So brain dead obvious, yet existing sales training is steeped in all sorts of techniques, tips, tricks, and buyer psychology approaches designed to reduce the likelyhood of rejection and turn a NO into a YES. Even if your product is ethical and amazing, these techniques aren’t, even if you’re selling honestly without making false promises or misleading the customer with lies and deception. You might be unconsciously using them or you may have hired salespeople who already have it drilled into them.
Table of Contents:
Manipulative Techniques
Not listing them here for you to learn and use! But instead to be aware of and avoid.
Non-Business Conversation (NBC)
For those unfamiliar with it, it’s the notion that you shouldn’t cut straight to business talk and instead open with small talk to get to know the prospect personally. It helps build rapport, makes them more comfortable, and if you’re able to identify common ground (things/events/experiences that you share), it makes you more relatable.
NBC itself isn’t manipulative. It’s in the application and intention – when reps do it for the sake of the sale, not with honest authentic intention to listen and care for the customer.
“The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand.
-Stephen Covey-
We listen to reply”
Intentional Mirroring is an example of manipulative behaviour that is usually seen during NBC. Mirroring is when you imitates the gesture, speech pattern, or attitude of another. Unconscious mirroring happens all the time in social settings, it’s only manipulative when a rep consciously chooses to mimic the prospect to accelerate rapport. Even worse when they intentionally fabricate things to leverage as common ground.
e.g. Oh you love hiking? Me too! (even if they don’t)
Sunken Cost Fallacy
The phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.
e.g. When you continue to sit through a terrible movie because you already bought tickets for it.
In sales, this manifests as an overly rigorous qualification process, designed not so much to disqualify prospects that aren’t interested/a fit; but instead, to deliberately get prospects invested. Sounds counter-intuitive to create resistance to the sale, but if engineered properly, can substantially improve conversion.
e.g.
- Making you jump through hoops
- Drawing out the negotiation process
- Allowing you to speak to their manager (even though they may have been able to do it themselves)
- Putting you through an “initiation” or ritualistic processes before you can buy into a program.
Social Pressure
Unlike social proofing, where you’re highlighting reviews, testimonials, or referrals to build trust/credibility. Social/peer pressure is when you intentionally mislead a prospect with false social choices or leverage social settings to manipulate them.
e.g.
- Most popular product (even if it isn’t)
- A lot of people prefer this (even if it isn’t true)
- Pressuring you to get multiple stakeholders on the call together.
False Scarcity
All too obvious – limited time, limited seats, early-bird pricing, sales
If there is real scarcity due to limited production, capacity to service a customer, or timing of a program, it’s acceptable. Better yet, instead of relying on external urgency, identify internal urgency and hold them accountable to that.
e.g. You’re planning to raise capital by June? In order to accomplish that, you’ll want to aim to start the process around January because… (to do this effectively, you’ll need to ask timeline related questions when you’re identifying their needs).
The NO ladder
The YES ladder is the opposite and more well known technique – where you escalate the prospect through micro commitments.
Both because once people start to commit, they are more likely to remain consistent (recall Sunken Cost Fallacy). But also because it primes them and makes it easier for them to say the next YES.
The NO ladder is a related manipulative psychological trick:
People feel more comfortable saying no by default.
No = Protection
Yes = Commitment
Examples:
- People will be more comfortable responding to “is now a bad time to talk” with a no and stay with you.
- Would it be a bad idea if… (they don’t feel locked in)
- Have you given up on this project? (they will be more comfortable explaining the delay, instead of feeling pressured to bow to a YES)
Related to NOs, are tips and tricks that are designed to reduce the likelihood of a prospect saying NO by eliminating it as an option.
e.g.
- Would you prefer it in black or white (Alternate Choice Close)
- Let’s get you set up/When would you like your purchase delivered? (Assumptive Close)
Selling Ethically
Even though some of the tactics above aren’t directly manipulative or untruthful, I prefer steering clear of them. I’ve found that the 2 biggest things that help unlock performance for sales reps are:
- Shifting Mindset and Beliefs around sales – Inaccurate limiting beliefs and misconceptions about selling won’t serve you, the first step to changing is to address your own mindset.
- Processes and Frameworks – Sales is uncomfortable because it is fraught with uncertainty. Systems and a clear roadmap help remove this fear of uncertainty. They don’t have to, and shouldn’t be rigid.
So what does ethical selling look like?
Intention
The first big mindset shift is to focus your intent on your prospect best interest (helping and adding value to them) as opposed to yours (your sales targets, revenue for your organization).
I’m not saying profit isn’t important. Don’t let profit be the purpose, it should be a natural result if you’re truly adding value and helping your prospects.
Some tactics are acceptable if used with the sincere intent to:
- Make the prospect comfortable.
- Help you confront your prospect with hard truths that they’ve been avoiding and aren’t serving them.
- Make your rep/yourself feel more authentic and natural in your sales process.
Intention is everything. A little off tangent, but I’m reminded of a debate we had at the social venture incubator/accelerator that I used to work.
On how certain impact investors were overly selective with how they defined a social venture. Even if a venture isn’t able to meet impact criteria today (e.g. through certification like B-Corp or other), shouldn’t mean that they should be immediately disqualified. And the reverse is true, some organizations leverage greenwashing as a marketing tactic. What’s more important is to understand if they have honest intentions and are working towards improving their alignment on people, planet, profit.
e.g. Some smaller startups might not be able to afford eco-friendly packaging because they lack the scale to make it economical (not because they don’t want to). If they’re truly purpose-driven, they’ll readily switch to more environmentally friendly solutions once they’re able to. It’s the trend and pattern of behaviours that matter, do they actively look to improve things or are they just trying to check a box to meet certain criteria.
Authentic
You’ll need to believe in the value of your own solution. If you don’t, you’re working for the wrong company.
Beyond the obvious, you need to find a style that aligns with your personal values.
Not to be confused with putting on a different “personality”, “face”, or “identity” in front of customers vs. other.
Many misunderstand this as being inauthentic, I disagree. You don’t behave the same in front of your parents vs. your best friends, and that’s OK! We all have different personalities depending on who we’re interacting with. It’s OK to have a work/sales personality and still be authentic as long as you’re not forcing yourself to behave in a way that you otherwise wouldn’t or in conflict with your core personal values.
Prioritize Long-term over Short-term
Manipulative tactics may boost results short-term, but they’re almost guaranteed to come back and haunt you with higher customer churn, negative reviews, or less referrals.
Abandoning conversion-centric tactics in favour of relationship building ones may result in a small short-term sacrifices but almost always pay dividends in long run. Not only directly through profit, but also improves employee engagement and culture in your organization.
If you don’t already have a sales training program in place for your reps, or if you do and would like an audit to improve it. I’d love to be considered if you resonate with my approach. Inquiries can be sent to chin@classynarwhal.com.