Right Brain Selling with Rick Wittman

Some time ago I interviewed, Rick Wittman from Jump Business Development to discuss graphic design and the topic of selling effectively came up. This is one of Rick's favourite topics and he does have some interesting views. He believes selling your ideas or services can and should be a simple activity, but many make it more complicated and ineffective than it needs to be.

WT: So Rick, what do you mean when you say many make selling more complicated and ineffective than it needs to be.

RW: Well it's like communicating with someone who speaks a different language, it is time consuming, energy sapping and usually only a few bits of information are communicated. Certainly the whole message with the relevant twists and subtleties is far from understood. The same phenomenon happens in most selling activities I see. Often the seller and customer may as well speak different languages. And by this I mean the words used have different meanings to the seller and customer even when they're both speaking English!

WT: Isn't that interesting! How do you believe we can overcome this problem?

RW: It's all about how you think. If you think in the same way as your customers think, with the same part of the brain, that customers do when they make a buying decision then you will quickly and effectively develop rapport and trust, which are the foundations of effective selling; you will feel you and the customer are on the same wavelength.

WT: And how then do you get on the same wavelength as the customer?

RW: Most of us make the decision to buy with the part of the brain that processes emotions. It's the part of the brain that views the buying decision subjectively; it asks 'how will this decision affect me as a whole?' These characteristics are associated with Right-Brain thinking and to sell effectively you need to communicate using Right-Brain thinking. The more you let the tools of the Left-Brain; logic, facts, and figures into the sale, the less effective you will be.

If you master selling from your right brain, you will find that you can sell from your 'comfort zone', you are relaxed and free to enjoy the customer; you will build their desire to buy from you. Your customers will genuinely like and trust you, they will feel they have got something special and wont want to negotiate or 'think about it'! It's a lot like what you do for your clients when you design advertising or marketing material.

WT: There seems to be a lot of similarities with what I do creating marketing material and what you do as a sales coach.

RW: Yes, of course, have you noticed how many ads for products incorporate an element of emotion? Like the man in his neighbours' pool or dressed in only his underwear standing in his front yard lost in a sea of pride and admiration for his new 'colorbond' roof!