Neuroscience and Sales

Until recently selling has remained an art. Now it's about to become a science.

Until recently, there really hasn't been a “science of selling,” because selling behavior is too complex to measure. For instance, it's a statistical fact that 20 percent of salespeople make 80 percent of the revenue, but nobody knows why that 20 percent are so much more effective. We know the "what" of that statistic, but the "why" has remained elusive.

Until now, the only tools for studying sales in a scientific manner have been 1) statistical analyses of results like callback and conversion rates, and 2) psychological testing of salespeople to identify traits that correlate to sales success.

While statistical analyses tells you what happened, they can't tell you why it happened, or how you'd go about replicating success and avoiding failure. Rather than a scientific prescription of what to do next, you end up with bromide advice like: “We need to hire more salespeople like Fred!”

Psychological testing is even more of a toss-up because character traits are inherently fuzzy concepts. A survey might discover, for instance, that “self-motivated” people do well in sales jobs. But what does “self-motivated” really mean? If you believe in free will, it's impossible to not be self-motivated.

In the past, we could study the “what happened”--the result of selling and buying behavior--but not the “why,” because the “why” remained encased inside the heads (or brains, to be more precise) of the seller and the buyer.

Neuroscience allows scientists to study how the brains of the buyer and seller are acting and reacting during actual sales situations.

Neuroscience also allows the study of specific brain chemicals that are released under different circumstances. For example, we now know for certain that exercise reduces stress through an actual chemical process. This is significant for salespeople because their job is inherently stressful.

“The key differentiator between average salespeople and stellar salespeople is their daily habits.”

Aristotle said it best. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Let’s take a look at the top three sales habits of top producers and examine the neuroscience and emotional intelligence skills behind the development of success habits.

Focus

Focus is the new competitive weapon for sales organizations. In a world where most people have the attention span of a gnat, you can win business by teaching your team the power of being present and focused.

Contrary to popular opinion, multi-tasking doesn’t work, particularly when a salesperson is learning a new skill or attitude.

The prefrontal cortex, often referred to as the executive centre, is charged with learning new information. And when learning new information, this part of your brain can only concentrate on one thing at a time.

Practice

When you meet successful people, you assume they’ve always operated at this level of success. Nice house, car and lifestyle. What you don’t see are the hours of work and education that went into becoming the best in their field.

Here’s the neuroscience behind practice. When you are born, you come into the world with approximately 100 billion neutrons. Each one of neutrons has the ability to make 15,000 connections, called synapses. Continued connections become a neutral pathway or something often referred to as hard wiring.

When you practice, you are forming new ‘trails’ in your brain that can be easily accessed. These new networks get stored in an area of the brain called the basil ganglia

Delayed Gratification

This emotional intelligence skill is defined by the ability to put in the work to get the reward. In our instant gratification society, salespeople are being taught to expect sales success without putting in the time or work.

For example, building referral partners is a great strategy that produces warm introductions to prospects. The result is shorter sales cycles and increased close ratios. Many sales people don’t execute this strategy well because it takes time to build a relationship.

Successful sale people practice the habit of giving in order to build relationships. They make deposits in their potential referral partner’s “emotional bank account” in order to create trust. They put aside their need for instant gratification and do the work in order to earn the reward.

Harness the power of your brain. Focus, practice and develop your delayed gratification skills. Three simple habits that will help you achieve extraordinary sales results.

In the future it will be possible to test and measure the effectiveness of sales messages and techniques with a level of precision and detail that was impossible in the past. As neuroscience provides a measurable “why” behind “what happened,” it will turn selling from an art into true science.