Client psychology insight

Today, the great gift that we have is that we live in a time of unparalleled availability of amazing information and knowledge. Knowledge is generated at such a feverish pace and made available instantly to almost everyone. Today, along with the great gift, there is also a great curse and it is the exact same thing. There is such a glut of new information and knowledge, particularly in the business world that some of the most priceless strategies that are available to boost sales and profits are passed by for the next fad. One such casualty that everyone kind of has heard of, but very, very few have applied is the integration of breakthrough knowledge in psychology and neuroscience to back the way businesses approach sales and relationships with clients.

It was truly a paradigm shifting development. Previously sales used to be done on the basis of either case studies or emulation of people within the organization who were having success in sales using certain techniques. However, the flaw with this was these insights were not always scaleable. Sales is an art, what works for one kind of client when executed by one kind of personality won't work for a different kind of client when executed by a different kind of executive. Even if a winning strategy or tactic was discovered and implemented by astute management, the reasons why they worked weren't known. Without the knowledge, the value of these strategies and tactics is limited. They can't be adopted to a new context without knowing the underlying reasons of how and why they work. It's like a quack who prescribes antibiotics for every stomach ache, it works a great deal of times for a great many people but long-term it's bad for the patients and eventually the patient will realize this and go to a real doctor. The quack can't administer the right medication as he doesn't understand why the stomach ache occurs or how the antibiotic works.

The study of psychology, behavioural science, and neurology opened up a window into how the client perceives something, and how they process it. For the very first time, there were crucial insights into how exactly a client makes a decision and what could change it. Yet the worth of it wasn't realized in the true sense, and it has given way for the next hot topic. And for good reason. The reason why such an invaluable study didn't find its way into stores and showrooms was that these studies remained largely confined to the realm of academic journals. These findings of psychology, neurology, and behavioural science made its way into magicians' shows, television shows and dinner table conversations but it eluded the sales person, customer service executive and relationship managers. This is a loss that the business world simply cannot afford.

The company that integrates the new breakthrough psychology, neurology and behavioural science into sales will gain a huge advantage over the competition. Their sales force will seamlessly understand and establish rapport with the client and be able to nurture relationships with the client. This is due to aligning sales methodology with how the client "really thinks" and not "as companies would like them to think" or "how executives may think the client thinks."

How human psychology works is also very unlike how we may think people think. For example when a fast food chain has a salad on their menu, we think that it is because the fast food chain wants to appeal to health conscious clients as well. That may be part of the answer, but it's not the whole solution and not even the most important part of it. Some may reason that short term the fast food chain may even lose money due to this, but they do it in their client's interest.

A landmark psychological study done at Baruch College, City University of New York established that when a healthy option was displayed at a fast food restaurant, people ordered even more of the "non-healthy" food! This was also found to be true in the case of McDonald's. When they added a salad to the menu, their sales for Big Macs went through the roof. On the surface, such a finding seems very counterintuitive, but once we understand the underlying psychology, the reason becomes amply clear.

A great many clients of the fast food chains reasoned that "Oh, there's this healthy salad on the menu. I'll eat my favourite double decker burger with extra cheese today and next time I'll be sure to order only the salad." We have all been guilty of such thinking at some point before. This is a natural human tendency to borrow from tomorrow today. The mind seeks instant gratification and would put off things that seem "less tasteful" for another time. In our daily lives we often see this manifested in the form of procrastination. So while fast food chains that have salads on their menu would like to attract health conscious clients, the driving force behind this addition to the menu is more sales of everything that is not a salad.

Psychological insights like this can result in more sales, revenue and bottom lines for companies provided it is implemented all the way to the level of client interaction. The difficulty in companies implementing such a strategy is the onerous task of combing through volumes of psychology, neurology and behavioural science studies. What's worse? They are all written in academic journals for other academics. The useful workaround is to get outside consultants who are knowledgeable about these topics to bring this knowledge in a form the company can implement immediately. The opportunity cost of not doing so can be huge to businesses.

Illuster Consultants offers bespoke solutions for businesses and incisive implementation of such strategies after a free audit to complement and build on existing sales methodologies and processes of the business. To request a free audit:
Request for a free audit for psychology, neurology and behavioural science implementation.