Guest Belal Batrawy introduces prospect theory and loss aversion (the fear of loss is roughly twice as motivating as the pleasure of gain) and applies it to B2B selling. He contrasts limbic/emotional messaging (highlighting cost of inaction, embarrassment, falling behind) with neocortex messaging (ROI, features, logos), arguing that most deals stall in status-quo because sellers fail to invoke loss-based, limbic concerns during the unaware/aware/consideration stages. The host opens the episode and frames the show for tech sellers.
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Welcome to the live Better Sell Better podcast with your host, Kevin Dorsey of Inside Sales Excellence, the number one Patreon group and YouTube channel for tech sellers and tech sales leaders, where we dive in deep for tactical advice on how to book more meetings, close more deals faster, and lead sales teams to success. But we don't stop there. We also focus on the person in salesperson. We talk about mindset goals, time management, and so much more. So thank you for listening and if you're interested, head on over to patreon.com InsideSalesExcellence now with that, grab a notepad, get ready, and let's dive into the good stuff.
What I'm putting in you right now is this idea called prospect theory. This won a Nobel Prize in economics several decades ago. This idea that the fear of loss is two times more compelling than the pleasure of gain, right? Most of us are lining up knowing that we're not going to win, but we're still going to give it a hundred percent. Why? Because we don't want to lose. We don't want to fall down, we don't want to look stupid. We don't want our name posted dead last when this is shared on LinkedIn. We want to at least finish respectable. You know, I'll take a bottom third finish, but I'll, you know, it'll be, I will do everything I can to avoid being last. If I gotta crawl, if I gotta, you know, use my nails to get across that line, I will, because I don't want to look like a fool. That's emotional messaging. That's how you change the social paradigm from being another vendor in the farmer's market, yelling about how good your fruit is, and actually invoking the limbic brain by showing your prospects how they stand to lose if they keep getting the job done the way they are today. What is the cost of inaction? What is the cost of the status quo? Can I show them that? They could be embarrassed, they could fall behind, they could be severely hurt by not doing the new thing, by trying to stick with the old ways that they already know. Now here's the thing again, going back all that about ROI Unique selling props, you know, your logo wall, all that stuff you typically see the sellers doing, you know, talking about features and benefits, all this stuff. Any of that sound like pain from loss? Any of that invoking your limbic brain and making you feel as nervous as that thought about finishing last in the race? It's not there because all of these things are neocortex messaging. They're not limbic brain messaging. All this standard stuff that you see every seller doing as a common practice, none of it is invoking the limbic brain. That is all really helpful for me. If I've already made my mind up and I'm evaluating my options, it's great. Yeah. Show me the ROI so I can prove this. Show me the features so I can make sure we satisfy everyone's need. Show me the logo so that people know I'm not crazy and trying something totally different. But the significant vast majority of your deals, the significant vast majority of what you do is dealing with people who are in those stages of unaware, aware and consideration, not evaluation and decision. And that's why the majority of deals die in status quo. No decision because the limbic brain was not involved because the person did not see that there was going to be a pain from loss and issue with avoiding the offer or solution that the seller was peddling.
