The Ford dealership played games. They took the keys for an unnecessary appraisal. They ran analyses nobody asked for. They turned a buyer ready to sign into a walkout. Ten minutes away, a BMW salesperson had printed a name on a cheap plastic stand. Same buyer, same day, same intent. The BMW dealership got three sales and years of referrals. Ford got nothing.
This is the difference between founders who understand sales psychology and those who avoid it because it feels icky.
The information advantage is dead. Buyers arrive with eight to ten hours of research already completed. They know the model, the options, the Reddit reviews. They don't need you to inform them. They need you to help them decide.
Dan Ariely's research in Predictably Irrational shows that excessive choice leads to worse decisions. Before, prospects didn't buy from lack of information. Now they don't buy from too much of it. Your job shifted from informing to clarifying.
Match how you sell to how they buy. The analytical buyer with the spreadsheet needs different handling than the intuitive buyer who walked in on impulse. The Ford dealership forced everyone through the same process. The BMW salesperson read the room and matched immediate intent with immediate action.
Fix your script problem. You're already living in scripts. "Hi, how are you?" "Good, thanks." The issue isn't that scripts exist. The issue is that most of them are bad. "Can I help you find something today?" invites resistance. "What brings you in today?" opens actual conversation.
Ask questions they haven't rehearsed. Prospects arrive armored because decades of bad salespeople taught them to defend themselves. Your job is to get past the rehearsal. Questions they weren't expecting activate genuine thinking instead of automated objections.
Wes Schaeffer, who's spent thirty years proving psychological triggers aren't manipulation, puts it directly: "Our job in sales is to ask questions the prospect cannot answer. Or at least questions they're not expecting."
When you understand how prospects make decisions and can guide them through overwhelm to clarity, you're not selling them something. You're helping them get unstuck.
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