University of Virginia Psychology Professor Timothy Wilson’s new book Redirect provides an important view into psychological behavior change and highlights most effective techniques that can be used to help a person in a state of conflict find an alternate path. Help a prospect solve a problem… Sound familiar? It also provides what I believe to be the foundation for the #SocialSelling strategies we teach around using Trigger Events and Priority Shift Selling to effectively help prospects solve problems and make favorable decisions.
Wilson covers the fact that we all have our own personal narrative (stories) that we live our lives by. These stories are part of the fabric that drives our core behaviors and serve as the undercurrents for decision-making. When we are faced with conflict, challenge, or other external variables, we become naturally more receptive to also changing our stories to adapt. To drive value in the sales arena, one must always be considerate of our prospects’ narrative. Social Selling gives us an ideal vehicle for the communication that needs to take place to make this adaptation occur.
Stories can be altered and changed using what Wilson calls “Story Editing”. This involves two effective techniques called “Story Prompting” and “Do Good Be Good” to guide us towards a preferred and alternate approach. Nothing new, Marketers and Social Sellers have been employing these methods since Sam Slick and The Clockmaker. Ever sent your prospect an article that led them to think about your product in a new way? Ever dropped your product off with a prospect to have them try it before they made the purchase? Exactly.
In Social Selling, we teach searching Linkedin Signal for trigger events (times when your prospects are naturally receptive to edits) and Priority Shifting to leverage marketing assets to educate and nurture your prospects down a specific path. These strategies are highly effective as they are founded on human psychology and go far beyond an individual’s surface level reality into the very stories they use to run their lives.
Gareth Cook posts a good interview with Wilson here in Scientific American, I encourage you to learn more about his theories – Read Here .
The Bottom Line:
From a Social Selling perspective, Sales for Life has developed a curriculum for becoming a Social Salesforce that includes a detailed adoption plan that takes place over 90 days. Want to find out how your team can start identifying with your prospects on an unconscious level? Let’s arrange a time to discuss., click the button below to set up a meeting to discuss.
Robert Kavanagh
