All meaningful actions are performed for some reason or purpose. This is commonly called motivation. Success in selling requires an understanding of these basics of motivation:
' Your motivation both as a person and as a salesperson
' The other persons motivation both as a person and as a buyer
The most important fact to remember in influencing the behaviour and decisions of others is that ' People do things for their reasons, not ours.
Every successful sale then, is made not so much because of the excellence of your product or of your sales pitch, but because consciously or unconsciously, you have found the human reason why your prospect should buy. You have found the door to their motivation and have opened it. The more you understand the function of human motivation, the more successfully you will sell.
In its simplest form, motivation emerges as a cycle. It starts with a want or need, expressed or hidden. Inherent in this is a problem, a problem that must be overcome in order to satisfy the want, that must be solved. Once solved, the want can be satisfied and the cycle is completed.
In terms of personal development there are several levels of needs. You will no doubt be familiar with Maslows pyramid of need:
These needs are basic to everyone you sell to, live with, or encounter.
At the bottom of the pyramid are The Physiological Needs. These include food, shelter, warmth, sex and sleep. They are instinctive needs common to all living creatures. Until these needs are satisfied, the higher needs are purely academic.
Then comes Safety which is almost as basic. Security is another word for this need: security in ones job, in ones place in society'safety from unknown dangers'freedom from pai ...