I had Todd Caponi, the author of the award-winning & international best-seller, The Transparency Sale, as a guest on EVOLVERS a while back.
We dug into his authenticity findings, the neuroscience of trust and why being ”flawsome” is your ticket to accelerated decisions and more wins.
Here is the basis of inspiration for the book in his own words…
“I’ve always been a nerd for behavioral science and sales methodology, which is kind of a weird combo, but we worked with Northwestern University here in Chicago on a research study around how consumers interact, and what do they look like, what do they do when a website is acting as the salesperson, essentially like an e-commerce retail site.
…What they found literally changed my life! I quit my job, and I wrote a book…The research came back and said, first of all, 96% of us look at reviews no, right? So, before we buy ANYTHING of medium to high consideration, meaning if we’re buying a pack of gum, we’re probably not looking at reviews first, but, if you’re looking at anything of substance that you haven’t bought before, you’re probably looking at reviews, so no surprise there. But… the thing that knocked my socks off was first of all, that 82% of us look for the negative reviews first.
So, when we’re looking at a product, we skip the 5’s and we go right to the ones, twos, threes and fours! And when a review score on a product, when it’s average, (and this is across all categories-some categories skew a little different) when a review score is between a 4.2 and a 4.5, those products actually sell at a higher rate. I looked at this and just marinated on it, and realized ‘Wait! That’s when a website is acting as the sales-person!’ And I’m like ‘I’ve been teaching them to sell as though we’re perfect forever. Basically, leave it up to the buyers to figure out that we’re not. And maybe, if we’re wired to go after the negative first, and that positioning our products as imperfect actually would sell better, I wonder if that would WORK???’
And so, I went out and I tried it…”
To find out what happened when he did, click the link and listen to the full episode! https://open.spotify.com/episode/7zz6RKbdgypbVy5uDf0rTC
Sometimes, reverse psychology works, people!
Keep evolving, EVOLVERS!
Until next time…
#salesenablement #neuroscience #salesleadership
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