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Cognitive Dissonance: A Secret Selling Weapon?
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Forget trying to beat quota. Picture showing up to work, getting tasered, tied up, and kidnapped for several days. That was Jeff Muller’s reality — a dog food salesman out of New Jersey, who got caught up with criminals due to mistaken identity. So while you’re stressing over a demanding manager, or that one prospect who was a perfect fit that still ended up wasting your time, let’s not forget to be thankful for the little things 🙏🏻
In Today’s Jam
Sales Tip of the Day: Stop Selling Your Way out of the Sale
The Sales Lab: Cognitive Dissonance: A Secret Selling Weapon?
Weekly Poll
Sales Q&A
Are You Overcomplicating Your Sales?
Today’s Story & a Sales Meme
The Sales Lab🔬: Cognitive Dissonance: A Secret Selling Weapon?
Even when you do everything right, there will still be prospects who turn out to be no-shows. The reasons for this can vary and so can the solutions.
When it comes to the latter, cognitive dissonance is one of our favorites. What does this mean? Cognitive dissonance is what you experience when you say you’re going to do something, but then you don’t — and you get that uncomfortable feeling; because your words aren’t aligned with your actions.
The Story of Gordon Sinclair
Dinner reservations can be super convenient, but no-shows cost restaurants thousands of dollars per month. Back in the 90s, restaurateur Gordon Sinclair found himself in a predicament.
Customers kept making reservations but wouldn’t show up. Needless to say, it was costing him tons of money. What Gordon did was interesting — he had his receptionist make a small, but significant tweak to their scripts when confirming reservations:
✍🏻 Original script: “Please call us if you need to change your plans…”
A standard script which—let’s be honest—isn’t doing much to engage with potential customers.
✍🏻 New script: “Would you be willing to call us if you have a change of plans?”
This reframing of the message dropped no-shows from 30% to 10%.
Few things to make note of:
It puts the onus on the customer.
It’s now framed as a question not a demand.
As such it’s reminding the customer that they promised to do something.
The last point is super powerful. It doesn’t matter that people—specifically customers—aren’t a monolith, most people, under most circumstances experience cognitive dissonance whenever they go back on their word.
Think of that one time you promised a friend you would do X thing with them at Y time. Think of how you feel when or if you decide to tell them you can no longer do it because of Z reason.
You’re putting customers in that position.
And there are more examples too. Check out what Forbes said about a medical company that also managed to pull this off big time!
How often do you change your sales script? |
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It’s Time For That Dream Sales Job…💼
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Game Changers of the week🔥
Stop Getting Curved By Prospects
If prospects hit you with the “I’m still exploring other options” line, don’t look at it as a dead-end. Check out this neat script that you can use to get back on track to the sale. Be sure to tweak things to suit your style and vertical if needed.
Emblaze Revenue Summit Returns in 2025 – Don’t Get Left Behind
If you still haven’t checked out the upcoming Revenue Summit, here’s a timely reminder. The conference is known for connecting professionals with like-minded peers, leaders they can learn from, and all the resources needed to leverage available tools like AI. Learn more here.
Brian Tracy’s ‘Psychology of Selling’ is Still Worth a Read!
Brian Tracy is an OG in the game, and his books are also highly-recommended resources. His style is a little different compared to other authors, though. If you’re looking for spot-on examples, and stories to articulate his points, you won’t get there here. This book is more so a peak into his mentality. Check it out.
Are You Overcomplicating Your Sales?
One big mistake sales professionals make is overcomplicating their sales process. Thing is — just because something is complex, or multi-tiered that doesn’t make it effective. And if you’re guilty of this, what else could you be getting wrong? Find out here.
Sales Scene of the Week📰
Sales Scene of the Week🎬
It does feel good though…
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