Practicing Psychology Without a License

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May 1, 2004 by Helen Berman

Byline: Helen Berman

We all know that successful selling involves some basic psychology. But too often, we forget what any therapist will tell you is the essential ingredient for getting people to change their behavior: They have to convince themselves that a change is in their best interest.

You want a client to change his behavior too - by purchasing an ad or a Web sponsorship or a trade show booth. A poor salesperson typically goes about this in a way that is guaranteed to backfire. He might, for example, deride the competition, "Why do you run in magazine B? Everybody thinks it's trash." Or, he might say, "I see your company has a new widget on the market. Our magazine is perfect for it." Another loser: "Our magazine just won the coveted Most Incredible Magazine of the Year Award. You should be in the next issue!"

INSIGHT THERAPY

These approaches don't work because, in each case, the salesperson is telling the prospect what to do. It may be obvious (and actually true) that the competition is trash and that the widget marketing program is best served by your magazine. But there's only one way to get the prospect to believe it: He has to reach this conclusion himself.

A psychologist friend of mine calls this "insight therapy." A patient first needs to work through the emotional and intellectual steps necessary to reach a full understanding of his problem. It's not enough to get feedback or advice. The patient needs to go through a process of discovery to reach the conviction that he or she needs to change. (Every anxious or depressed patient knows intellectually that changing his behavior will make him feel better, but he can't do it until he is convinced emotionally.)

Of course, for therapists, this process can take months or years. Fortunately, we're not trying to treat psychological problems; all we want is for our prospects to change their buying behavior. But the insight technique applies: We need to take our clients through the intellectual and emotional steps necessary to understand the value of your brand to their business.

You don't need a master's degree to practice a little insight therapy in sales. All you need is common sense. Here are three easy ways to do it:

* Listen

If you've ever been in therapy, you know that you're the one who does most of the talking. Good psychologists listen. They don't interrupt or yell, "Aha!" They let their patients wind through their stories without judgment so the patients can "hear" their own stories, and thereby discover their wants and needs.

The sales lesson: It's true that we're in the sales business because we like to talk and be in charge. Those who know us probably don't feel "listening" is our forte.

Forget about that for the moment. Try this out on your next sales call: Keep your mouth shut and your ears open. Let the client tell you all about the time he invented squeegee mops in his garage back in 1956. Pay attention, and you might hear him say how he couldn't get any customers to sample his product then or how he had to rely on word-of-mouth to get the mop into stores. At that point, you can step in and engage the client in a discussion about the responsiveness of your magazine audience.

Remember: We can't know what to sell unless we know what the client wants. Listen closely enough, and he'll tell you. And there's another benefit. Listening makes your client feel interesting, intelligent and understood. What better way to establish the rapport you need for a sale?

* Probe gently

You'll never hear a good therapist tell a patient, "Boy, you have really low self-esteem." Or, "Your mother is an idiot. Why don't you tell her to go fly a kite?" Such comments - no matter how accurate or well-meaning - simply put people on the defensive. There's no place for them to go, particularly not in the direction you'd like.

The sales lesson: It's often crystal clear to us why your client should be in your magazine. That's why we spend so much time and energy trying to get him on the phone and drawing up impressive presentation packets.

But put yourself in the client's shoes. From his point of view, someone is trying to get him to spend money he doesn't want to spend on something he doesn't think he needs. How different it would seem if you began the call with thoughtful questions such as, "What is your ideal customer like?" Or, one of my favorites: "If your prospects really understood your company and products, what would they grasp that they may not understand now?"

What kind of difference would this make to your sales? These questions get the advertiser to think about and express what message needs to get out and to whom. And his answers give you a platform on which to build your sale, offer media solutions to meet his challenge and help his business grow.

By engaging in gentle probing, any salesperson can engage a client's interest, rather than trigger his defenses. Say you're in a department store looking for a jacket. Would you rather encounter a salesclerk who sticks his face into yours and says, "May I help you?" or one who walks by, smiles and says, "That's a great scarf you're wearing." The second clerk is probing you gently, establishing your taste and style, engaging you in a non-threatening way. You know she'll find out your needs a lot more quickly than the first clerk.