Jeweller - May 2022

BUSINESS
Selling
Fuel and friction: the psychology of sales
Successfully reaching lofty sales targets is usually about more than just offering better products or selling harder.
TOM MARTIN explains how retailers can increase sales by eliminating friction.
All of us - every person, organisation and
sales team - is surrounded by hidden
forces that make it more difficult to
convince others to adopt the new ideas
necessary to close more sales.
So when your sales numbers aren’t
meeting expectations, what do you do?
Loran Nordgren, author of The Human
Element, believes that most companies
add more ‘fuel’.
Staff are encouraged to sell harder, to
improve or invest more in marketing, to
offer new and improved products and to
consider additional hiring.
However, what if you took a different
approach? What if, instead of adding fuel,
you removed friction?
It’s an important question because
answering it incorrectly wastes
investment, time, and effort, which leads
to failure. Fuel in sales is anything that
elevates or enhances the appeal of an idea,
product or decision.
Typically this involves incentives,
supportive evidence, emotional appeals
or demonstrating the value of a new idea,
product, or service to end-users.
Friction meanwhile is anything that resists
change. It’s defined as any set of forces
that drag on innovation and change.
Retailer learns a lesson
In Nordgren’s book, he uses the example of
a hypothetical furniture retailer which sells
customisable one-of-a-kind furniture.
The problem is that the customers love
using the website to customise potential
products and, using online design tools
for hours at a time, but they don’t buy the
finished product.
The retailer attempts to resolve the
problem with ‘fuel’ - reduced prices and
improved fabric options both of which don’t
increase sales.
The retailer then engaged a research
consultant who discovered the real
problem: customers didn’t know what to
What if, instead of adding fuel, you removed friction?
do with their existing furniture in order to
make room for their customised product.
The retailer had added fuel in order to
stimulate sales, when all that was required
was eliminating the ‘friction’ keeping the
customer from making the purchase.
The retailer employed an additional service
offering to remove any existing furniture
as a part of the delivery process. Sales
took off!
Forget the easy way
It’s easier and sexier to build a bigger
rocket instead of a lighter spaceship.
The human mind instinctively processes
behaviour through the lenses of motivation
and intent. The same principles are at play
when people make the mistake of adding
more fuel, rather than eliminating friction.
If people aren’t buying what we’re selling,
we assume the lack of desire is driven by
a product’s lack of appeal. We instinctively
add more fuel in hopes of winning the sale.
Identifying friction can take a lot of time
and energy, which takes our attention away
from our customers.
The University of Chicago, as an example,
had a smaller applicant pool in comparison
to similar colleges and universities. The
school had a reputation for being rigorous
and they wrongly, as it turns out, believed
their brand was causing students to shy
away from applying.
If people aren’t
buying what
we’re selling,
we assume the
lack of desire
is driven by a
product’s lack
of appeal. We
instinctively
add more fuel
in hopes of
winning the
sale.
In truth, students weren’t afraid of applying
to a rigorous college, the issue was the
ease of application. A number of other
colleges and universities had joined a
program, which allowed students to file a
single application that was distributed to
all participating schools.
Once the University of Chicago joined that
same program, applications increased
dramatically.
Simple techniques
Next time you find yourself facing a sales
issue, instead of just trying to sell hard,
consider making it easier for people to buy
what you’re selling by fighting friction.
Make the action easier. Netflix
automatically plays the next episode of any
series because they knew it improves the
chances that you’ll keep watching. Even the
most minor changes to friction can keep a
customer engaged.
Make the customer feel as though they
are the author of the change. We are
most influenced by ideas that we believe
we generated on our own. Guide your
customer to the right purchase, don’t tell
them what to buy.
Remove negativity bias. Everyone knows
that negative experience carry greater
weight in comparison to positive ones.
You need five good experiences in a
relationship to outweigh one bad one.
Think about how that principle can
be applied to your relationship with
customers.
The bottom line
Before you begin any sales process
consider things from the view of your
audience first. Uncover any source of
friction and address them.
TOM MARTIN is the founder of
Converse Digital, a sales and marketing
agency. He is also a keynote speaker
and author of The Invisible Sale.
Visit: conversedigital.com
May 2022 | 49