Ever wish you could get inside your prospect’s head to influence their decision-making? Well, there are some psychology techniques that can help you do just that.
Psychology can help you understand how your prospects think, and this in turn helps you influence their buyer behaviour. All the best salespeople use psychology to take control of their sales calls because it really works.
Here are five psychology techniques that will help you close recruitment sales calls.
1. Turn the selling process into a buying process
You recruitment prospects don’t like to be sold to, but they do love to buy. Studies have shown that the feeling of getting a ‘good deal’ gives humans a rush of endorphins.
So how do you turn your selling process into a buying experience for your prospects?
The trick is to let your prospects uncover their own needs, rather than you telling them what they need. This will make them feel like they’re in control and that they’re proactively seeking out a good deal from you – giving them the endorphin rush people get from a positive buying experience.
Help your prospects uncover their needs by asking open-ended questions like:
“What are the main problems you have with your current recruitment providers?”
“What candidates are you struggling to recruit right now and why?”
Open questions like this can’t be answered with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, which gives your prospect no option but to open up and give details about the challenges they’re facing. This allows them to explore and identify the challenges themselves and decide what they need from you.
When you successfully create a buying experience, your prospects will feel more positive about working with you long term as it makes them feel that working with you was their decision.
2. Create FOMO
Buyers go crazy for limited edition lines of any product because creating scarcity gives them FOMO (fear of missing out). Fear is a much stronger emotion than the desire to have something, which is why this technique is so effective.
The good news is, it’s easy to create scarcity in recruitment because there will only ever be one of your candidate! And if your prospect doesn’t scoop them up ASAP, someone else will.
Reinforce the sense of FOMO by telling your prospect about other great candidates you’ve place with their competitors. This will make them not want to miss out on the next great candidate you sell into them.
3. Offer them less
Offering your prospects too many options can give them decision paralysis, meaning they’ll find it difficult to choose anything - and that might put them off working with you all together.
So rather than offering your prospect a long list of candidates, just sell in two or three really good CVs that strongly match your prospect’s needs.
Selling in two or three particular candidates gives the impression their CVs are really worth seeing, and this is much more likely to open up a conversation with your prospect.
4. Let others sell for you
We human beings are social creatures, so before making decisions we look around to see if other people are doing the same. In psychology, this is called ‘social proof’: essentially, we need confirmation from others that the decision we’re making is the right one.
So how do you give your clients social proof that you’re the recruiter to work with?
Start by giving social proof before you even pitch to your prospect. When you’re setting up the call over email, send over a couple of positive reviews you’ve received from other clients to lay the groundwork.
When you speak to your prospect on the phone or in a meeting, back up your pitch with positive results you’ve had with similar clients. You can then reinforce this message more by sending positive testimonials from the client’s you mentioned during the call in your follow up email.
Giving your prospects social proof like this will build your credibility and make them feel confident that you can offer a solution to their needs.
5. Use uncomfortable silence to your advantage
No one likes awkward silences – it’s a natural instinct to want to fill them. But this instinct makes silence a really powerful sales tool!
If your prospect is being awkward and giving you one-word answers – play them at their own game and stay quiet. After a while, they will instinctually start to talk to fill the silence.
For example, if you ask, "What types of candidates are you struggling to find at the moment?" and they answer, "all types of candidates", just keep quiet and wait for them to elaborate.
This will force your prospect to lead the conversation and reveal their needs and wants. Once you get your prospect speaking, you can then position your service offering around what they have told you.
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