7 DARK PSYCHOLOGY Sales Techniques to Sell Anything

I've generated $7.8 billion in sales throughout my 17 years in business. And there are only seven dark, psychological sales triggers that are proven to get inside people's minds and make them buy without them even realizing it. And look, to be honest, I was hesitant to put out this video because these tactics need to be used for good. But my team insisted. I promise that if you use these seven tactics next time you're trying to make somebody buy, they will. Which brings us to tactic number one. Most people think that when they're on a sales call, the job is to make everyone feel very comfortable, because that disengages the prospect, and it really makes them lower their defenses. And once you get them in a place where they feel real comfortable, then the call is just going to go very, very smoothly. But this couldn't be further from the truth. You see, yes, you do need to build rapport, and you do need to make sure that people feel comfortable. But at the end of the day, transformations don't happen inside comfort zones. And oftentimes I look back at our most successful clients, and we look at, what was that, Mom? When they actually made the decision to come and work with us. They're typically in times of discomfort. It's either they're not where they want to be in their business, there's some problem they want to solve, and in order to get to the crux of the matter, you need to have a hard conversation. And the best closers in the world, they are not afraid of having these confrontations. They're not afraid of asking the difficult questions and going into deep water with the prospect and making them be uncomfortable in order to make that transformation. Because oftentimes it might be that you spend 10 minutes on a very uncomfortable part of the phone call, but those 10 minutes of discomfort can literally change the next 10 years of that customer's life. Because oftentimes prospects will get in their own way to something that is actually going to benefit them, because they will fight like hell to stay within their comfort zone. But every single thing that they want is actually outside their comfort zone. I learned this early on in my career, right? I was working in London on a sales floor of 300 people, and every single week, they would rotate our desks so we couldn't get too friendly to the person that we were sitting next to. And people would come in, and they would sit next to me, and I would ask for the sale, like, 16 times on the call, and the person next to me would be, like, gritting their teeth, and they would just be so uncomfortable with how far I was willing to persist beyond the first. No. And I learned that I developed that skill and then that served me for the rest of my career. And I've had so many people thank me for being able to move them to a decision when they knew that they were scared. And the reason why this is a dark tactic is because if it's not in the right hands, it can be used to manipulate people. And you only want to use this when you have something that is genuinely going to transform your prospect's life and you've done all the qualification and you know, hey, based on what the problems are that this prospect's got, based on everything that it is that they've told me, I genuinely wholeheartedly believe that this is the best solution for them. Therefore, I'm completely comfortable with going into deep water, into an uncomfortable part of this phone call in order to get them to act. Because that is where the transformation takes place. It doesn't take place by just elaborating on what that prospect's problem is or just providing a bit of value on the call. That's not where it is. There is no lack of information out there. There is a lack of action. And when somebody makes a commitment that is outside of their comfort zone, there is more skin in the game for them to be invested. And that's why pushing people to a place that isn't super comfortable is often time where the biggest transformations take place. And that is tactic number one. One, kill the comfort zone. Which brings us to tactic number two. Most salespeople are trained to never want to talk about the negatives of whatever it is that they're selling. They try to hide all the warts and the blemishes of their product offering. This is a rookie mistake and it typically happens when you are selling an inferior product. Regardless of whatever it is that you're selling, there are going to be some drawbacks. Now, instead of trying to hide and like navigate the call in a special way and use magic tricks to make sure that you never bring up the negatives, instead what you want to do is use radical transparency and just bring them up before the prospect brings them up. Because that builds trust. If you know that the product or service that you do it takes a while to get results or there's a 12 month contract or there's some feature missing, you bring that up to the prospect before they get a chance to bring it up. So you can counter that argument before it even gets raised as an objection. That does Two things. One, it just builds trust and, and the person's like, oh, this person's completely chill. They're being honest. They don't just sound like a commission breath hungry salesperson that's trying to say anything to me to get me to buy. They're actually being honest about the whole thing. And then the other thing that you want to do is you want to heavily qualify your prospect and who the person is that's going to be a great fit for whatever it is that you're selling. Where most people, they do it the opposite. They literally try and sell to everybody. And because they do that, that's when they get fearful of bringing up negatives because they're thinking of their sales script and they're like, if I go off this, if I say anything that could be seen as a bad light about whatever it is that I've got, then immediately it makes it less desirable to the prospect. It's actually the opposite. What happens in the mind of the prospect is they're like, if this person's being so upfront and honest about this drawback, there mustn't be anything else that I need to worry about. And it disengages and it allows them to pull down their defenses. So for instance, when I was cold calling people and selling them SEO, I used to bring up very, very early, look, this is a 12 month contract that was seen as a huge drawback to a lot of people. Like 12 months. People hate contracts. I don't want to commit to this thing for a year. And I would just simply tell people, look, SEO is a long term strategy and for that reason we work on a 12 month contract. If you're going into SEO, you want to be going in there with a minimum mindset of I'm going to dedicate a year to this. If you don't want to dedicate a year to it, let's not do it at all. You're better off doing Google Ad or doing Facebook immediately. That just builds rapport with them, right? They think, oh, okay, this guy's being honest. It's all up front. And it's not some objection that I need a handle on. When it's trying to get the sale and we're like, oh, we don't do contracts. I've already answered that. If you don't want to do 12 months, then there's no point doing it at all. Just doing that in itself. People understand the reasoning why it is that you're going to be working on a six month program to begin with. And so don't be afraid of bringing up these things earlier. Often, if there's something hard or, or difficult that it is that your customers need to do, tell them, tell them upfront, hey, you're going to have to do this thing that sucks. And the reason that you're going to have to do it is this thing that sucks is going to get you the best result. So what we want to do is we want to bring all of that to the forefront and we want to be radically transparent with our prospects to further build trust. So why is this a dark tactic? Well, it turns honesty into a weapon. By bringing up the ugly truth first, you are short circuiting their defense system. When you do this right, this level of trust feels dangerous. And is your selling something that isn't to the benefit of the prospect. Again, it comes with a label of warning. But on the flip side of that, this trust, it also stops the prospect from ever shopping around. They feel like, hey, this is the only person that is shooting me straight. None of these other salespeople that I'm speaking to, they're not being honest about any of these drawbacks of the solutions that they're selling. Therefore, I don't trust them. And you become the trusted advisor. And it's that level of trust that lubricates deals. And that is tactic number two, radical transparency. This is powerful, but honesty alone won't get you to close deals unless you know how to make them chase you instead of you chasing them. Which brings us to tactic number three. 99% of salespeople get this wrong. They think that sales is about convincing people by pushing them into a decision and by convincing them that this is the right move for them. This is what amateurs do. The real pros understand that a sale is about pulling people and making yourself magnetic and desirable and that your prospect should want whatever it is that you have got. By definition, if you have something of value, think about it. It's typically hard to get. You're not out there on a corner, sprung and pushing it down people's throat. That makes it not very valuable because you have to actually convince people that they should buy it. Where the real pros, they understand how to craft desire and to get people really wanting whatever it is that they've got so that they pull away and it can actually become more desirable to the prospect because the harder that you push, the less people want it. They feel there's a screaming voice at the back of their head going, something's not right here. Why is this person pushing me into this. It mustn't be good. It must be very difficult for them to sell this. That's why I'm feeling so much pressure right now. And I learned this the hard way. I got my start when I was 16 selling ink cartridges. This was very much a push sale. People don't wake up and start desiring ink cartridges every day. Then I cut my teeth selling telecommunications and line rental and satellite television. These a lower value products that you are cold calling someone and it is very much a push sale. You don't wake up one morning and being like, oh my God, I really want to buy ink cartridges or I really want to change my phone provider. That's not typically the way that it works. So because it's a low ticket and because it's a high volume, low ticket transaction, that means that it is less desirable and, and you find yourself more in a push. You need to push onto somebody that, hey, it is worthwhile going through the effort to make this change. That is, you're already paying 30 bucks for line rental. How about you get 30 bucks for your line rental plus I give you unlimited local and national calls free. They're naturally not going to want to do all the hoopla and you need to find the certain selling buttons that you can push that actually gets that person to be like, all right, screw it, let's just do it. The hassle is going to be worth it. That is more of a push. Now. I then graduated up from selling everything else that you could imagine. I've sold things for $15 all the way up to $500,000. And the higher the price range, the more the pull sale is. Think about it this way. There's a saying. You don't choose a Ferrari. Ferrari chooses you. When it comes to buying things that are very expensive, these guys know exactly what they're doing. It is is all about the pull away. You go into Ferrari, they want to qualify you. Why should we sell you a Ferrari? What other cars do you have in your collection? And you basically find yourself qualifying yourself to the company that you actually should have the right to buy. That is a perfect example of the pull sale. The lower the price point, the easier and the more pushed the sale is. And the higher the price point, the more difficult it should be to buy. Because the more that you need to pull away to build the value of that high price point. Because again, we value and desire things that are harder to get. So with a pool sale, it's all about asking strategic questions to get down to the root problem. Of why they're looking to solve this in the first place. It's not about saying, hey, this is something I've got, and then listing out all the features and all the benefits of buying this. No, no, no. You must have the prospect arrive the themselves at, hey, this is a logical reason that I should buy this. This is the logical path for me to go down based on all of these questions. So we like to lead with probing questions like, hey, what led you to booking this phone call with me in the first place? How long have you been trying to solve this problem? What other solutions have you tried in the past to solve this and why haven't they worked, do you think? And really unearthing what is going on with the prospect. So then once you figure out all the things that they've tried, what motivated them to come here, then you can be like, based on everything that you've told me, I think that you would be a good candidate. You would be a good fit. This would be a good solution to the problem that you're experiencing. You have them arrive there themselves. You're not telling them straight out of the gate, hey, this is perfect for your scenario. Before you even know what their scenario is, you need to let them fall on their own sword by doing something that we call the admission, where they admit, I don't feel comfortable relying on everything else that I'm doing right now to solve this problem. And remember, the higher the ticket, the more that it is that you need to pull away, further qualify them, and to see whether or not that they are a good fit. And this isn't just a sales tactic. If you're selling something that is more expensive, you do want to further qualify them. You do want to make sure that it's the right investment so you can make sure that it's going to be a fruitful one for them. And it just so happens by doing so, it actually makes what you've got to sell way more desirable. And that is tactic number three. Pull, don't push. And if you're enjoying these tactics, make sure that you're subscribed because there are a lot more videos coming down the pipe just like this. Which brings us to tactic number four. Most salespeople think that prospects are scared to spend money when the real danger is not to take any action at all. The chances are, if you've been following my staff and you've been doing marketing and you've got inbound leads coming into your business, people aren't going to engage with you for fun on a Friday night. They do it because they have a, a specific problem that it is that they want to solve. And you can never, ever let that escape your mind when you are speaking to a prospect. If you are doing marketing, that means that they have come to you to solve a problem. And they didn't go through all of this to say, hey, I don't want to spend any money. They knew that they had to spend some money to solve this problem when the real danger to them is, hey, what happens if I don't do anything? This problem is still going to be persisting in my life. And that's the thing that you want to focus on. You don't want to focus on the money that that is that they need to spend. You want to have all of your attention focused on the actual problem that it is that they're trying to solve. So in my agency, right, we sell digital marketing services. We also sell courses and programs and all types of stuff. Now, most people don't wake up and say, hey, I want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing just for the fun of it, right? They have a problem that it is that they're looking to solve. And you can do the best job with basically outlining the full plan. And this is, we're going to build a funnel and landing pages and we're going traffic to that. At the end of the day, when it comes to making a decision, people are still going to be looking at the cost. And then you're going to find yourself in a discussion where you're looking at an itemized breakdown of all the different costs that it is that it's going to be for the funnel and the traffic and the management. That's where most people stop. They try to go through that logical process and they think that a decision is being made. But there is something that is infinitely more important than the cost of our services, and that is the cost cost of in action, right? Let's just say that prospects doing 100 grand a month and they want to get to 200 grand a month every year that goes by and they stay where they are right now instead of where they want to be, it is costing them $1.2 million. And that seems like a lot higher than maybe spending $100,000 and putting a plan in place to actually solve that problem. So you want to have your attachment also in focusing on, hey, assigning a cost to inaction. If you stay where you are right now, it's going to be you, $1.2 million. What's more expensive, our fee or the $1.2 million. And when you start to assign a cost to inaction, then in the prospect's mind, it becomes very clear as to what the decision they should make. So why is this one dark psychology? Well, it reframes time as the enemy and it really assigns that, hey, the longer the time goes on, the bigger this problem gets. And then you make the fear of them not taking any action at all far scarier than the price that you're asking for your product or service. And then they stop looking at your offer as being risky and they look at the risk of inaction being the most dangerous decision of all. And that is tactic number four, the scarcity mirror. Now showing a prospect. The cost of inaction is one thing, but if this next thing is off, they won't believe a single word you say. Which brings up us to tactic number five. Most salespeople think that the most important thing is the words that they say, but this is not the case. It's actually in the way that you say them. Because people make micro judgments on you in every second that it is that you speak. Once you're on the phone with somebody, they can tell in the first two to five seconds exactly what your deal is simply by the way in which you speak. If you get a call out of the blue and someone's like, like, hey, is that Sudbury? And they upward inflect and then they're like, yeah, and they're like speaking very fast and they're upward inflecting after everything that they say immediately, right? I don't even need to hear whatever else it is that they're saying. I can tell by their opener that they are here trying to sell me something. Where on the contrary, if somebody calls me up and was like, hey, is that Sudbury? I'm like, yes. Automatically I'm like, like, who is this person and what is it that they want? Right? I feel like I'm almost in trouble. And that's purely based on how they say the words and not what it is that they say. And I've had to learn this lesson multiple times throughout my career. When I first started cold calling businesses in my current agency, King Kong, I was calling up people that were running Google Ads and I was calling up to tell them, hey, you already run an ads on Google. Instead of advertising on Google and spending all this money pay per click, I can get you ranked on the left hand side of the page in the organic listings and it's going to be far cheaper and the traffic is Going to be much, much better. I would call these people up, I would sound all enthusiastic and happy, and then immediately they knew that I was a salesperson. So what I did is I changed it. I already knew that they had a Google Ads account. So I'd call them up and I'd be like, yeah, hi, it's Subway here. I'm just after the person who looks after the Google Ads account. And they're like, what, like an account? Yeah, it's in regards to your Google Ads. Oh, sorry, do we have an account with you? Yes, it's in regards to your Google Advertising account. Immediately it sounds like, okay, they're in arrears. They might owe some money on it. Yeah, no problems. I'll just put you on hold. And then they put you on hold and then they transfer. What are they calling about? They call them about the Google Ads account. All right, okay. Put them through. They don't know anything. Right. And then automatically you get through to the decision maker. That is the way that I was able to use my tonality to get through the gatekeeper where in the beginning, if I was to call and say, hey, is that Susan? Yeah, hi, Susan, it's Sabri here pulling up from King Kong. I was after the person who looks after the advertising. It's like, hang up, hang up, hang up all day long. But the moment that you change your frame and the way that you speak, you get a different outcome. This literally makes all the difference. If I look at all of the salespeople that I employ all over the world, I've trained hundreds of salespeople, people, and I can tell just in the interview themselves from their tonality and the guidance that I give them who is going to be the winners and who aren't. And it's all based on tonality because you can say all the right things. But if you say them in the wrong way, it's never going to land. So why is this a dark tactic? Well, you are hacking the subconscious by using tonality. When we are trained to have an appeal to authority. How to do people in an authoritative position speak? If you get pulled over by the police, are they like speaking to you or friendly? No. When you go through borders and customs, do they speak to you friendly? No. They are trained not to. They are literally trained not to build rapport and not to be nice. Right. So by definition, people that are in authoritative positions, they have deep voices. They downward inflect, they speak, speak like this. So if you're doing that, you are hacking their subconscious with the way that they've been trained to perceive information and the whole status hierarchy. And this is why it can be very manipulative if you use it in the wrong way. And that is tactic number five, tonal manipulation. But you need to anchor them to something that is much bigger than those things. Which brings us to the next tactic, tactic number six. Amateurs sell the deliverables. They think of all the things that the thing that they're selling has, the modules, the PDFs, all of the hours of training. That's not what it is people buy. What they do buy is the end destination. If you're ever going to book a travel holiday, you're not thinking about, hey, I have to go to the airport, go through customs, my bag, weigh that in, get on an airplane for 12 hours, catch a taxi to the airport and do all those things. All you're doing is, is thinking about the destination, right? It's the same thing. If you're selling fitness programs, you don't want to be selling how you're going to get one hour of coaching, you're going to get all dialed in, macros you're going to get. That's not what they want. What they want is a six pack. They want to drop three dress sizes. That's the end destination. People could be so much more effective in their selling if they stopped thinking about all the widgets and the modules and all the little intricate parts, parts of whatever it is that they've got that they're selling. And all they did was sell the end destination. Think about all the things that unlock in your life if you get into the best shape, right? And that's the thing that it is that you want to sell, right? What is it going to be like once you grow your business? What other lifestyle upgrades you can't afford now that having this additional profit is going to unlock for you, what is dropping 15kgs going to do for you? Whatever it is that you're selling, you want to paint a very vivid picture of what that desired outcome looks like and have everything anchored to that. You think the way that you justify a sale is by itemizing every single component or every deliverable in what it is that you're selling. That's not what you do. They don't care about that because you know what that is? That is work. People don't want work, they want the outcome. So instead have all of your attention on the outcome. And then the deliverables, they just simply become a delivery vehicle for getting the outcome. But you're not spending all of your time talking about those things that doesn't get people to buy. Trust me, I learned the hard way. And this one's a dark psychological tactic because it manipulates imagination. It gets the prospect to almost have a fantasy of the future because you've painted it in such a vivid detail that it feels real to them. And then their brain can't distinguish reality from fiction and it rather wraps them up in that emotion which gets them bought in to that desired end state that they're trying to get to. If you're not doing that in the right way for the right product, this stuff can be very, very dangerous. So it does come with a caution. Only use this for good. But if you're watching my channel, then you're one of the good guys. So I trust that you will use this responsibly. And that is tactic number six, vision selling. And so once they've bought into that vision, there's only one last thing remaining to do. And that's exactly what we're going to cover in T. Tactic number seven. This is the single most underused tactic that I have ever seen from working with thousands of salespeople throughout my career. Most people think that all of their commission lies in the inbound leads that are coming in the fresh, hot, low relying cherries that they just can pick off. It's just an easy yes. Someone comes in, they're like, yep, I've been thinking about this. I'm gonna buy with zero results. But the fortune is made in the follow up. And I'm not talking any weak, limp follow up like most salespeople do. Most salespeople, they will try and follow up with somebody twice and then they will give up. They'll call them up and be like, hey, John, yeah, it says Subway. Following up on the proposal that I sent you, have you seen enough to make a decision? Dog shit. Then they'll call up and be like, yeah, John, I still haven't heard back from you. Is this something that you still want to do? If so, give me a call back, goodbye. And that's it. And they never ever follow up again because they are lazy. And that's why sales is such a high turnover sport, because people aren't willing to do the things that make them successful. And this is the one tactic that if I was to deploy in any business to double their sales, it would be to follow up their leads for three times as long as they currently are. Because oftentimes times it's actually the salesperson that gives up on the prospect before the prospect gives up on the offer. And following up somebody on the phone and calling them once or sending them a shitty email or using ChatGPT to write them an email is just lazy, right? You want to bring some pizzazz, some extra sauce in your follow up game. You want to do handwritten notes. Yes. You want to be doing emails, you want to be leaving them. Also voicemails. You want to do do selfie videos recorded on your iPhone. You want to send them audio messages on iMessage and WhatsApp, LinkedIn. You want to use GIFs humor. We attack by land, sky and sea. It's all avenues. You must use all of these modalities in your follow up game. And in the beginning for people, they find it a little bit intense and they find it a little bit annoying. And then what happens is that annoyance turns into admiration and it becomes this fun game and they start to think like, damn, this person's really persistent. Like, I wish my salespeople would follow up. Like this person, I wonder what would happen to my own business if I followed up like this, right? And you just treat it as a game. Yeah, John, it's Sabri here from King Kong. I feel like I'm forming a very intimate relationship with your voicemail. This is the six voicemail that I've left you. I just want to let you know, John, based on everything that you've told me, that I'm never going to stop calling you until you call me back. I look forward to chatting to you soon. I'm also going to send you an email now. Bye. That immediately separates you from the herd because as I say, the last mile is the least crowded. People spend all of this time on energy and generating leads and then they're too lazy to follow them up. So there is a certain cadence with your follow up, right? You don't just call people non stop every day, five days a week. That is what a stalker does. We don't want to be acting like that. However, when a lead comes in, right, they're hot and you want to strike why the iron's hot. So there's a cadence. You might follow up on those people three to five times a day. You might do that for three to four days if you don't get a hold of them. And then you cool off for a few days, maybe a week and then you start it again. So I like to think about my follow up as a rhythm, right? I might follow up very, very hard for a week. A week, week. Cool off, maybe two weeks. And again, I begin the same cadence and the same ritual and go through. It's all about just pushing the deal to a place where the prospect understands that you are never gonna stop following up until you get a decision. And that is tactic number seven, Maniac mode. And if you enjoyed this video, you are gonna absolutely love this. One and a half hour masterclass on sale. Stay dangerous, take action, and I'll see you on the other side.