Increase Your Sales With The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy: A Book Review

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“The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible,” is a must-read for any sales professional.

You can learn invaluable insight and practical tips from the sales guru himself — Brian Tracy.

To help you become an expert at selling, we’ve summarised the book’s most valuable teachings.

Let’s dive right in.

1. Who is Brian Tracy?

Source: Medium.com

Brian strives to make it quick and easy to achieve your business and personal goals — and he’s helped millions of people do just that.

He’s held 5,000 talks and seminars in over 55 countries worldwide — reaching more than 5 million people.

He’s also written over 75 influential books — including the gem we’re reviewing today.

2. The key takeaways

Let’s get into the 7 most valuable takeaways from his book ‘The Psychology of Selling’:

2.1. The inner game of selling

Source: The Jakarta Post

In the first lesson, we learn the importance of having a positive self-concept — not just in selling but in life.

2.1.1. Your self-concept

Your self-concept is the beliefs that you hold about yourself in every area of your life, and this has a direct impact on the success of your efforts.

Success, quite literally, starts from within — you are what you think and say to yourself most of the time.

The good news is that with practice, your confidence will grow, and it’ll be reflected in your results — practice is key!

2.1.2. The 80/20 rule in selling

The 80/20 rule explains that the top 20% of salespeople make 80% of the money, with the bottom 80% making only 20%.

What sets the top 20% apart from the rest? The answer is, not much.

The top performers just do a few small things, consistently and well, over and over again — it’s simply a matter of learning through practice.

Brian recommends asking leaders in your industry or company what they do differently to you, as this is one of the best ways to learn.

He also recommends focusing on improving in the following 7 key result areas (KRAs) of selling:

1. Prospecting

2. Building rapport (relationships)

3. Identifying needs

4. Presenting

5. Answering objections

6. Closing the sale

7. Getting re-sales and referrals

2.2. Set and achieve your goals

In this lesson, Brian stresses the importance of setting goals. Have you set yourself clear, realistic goals?

Without clear goals, your daily sales activities will be out-of-focus, and it’s unlikely that you’ll get to where you want to be — anytime soon at least.

All top salespeople have clear goals that they work toward every single day.

They know exactly:

How much they’re going to earn every week, month, and year
How they aim to achieve these goals
What they’ll do with their earnings

Brian strongly encourages writing your goals down, as this imprints them into your subconscious mind and helps you achieve them faster.

To get you started, he recommends that you write down the following:

Personal and family goals — These will motivate you to achieve your financial goals

These goals are the reason why you do what you do
These will also help you push through difficult times such as sales rejections and failed attempts

Your annual income goal — To get this number, you’ll take your highest income year and increase it by 25-50%
Annual sales goal — This number is how much you’d need to sell in 12 months to achieve your annual income goal
Monthly and weekly goal — Break down your annual sales goal into monthly and weekly sales goals
Daily goal — Break it down further to get your daily goal

This lets you determine what you need to do every day to achieve your annual income and sales goals

100 goals (big or small) — Come up with as many goals as you can of everything you’d like to accomplish in the years to come

He also touches again on the importance of constant affirmation to raise your self-esteem and, ultimately, increase your self-concept.

A positive self-concept will make achieving your goals much easier.

You should also visualize yourself achieving your goals, make it a reality in your mind, and you’ll see a noticeable difference in your confidence.

2.3. Why people buy

In this lesson, we learn that in order to sell, we need to understand why our prospects buy and the desires that drive their purchases.

With skillful questioning and intent listening, you’ll be able to identify your prospects' main desire(s).

Your prospects want to know what your product can do for them, not what the product is — people don’t buy products, they buy benefits.

Brian recommends that you focus on the ultimate benefit and repeat it over and over again in your presentation — this is called the hot button close.

And because people have a fear of losing out, you should also emphasize what they might be missing out on if they don’t make the purchase.

Focus on increasing buyer desire, and you’ll move closer to the sale.

2.3.1. Buying motivators

Brian states that customers have 11 basic needs that serve as buying motivators, these include:

1. Money

2. Financial, physical, or emotional security

3. Being liked

4. Status and prestige

5. Health and fitness

6. Praise and recognition

7. Power, influence, and popularity

8. Leading the field

9. Love and companionship

10. Personal growth

11. Personal transformation

2.4. Creative selling

Source: AllBusiness.com

In this lesson we learn that our self-concept also impacts our level of creativity — if we believe that we aren’t creative, then we won’t be.

But Brian argues that the better you know your product or service, the more creative you’ll be at selling it — and as with anything, practice is key.

Having clear goals, asking focused questions, and drawing from pressing problems will stimulate your creativity.

Prospecting and identifying buying motives also present a great opportunity to practice your creativity.

When prospecting, Tracy recommends asking yourself the following 3 questions:

1. What are the 5-10 most appealing features of my product?

2. What specific needs of my prospective customer does my product satisfy?

3. What is the unique selling point that sets me apart from my competitors?

You can use the 20-idea method to get a massive list of creative ways to solve your problems!

Here’s how it works:

Write down a problem that you’re having in the form of a question, for example, “How could I double my sales this year?”
Write 20 answers to the question for 2-3 days for a list of A-Z solutions!

2.4.1. 4 keys to strategic selling

Brian also mentions the following 4 areas that you could focus on to become a leader in your industry:

1. Specialization — Specialize in a particular area or with a particular customer — don’t be a generalist

2. Differentiation — How is your product/service better than 90% of the products on the market that are similar?

3. Segmentation — Which customers can benefit most from what you’re offering?

4. Concentration — Concentrate only on prospects who represent the best potential as a customer

2.5. Getting more appointments

In this lesson, we learn the importance of finding ideal prospects and only pitching our product/service in a scheduled face-to-face appointment.

To achieve the following, your approach needs to be planned word for word before you get on the call with your prospect:

Break your prospect’s preoccupation to ensure their focus is on what you’re saying

When you place the call, Brian recommends saying, “I need two minutes of your time. Is this a good time to talk?”

You only continue if the prospect has the time.

Sell the appointment (not the product) — Selling the product before your prospect has all the details will kill the sale

When you’re on the call, you need to choose your words wisely and keep it benefit-centered without directly mentioning your product.

Remember that you want to land the appointment, so you need to get your prospect eager to learn more — and you have 30 seconds to do this.

Brian recommends using well-structured, interesting, and unusual questions to draw attention and trigger responses.

You want to trigger responses such as, “Really, how do you do that?”.

You’ll finish the call by scheduling the appointment — “Would Tuesday be a convenient time for you?”.

The first sale is the appointment, this gets you closer to the real sale — Make them agree on a specific time to meet with you.

Brian emphasizes that your product, or its pricing, should never be discussed over the phone, nor should you sell over the phone.

2.5.1. 5 reassurances your prospect needs

Brian states that your prospect needs to be reassured of the following 5 things before they agree (both on the phone and in-person):

1. You have something important to communicate — from the get-go you should be emphasizing the benefits

2. Clarify that the prospect is speaking to the right person

3. Confirm that it’ll be a short visit or talk

4. Inform the prospect that they won’t be placed under any obligation if they meet with you

5. Assure the prospect that no high-pressure tactics will be used

Brian also touches on the importance of mental rehearsal before going in to see your prospect — visualize yourself calm and in complete control.

2.6. The power of suggestion

Source: Spotio.com

In this lesson, we learn the importance of creating an impression of value with prospects.

According to Brian, the suggested value of your product is illustrated to your prospect in the following ways:

How you present yourself (your internal environment)
Your surroundings (your external environment)

How you manage these environments has a direct impact on the success of your sales efforts.

Your internal environment refers to your appearance, voice, and attitude. Brian recommends:

You use positive body language

Ensure your posture is one of confidence
Use firm handshakes

Dress for success
Practice your presentation

Up to 90% of our communication is nonverbal, so your body language needs to communicate value when your mouth isn’t.

Your external environment refers to your selling environment.

This space needs to be distraction-free

Minimize noise and interruptions

Upgrade your office to convey success and prosperity

Ensure your desk space is neat and tidy

Make use of the power of persuasion to influence the buying decision, and always be incredibly polite and courteous — never argue with a prospect.

Treat every prospect as if they’re a millionaire — this, Brian says, is the basic rule of selling.

2.7. Making the sale

Source: RevM.com

For a more successful close, Brian teaches us ways to tailor our approach for different buyer personalities.

You need to know what type of person you’re talking to, to ensure your presentation and answers are structured specifically to meet their needs.

We also learn that our opening words set the tone for the rest of the sales process — and ultimately whether you close the sale or get rejected.

2.7.1. Sales resistance

Brian states that most prospects have “generalized sales resistance”, which is a form of self-defence that you should expect.

He reminds us that sales resistance and rejection is never personal — and he offers the following closing methods to help you deal with it:

The approach close — You can use this close to get your prospect to agree to making a decision after you’ve made your presentation.

Here, instead of letting your prospect say, “Let me think about it,” or “I need to talk it over,” you’d respond by saying:

“Relax, I’m not trying to sell you anything right now. That’s not the purpose of my visit.” Followed by:

“All I ask is that you look at what I have to show you with an open mind, determine if it applies to your situation, and tell me at the end of our conversation if this product makes sense.”

The demonstration close — This technique can be used early in the sales conversation.

With this close you’d open with:

“I could show you the best [product/service] on the market today, are you in the position to invest [price] right now?”

The focus of the conversation is instantly shifted from:

“Will you listen to me?” to “How much can you invest if I can hold up my end of the bargain?”

2.7.2. The 6 basic personality profiles

It’s important to understand the various types of buyer personalities — Brian provides us with the following 6 basic profiles:

1. The apathetic buyer — These people are negative and cynical, and they’re very unlikely to buy

Save yourself the time and move on to a more promising prospect

2. The self-actualizing buyer — These people know exactly what they want and how much they’d be willing to pay for it

3. The analytical buyer — This buyer is self-contained and task-oriented

Be very detail-orientated with these prospects, they want to know your product in fine detail
You need to be able to prove everything you say and be precise with each benefit to make it easier for them to buy

4. The relater buyer — This is a relationship-oriented buyer that’s concerned about what other people think about the product

Don’t rush these prospects, build a relationship with them, and focus on other happy customers

5. The driver buyer — These buyers are direct, impatient, and concise

With these prospects, you need to get straight to the point because they're busy and preoccupied

6. The socialized buyer — This type of prospect is achievement-oriented

As soon as you reach an agreement, you need to put it on paper and get them a copy immediately

Apart from understanding your prospect, you need to focus on improving your listening skills.

According to Brian, these are the 5 keys to effective listening:

1. Listen attentively

2. Pause before responding

3. Question for clarification

4. Paraphrase in your own words

5. Use open-ended questions

3. The 10 keys to succeed in selling

Source: Forbes.com

In the final chapter, Tracy shares the following 10 keys to achieve success in selling:

1. Become outstanding at what you love to do

2. Decide exactly what it is you want

3. Back your goal with persistence and determination

4. Commit to lifelong learning

Your mind is your most valuable asset, continually invest in it

5. Use your time wisely

6. Follow the leaders

Decide to be like those who are the best in your field, and spend your time with people who are success-orientated

7. Character is everything

Guard your integrity, be honest with others, and be true to yourself and your goals

8. Use your inborn creativity

Practice, and never stop looking for newer, better, and faster ways of doing things

9. Practice the golden rule

Treat every prospect like a millionaire, as though they’re the most important person in the world

10. Pay the price of success

Work hard, and you will succeed

Work hard, and you will succeed

4. Conclusion

The Psychology of Selling is a book that provides invaluable insight for anyone looking to achieve success in selling.

You’ll undoubtedly see positive results in your sales efforts if you make a habit of practicing Brian’s teachings.

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Other posts about books for entrepreneurs:

- The Little Red Book of Selling Summary

- Start From Zero Review: Does It Really Help?

- Sell or Be Sold Review: Learn How to Make Sales with Grant Cardone

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