One of the biggest mistakes salespeople do is that they want to close the deal immediately. Selling is a process that comes in several steps, and they are all crucial for success.
Before you can sell a product to a customer, you must get to know them first. You must know what they need to make their life or job easier. How do you do that? Get them to talk! And how do you get them to talk? First of all, you have to get their attention, which can be a challenge sometimes.
You have to realize that most people do not wish to be bothered, and that they think of you, the salesperson, as the shady guy on the car lot selling crappy cars. They fear that they might end up wasting their money on something they don’t need. That is why you have to get them to talk, so that you can identify exactly what they need, and then fill that void.
Getting someone to talk is really not as hard as you think. There is one subject that everyone loves to talk about, and that is about themselves. Their life, their job, their family, their pets, anything that is in their life. Try asking what they do for a living, and most people will tell you. If they aren’t very talkative at first, get them to elaborate. You could ask them how they got into that line of work, how long they have been doing it, what a typical day looks like etc.
This is where you try to find out what their needs are. You do this by listening and looking for things that you could use to lead the conversation in the direction you want. After a while, you can try to match up your products to their needs.
Don’t always expect to get the sale immediately. Build a relationship with the customer. Remember, people are much more likely to buy from someone they know and/or like, than from someone they don’t. Ask questions, and you shall receive answers!
All this can of course be used for Internet Marketing as well. Think about how you ask questions and present yourself or your product/service online, in blog comments, forums, email lists etc. Get interactive, make people respond, write in a style that makes people want to respond, relate, and in a way that will make you sound like just the guy they’d want to do business with.
Psychology is something that can be implemented in ALL forms of communication, not just verbal. Need JV-partners? Communicate, get them involved, ask the right questions. Need customers? Same formula. Setting up a webpage? Guess what… same formula. If people aren’t involved, they won’t return. Never underestimate the power of making people feel special, like you are interested in them only, and since they are your JV-partners/customers/visitors, you SHOULD be interested.
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