Have you ever bought something which you knew that you could get cheaper elsewhere? If so, then you probably made that decision from an emotional place, but went on to justify it to yourself intellectually.
Effective selling is never about convincing. It is about creating an environment of self-discovery and affirmation. However, as complex Human Beings, that journey towards making a buying decision involves different parts of our personality. David Sandler, founder of Sandler Training, used Transaction Analysis a psychoanalytic theory developed by Prof Eric Berne in the 1950s, to better understand how people make decisions, including buying decisions, and to develop an approach to selling that harnessed that understanding.
Transactional Analysis (TA) states that we each have 3 “common patterns” of behaving, feeling and thinking which he termed Ego States. David Sandler took this notion and developed it specifically in relation to how the interaction between a buyer and a seller can be understood and adapted.
So why does this matter? It matters because when we seek to qualify a prospect (in or out), it’s important that we engage all 3 of our prospects ego states, at the right time in order to be able to close the deal.
For any buying decision the CHILD ego state has to engage emotionally “I want this” or “I Don’t want this”. “I want to do that” or “I don’t want to do that”, “I want to know what they know”. From a qualification point of view this is the Pain step (by the way if you’d like more information of where the Qualification step sits within the wider 7 steps of the Sandler selling system just let me know). Can we uncover a Pain that our prospect has which is compelling, emotional and personal?
Hooking the Child is achieved not through selling features and benefits which is the go to for many sales people, but through uncovering buying emotions (Pain, Fear, Pleasure) and exploring the cause and impact of those emotions. Perhaps we help them see their current position from a different perspective or uncover something that they hadn’t themselves recognised. If the answer is that the Pain doesn’t exist or isn’t sufficiently compelling or emotional, then the Parent and Adult will have no role to play. If however we uncover Actionable Pain, we still have work to do. The Child “wanting” our solution will not get the deal done, People buy emotionally but they justify their decision intellectually. That’s where the Parent and Adult engage.
The role of the Parent is to satisfy themselves that the proposed solution is appropriate or inappropriate, right or wrong, good or bad, The Parent asks questions of themselves such as “do we really need this”. Our prospects Parent ego state has to be satisfied and give approval to proceed on the basis of “I can’t see any reason why not”. .
Finally our buyers Adult (logical, rational) engages and may also vito the deal. The questions the Adult asks include, “can we really afford this?”, “are there other or better alternatives?”
The Budget and Decision making steps of the qualification process talk specifically to the Adult and Parent ego states but as previously stated, if we don’t have their Child hooked, then the sale will ultimately fail to materialise.
Selling to 3 people when you thought you were only selling to one isn’t easy. It takes patience, practice and effort. If you would like to learn more about TA and how to adapt your sales process, or if you are interested in how TA impacts other areas such as internal communications within a business, contact me directly via my Linkedin DM or at rick.wilkinson@sandler.com
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