I got a 15 page sales letter the other day from a marketing coach trying to convince me to attend his seminar.  It was the perfect example of what NOT to do.  If you want to attract more clients and make it easier for them to say “Yes” to working with you, you will want to pay particular attention to what I am about to share with you right now.

You may not know this but there are reportedly over 14,000 sales and marketing books on Amazon – and most of them (like the email from this coach) deal with techniques and strategies that cause your prospects to waste valuable time and energy thinking.  Without realizing it, these techniques cause your audience to have to use their neo cortex (the thinking part of their brain) to process what you are saying.

While some of these techniques may work for some of the people some of the time, they are not reliable or predictable because they are designed to trigger the wrong part (the thinking part) of your prospect’s brain.

So, what do top sales and marketing coaches do to help their audience to decide quickly?

Clearly there are some principles that work – there is a process to marketing and selling products and services effectively.  However, some of these principles (while valuable) have been taken to the extreme by many experts and coaches.  In doing so, they dilute your message and make it ineffective.  Without realizing it, these strategies will kill your ability to close sales because they will make it difficult for your audience to decide anything.

For example, I’m sure you have heard of the concept of “social proof”.  This was first proposed by Dr. Robert Cialdini and it essentially means that before people decide, they will often look to what other people do before making their decision.  It explains why customers will choose to go to a restaurant that is full and has a line up outside ,when the one next door is almost empty and there are plenty of tables available.

According to Cialdini, you will assume that the busy restaurant must be better because others have decided to eat there.  Social proof is an important driver and on some level, it does help your brain to make decisions more quickly. Your customer wants to find a solution to her pain but she is also afraid of taking a risk.  Social proof is one factor that can help to swing the balance in favour of your product or service.

However, too often this principle is taken to the extreme.  Take my example of the marketing coach who sent me a ridiculously long sales letter.  5 out of 15 pages were designed to show you how many people have used and love his products.  Does this seem like a bit much to you?  Is it possible that his long winded letter (while paved with good intentions to provide social proof), might have had the undesired effect of causing the audience to engage the thinking part of their brains… and ask for more time to “think about it”?

Social proof is a great tool in your marketing belt but it is not as effective as understanding the 7 Stimuli that trigger the decision making part of your customer’s brain.  Knowing these 7 simple and effective triggers, can transform how you talk to your customers and the results you achieve.  And the 7 Stimuli which trigger the part of the brain that decides, are part of my simple, step-by-step process called Sales Seduction.  Sales Seduction, is based on neuromarketing principles, and it can help you go from confusing your prospects, to convincing them.

Do Your Prospects Often Ask You For a Cheaper Price?

What would it be worth to you if you could STOP competing based on price?

Knowing this valuable information before you craft your next sales or marketing message, can help you to influence your customer to decide quickly and make price a non-issue.

If your sales process is currently taking too long, this information will help you close sales faster.

If your customers need to “think about” doing business with you, this information will help you to stop boring and confusing them.

If your customers keep asking you for a better price, I am going to show you how to get the price that you deserve.

We now know there are 3 distinct parts of the brain and each one of them has a different function.  However, only 1 of them is responsible for decision making and it fires up around 8 seconds before you are consciously aware that you have even made a decision.  The research and information I am about to share with you hasn’t come from psychology, the personal development industry or even a marketing agency – these findings were made by neuro scientists, medical doctors studying brain wave activity with FMRI machines.  They were looking to find out which part of your brain lights up when it is presented with different stimuli and the findings have been documented and published in respected publications like the Wall Street Journal and the Harvard Medical Journal.

The biggest part of brain is the neo cortex.  We are the only species on the planet that has developed this part of the brain.  It is the last thing that forms in the womb and it lights up when we listen to music, look at colours, speak, read and process numbers.  If you ever hear people talking about right vs. left brain thinking, they are talking about the neo cortex.  In a nutshell – IT THINKS.

Similarly, when your customer says “I need to think about it” or “is this the best price I can get?” this part of the brain is firing up and looking for data.  This uses up tons of your brain energy and prolongs the decision making process.  So, if you want to drag out the process of getting your customer to decide or compete on price, you want to make sure that your customer has to us this part of his brain.  Make sure you give your customer lots of BIG words, numbers, graphs, lists of features and benefits, talk about your competitors and how you stack up next to them – and your customer will NOT decide <that is guaranteed> but he will do a whole lot of thinking and take up more of your valuable time and energy in the process.

Let’s move on to the middle or mammalian brain – this right here is the part of the brain that we share will every warm blooded creature on the planet.  This is where you process emotions and feel.  But this is not where you make decisions.

At the top of your spinal cord, there is a collection of neurons – which are commonly referred to as the old or reptilian brain.  This is the first part of your brain that is formed in the womb and it is the part that keeps you alive – all bodily functions that take place below the level of consciousness, are controlled by this part of your brain.

It is your fight or flight brain – and its sole responsibility is to ensure your survival.  It houses the amgydala – which is the chemical factory in your brain that regulates all bodily functions.  And it is the part of the brain that lights up when you DECIDE.

It lights up even before you have conscious awareness that you have made a decision.  Now, while it is very true that this is the most primitive part of your brain, the good news is that it is very predictable.  By understanding how this part of your brain works, you will never again bore and overwhelm your customers AND you will never again be lured into the trap of competing based on price.

How will you do this?  By understanding how this part of your customer’s brain works, you can help him to use the least amount of mental energy in processing your message which means that he will make quicker decisions.  It is important to remember that unlike the neo-cortex up here (the thinking part of your brain), this part right of your brain is automatic – it does not think, it only DECIDES and ACTS.  It is always at work scanning your environment looking for information of value to your survival.

So you might be wondering how does this apply to the price that you charge for your product or service?  Just for a moment, I want you to imagine that you are in the business of selling pizzas.  Now, it doesn’t matter whether your business is called Pizza Hut, Dominos, Eagleboys, Boston Pizza or Pizza World…  you are basically selling an undifferentiated product and the market that you find yourself in looks price conscious, doesn’t it?  The reason for that is simple – the consumer finds it hard to distinguish between your pizza and the next guy.

Now if you happen to BE the owners of a Chicago Deep dish pizza shop you might argue that your pizza is better because your crust is thicker and you provide more toppings and value.  But in the eyes of the consumer, your pizza is still not really worth much more than the next guy’s pizza.  You might be charging $20 and your competitor is charging $18.50. Why is that?

It’s because even though you think there is a difference, in the eyes of your customer, there isn’t. 95% of what you and the next guy offer are essentially the exact same thing.  And as long as you keep operating in that zone with a marketing message that doesn’t stand out and stake a claim, you will continue to compete on prize because your customer is up in his neo-cortex trying to figure out which pizza is the best one to order.

So knowing this, what could you do differently?  Well one company in 1973 identified a way to stand out and grab market share.  It didn’t claim to have the best, the thickest or even the cheapest pizza, it just made you a promise that if you ordered from them, you would get it in 30 minutes or your pizza was free.  It was the most successful campaign in the history of the industry – for good reason.

Think about it, when you order a pizza, what is the one question that you have in the back of your mind?  I wonder when the pizza will get here?

Dominos answered that question for you.  They stopped making you need to think about it and they triggered the part of your brain that decides and dials.

This is the power of Sales Seduction – understanding why your customer says YES and helping him to say YES to your product/service.  Can you see now how knowing this information can help you accelerate your sales process, close more business, trigger decisions and allow you to charge a fair price for your product/service?

Great – so your homework today is to go back through one of your sales or marketing messages and identify all the ways that you are boring or overwhelming your prospects.  The key to NOT competing on price ever again, is in making it easier for your customers to say ‘YES’.

Click on video to learn what the golden rule is and avoid falling into the fatal trap of breaking it!

Each and every one of you made 1 fatal error today in your marketing message.  Now that 1 thing might have slipped through or gone unnoticed because it wasn’t an obvious thing – like a spelling error, using a word incorrectly or not having a compelling call to action.  In fact that 1 thing – the fatal error that you made today – wasn’t anything you said at all.

That’s why no one brought it to your attention… until now.

But you know deep down (or at least you probably suspect) that something happened because a large percentage of your audience, who saw your message today, didn’t get it and they didn’t purchase your product or service.

Let’s take a look at the science of neuromarketing to find out why – so that you can take action now and turn your message into one that your leads and customers are dying to say “Yes” to.

You may not know this but your brain sees and interprets images first and makes decisions quickly based on what it sees.  And after all of this activity has occurred, much later it pays attention to and tries to process what it hears and the words and numbers you have read.

Somewhere between 80-90% of your brain activity (and what is going on in the minds of your prospects) is a result of trying to make sense of visual stimuli.  The optic nerve is physically connected to your old brain (which you already know is the decision making part of your brain) and it processes visual cues 40 times faster than auditory ones.

What happens is your retina captures images and sends that data on 2 distinct paths – one goes up to neo cortex (the thinking part of your brain) and the other goes straight to the reptilian brain.  Here’s the interesting part – this second pathway, to the decision making part of your brain is much faster.  In fact, it is about 500 times faster.  If it takes 1-2 milliseconds for the old brain to process a visual cue, it could take your neo cortex at least 500 milliseconds.  This makes that part of your brain that decides dangerously fast and hasty.

Since you and I cannot rely for our survival on the speed at which the new brain processes information, we are hard wired to make decisions at the old brain level – and as you can SEE, those decisions are primarily based on visual input.  And your new brain will only kick in much later to help you find data to support your gut reaction (the decision your old brain already made). Your eyes control your brain – and this is also true for your customers.  That’s how important visual cues are to your survival and to your sales and marketing messages.

Let’s take a look at a very good example of what not to do.  I saw this sign of the front window of a veterinary clinic in my neighbourhood this week.  In big orange letters, it took up almost 70% of the front window.

“Pet Laser Treatment.”

Now, if you were a potential customer driving by, would that sign mean anything to the part of your brain that decides? No, of course not.

The average person driving by would have no idea what pet laser means or WHY it would be a good reason to choose that clinic over the next one down the street.  To your reptilian brain, that sign means nothing.

If you are a pet owner – what do you care about?  What’s important to you in the context of finding a good vet?  If you are like most pet owners, you want to know that when you take your animal in for surgery the pain is minimized, the surgery is safe and the healing happens quickly.  If you owned a pet those things would be important to you, wouldn’t they?

Yes, now surprisingly pet laser does achieve all of those outcomes – less pain, less risk and quicker recovery – but that sign didn’t help you to know and decide, did it?  As you are driving by, that vet has 2-3 seconds to grab your attention and convey his message…and you now know that the best way to do that would be a picture, not a bunch of words, right?  What he needed to do was show you a photo of a dog or cat, fit and healthy – with a message like, “we guarantee less risk and a faster recovery for your pet, ask us how?” Or “want Fido’s next surgery to be virtually pain-free, ask us how?”

Now you may not be a veterinarian yourself but I am sure you can see exactly how this applies to your business.  How visual are your sales and marketing assets? Take a look at the very last email, brochure or presentation that you made.  Was it loaded up with words and stuff that only means something to you?  Did you even have any pictures and did they serve a purpose or were they just there to fill space?

Each and every day I see business owners just like you making this fatal mistake.  The part of your prospect’s brain that decides is a visual beast.  It’s relying on pictures to make a decision and you are trying to convey everything with words and numbers, aren’t you?  Your audience can’t tell you exactly why your message is not appealing to them…but I just did.

Your customer’s brain sees images first and words second. In order to get your audience to pay attention and remember your message, you need to quickly deliver a clear picture to the old brain. This is the golden rule of marketing and Sales Seduction – a picture is worth a thousand words.  And if you continue to break this golden rule, you will fail to close sales and help customers who really need your product or service.

Botox is either a miracle cure for migraines and worry lines or a toxic scam – it all depends who you speak to.  Fuelled by our obsession with youth and beauty, it is estimated that more than a quarter of a million injections were given in Australia last year alone.

When did we decide that older does not mean wiser, and in fact, now means unattractive and unwanted?

Somewhere along the line it has become unappealing to let others see our emotions. The smile and frown lines we have come to expect and rely upon, are disappearing. If a person’s appearance is frozen and expressionless, how do we know what they are thinking and feeling? And more interestingly, does anybody even care? Are we trying to mask the facial clues or cover up the underlying emotions?

We now have infinitely more tools to articulate ourselves but do we really have better communication and relationships? More and more we find ourselves relying on highly impersonal means – SMS, Facebook, Twitter and email – to keep in touch, convey information and build relationships.

It seems like we are talking to everyone but not really connecting with anyone.

Only 7% of your communication is attributable to your words and 93% is conveyed by non-verbal means. Even though it is largely unconscious, you rely heavily on body language to discern what is (and is not) being said. Without these vital clues, you must make assumptions to fill in the gaps and hope that you are right. Oftentimes, you may find that you have missed the mark completely.

In essence text messaging, social media and email are the communication equivalent to Botox.

They allow you to defy time and distance by reaching MORE people but connecting with and accomplishing far LESS.  What happened to the good old days when you picked up the phone and spoke to the person you needed to be in touch with or met them in person?

Perhaps we’ve all just become far too busy for such primitive means?

Technology does have its place in our personal and business lives – but when is the last time you shot someone an email in order to avoid speaking with them? Have you ever sent a message and later discovered that the person on the other end took it the wrong way? I would bet you can think of a handful of examples where you have used technology in order to sidestep a difficult situation.

My point is this – if you want to build effective relationships and influence others you need to take responsibility for the effectiveness of your communication. While it may be easier to cut corners, inject fillers or hide behind technology, the wrinkles it creates will eventually come to the surface and bite you on the cheeks. Not only is it cheaper to grow old and communicate directly, it is also more beautiful and less addictive.