert and buy your product or service. But when acceptance is high, there is a rise in the possibility of success. 

When it comes to buyer acceptance, your brand needs to be seen as trustworthy, authoritative, and credible so that a customer feels more at ease engaging with your business.

Here are some tips to break through buyer resistance:

• Don’t be cliché – Instead of starting your calls with the overused “do you have a minute to talk?” etc., cut to the chase. You’re most likely interrupting their day as is and admitting that can lessen frustration on their end. You can say, “I’m sorry for interrupting, you might not have been expecting my call” and then get to the heart of what you want to say.
• Mention that you’ve worked with similar businesses – A lot of prospects will be doubtful about your call but talking about how you’ve helped businesses that overlap with theirs will help establish a little more credibility.
• Mix up your focus when they’re resisting – If they’re still skeptical about your call, switch what you’re talking about. Drop names in order to appear more trustworthy, you can even say this person referred you to them. Or you can even talk about their position and how your business can benefit them.
• Build a relationship – Avoid the sales talk for the most part and actually make conversation, it’ll make you seem more approachable and less like a salesperson just trying to meet quota.

3. Decision making modalities

Buyers operate on three modalities: Thinking, feeling, and intuition. You can take advantage of each modality by catering to which modality is a buyer’s default. You have to observe your customer first and their purchasing behaviour to best understand how you will sell to them.

These three modalities are:

• Thinking – Customers who are more logical about their purchases. You have to approach them more methodically and supply them with statistics and information.
• Feeling – They’re more emotional and make decisions depending on their environment and how they’ll feel after the purchase. You need to reassure them that the outcome will be good.
• Intuition – Also called gut instinct. They’re quick to decide and wave away any extra information. 

If you understand your customer’s modalities, you will convert them into loyal customers.

By adopting a sales mindset, you can best grasp what your customers need and want and how you can address them. Knowing how a buyer thinks will bring you more customers and clients because you’ll know how to approach, communicate, and engage with them.

If you want to convert your customers through understanding them better, give us a call.