5 Psychology-Based Strategies An Entrepreneur Must Know

LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends Report has revealed important facts about the future of the business world: more than ninety percent of talent scouts believe that competency in soft skills will play a decisive role in the future of recruitment, while eighty percent say these skills are on their way to being more important than company success.

So, what are these social skills? In fact, this definition includes the success of the individual in communicating with others, the ability to empathize, being ready for cooperation, and a highly motivated and stable work discipline; it covers different abilities such as leadership, negotiation and persuasion rather than the direct use of the knowledge in the field of education. Entrepreneur Jim Rohn, known for his work in the field of business philosophy, underlines that if you use every opportunity in your life to practice improving your communication skills, when you are faced with an important situation, you will not have difficulty in coping. Let’s take a look at these strategies that can take an entrepreneur to very different points.

1) Do not overlook the role that body language plays.

Salespeople direct the conversation with body language and support their words and persuade the other person to do what they want. Likewise, reading the body language of your recipient or the person you are addressing will also play a key role at this point. For example, it may be wise to change the direction of the conversation or to employ a different strategy as soon as you notice clues such as an outward-turned body, swaying feet, and not keeping the focus on you for a long time.

2) Don’t be stuck with your losses.

Now first ask yourself and then the professionals around you: Do you remember your big wins or successes, or your big losses and delusions? For example, when you think from the opener of someone playing poker, a gain of 5000 lira will be enjoyable for that night, while a loss of 5000 lira will cause the person to think about it for days and regret it.

As an entrepreneur, you can’t let your losses outweigh your gains, otherwise a constant focus on the negative can push you to avoid risks and miss opportunities that are actually essential for success. Instead, it’s best to think about the reasons that led to your failure, learn from them, and move forward.

3) Reassure your potential customers above all else.

The instinct to be safe is the strongest human desire. If you can convince your buyer that your solution provides security, whether that security is against financial losses or other inconveniences, the other person will be more open-minded and understanding to your proposal.

Your brain works on the basic principle of rationalizing data that will actually support your emotional decision making. How Does the Consumer Think? In his book, Gerald Zaltman, a marketing professor at Harvard Business School, underlines that ninety-five percent of the choices you make, including purchases, are made by your subconscious mind, which is largely governed by emotions.

4) Provide evidence of how happy/satisfied your buyers are.

The mimetic desire theory (mimetic: imitation) developed by the French philosopher René Girard suggests that people’s desires are shaped by those of other people. This emotional stimulation explains the rising preference of influencers in the marketing sector, which has been very popular recently on Instagram and other social media accounts. According to a study by Klear, the amount of marketing campaigns done through influencers on Instagram is exactly double what it was in 2017.

So how can you collect this evidence? Actually, the answer is pretty simple. Materials such as quotes, interviews, videos, surveys, related newspaper articles, articles, user comments not only attract the attention of buyers, but also play an important role in the pre-purchase decision process. And one important tactic should not be overlooked: Take care to use materials or advertisements that your buyers can identify with. Studies show that the more bond a person has with the other person, the more likely they are to imitate him. In other words, the mimetic desire theory developed by Girard comes into play by imitating the behavior of the buyer, who sees a person similar to himself, to buy your product that he sees in the advertisement.

5) Try to have tactical empathy.

If you believe that your organization already empathizes with its employees, you should think again. Ninety-two percent of CEOs think their organization is empathetic, compared to only 50 percent of employees, according to Businesssolver’s 2018 State of Workplace Empathy research.

Engaging managers and your sales team in tactical empathy will ensure that your employees do not have a hard time establishing a similar empathetic bond with buyers. In addition, this method is useful not only for sales, but also for group dynamics and motivation in the business environment, so it is useful to have it in the back of your mind.

So what is this argument about the power of empathy based on? Written by FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss, his book Never Distinct: Negotiating As If Your Life Depends On It is covered in detail, arguing that selling is basically a psychological practice of negotiation. Arousing the buyer’s interest and willingness to buy the product by obtaining the information requested from the pledge actually depends on persuasion and negotiation skills. Learning the underlying impulses of the receiving behavior and developing the necessary tactics to stimulate them through exercise will be greatly effective in increasing your success rate.