Physics Collide with Sales

Sir Isaac Newton developed the pendulum theory, and its contribution is not only applied in science but in sales as well. The late David Sandler of SSI brought the idea to the world of sales. The theory states that a body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion.

As applied to sales, the theory conjectures that at its height, a prospect’s momentum can’t be indefinitely sustained and will ultimately swing in the opposite direction. What this means is that it is critical to time your information and your proposals accordingly since the interest level of prospects will ultimately peak. Timing of information must correspond to when prospects will make their decision so that you can maintain your leverage and control.

The way you stabilize and curb your prospect’s enthusiasm and prevent them from prematurely peaking is you apply subtle negative selling. The following are some examples:

• “Help me understand why you think now is the right time to consider change.”
• “Aren’t you going to run into problems running this up the chain of command?”

The importance of this to your sales strategy can be in three areas: a positive prospect, a negative prospect and a neutral prospect. Let’s first look at how this applies to a positive prospect:

Positive Prospect

With a positive prospect you establish control by constantly challenging and questioning your prospect’s goals and motives. You do this in a very nurturing and non-combative way. This strategy of subtle negative selling creates an environment where you are not selling to advance your agenda, but you are attempting to have your prospect be clear on the pros and cons of changing and letting them self-examine their reasons for changing. Subtle negative selling allows prospects to do all the work and to sell themselves, or to convince themselves that change is not in their best interest. The salesperson therefore becomes a facilitator and a manager of change without a personal agenda. This is what relationship selling is all about.

Too frequently salespeople become overly enthusiastic when they sense that a prospect is interested and they completely lose leverage and momentum by prematurely solving problems and giving out proposals to prospects who are not ready to change.

As the pendulum and the prospect’s interest swing toward the positive, the savvy salesperson will apply strategies to control their prospect’s positive inclinations so that they can cover all their bases and provide a final solution at the optimum time. Before presenting final proposals, a salesperson will need to determine whether the prospect has the means, the authority, the motive, the support, and the proper timing before they present their solution. The strategy is akin to a swimmer who is training for the Olympics. Their goal in the early meets is to place strong, but they don’t want to peak. They save their energy for the finals where it really counts. They work hard to avoid peaking prematurely.

Negative Prospect

Many salespeople, when faced with a negative prospect, will stereotypically push hard and furiously. If they were cognizant of Newton’s theory, they would do the exact opposite. Since things in motion tend to stay in motion, the most effective way to deal with a negative prospect is to be like-minded and match their negativity. The following are some examples:

Prospect: “We have no interest. We have been with XYZ for 10 years and are satisfied.”

Salesperson: “Sounds like you aren’t a good prospect for now. Since you’ve been dealing with XYZ for 10 years, I assume you must be very happy with their advanced technology.” You mention advanced technology because you know it’s their Achilles’ heel.

Prospect: “We have only veteran and experienced salespeople.”

Salesperson: “Sounds like you’d have no reason to change anything since you have high performing salespeople. Before I hang up with you, would you give me the courtesy to confirm that we won’t be of any help to you? Typically, when companies have veteran salespeople, the only reason they’d consider changing is they have peaked and aren’t bringing in any new business to grow the business, or they are doing very well, but they aren’t selling at healthy margins and they are giving away the business. I don’t suppose any of these situations have raised their ugly head, have they?”

Instead of pushing against your prospect, you try to go with the flow and agree with their position. You try to redirect with questions that might uncover gaps in their expectations. Savvy salespeople intuitively know that the more they resist a prospect the more a prospect will persist in their position.

Utilizing reverse psychology in a nurturing, caring and unobtrusive way will be effective in neutralizing your prospect’s defense mechanisms. Your goal is not to change their mind or to answer their objections. Your goal is to pose and present scenarios that they are not aware of or are in denial of. If a prospect is intractable and unwilling to be engaged, the worst thing you can do is to go against their belief system and try to convince them otherwise.

The Pendulum Theory is similar to the concept behind all the martial arts. You destabilize your opponent not by attacking, rather, by falling back. Instead of being aggressive, you are passive aggressive. This strategy works well only if you believe that your mandate is not to sell but to let the prospect do their own selling.

Neutral Prospect

A neutral prospect is probably the hardest prospect to sell. Their posture is very wish-washy, non-committal and fraught with inertia. They have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. They are in dead man’s land, which is the kiss of death for any salesperson.

Typically, neutral prospects sound like the following:

• “We are always open to new ideas.”
• “Send me a proposal and we will consider it.”
• “It can’t hurt to look around.”
• “You never know, things can change when you least expect it.”
• “We never like to close the door to new ideas.”

So often, prospects will prompt salespeople to react and have them waste their time and energy chasing phantom opportunities. The following are some examples of a neutral prospect interacting with a salesperson who uses Newton’s Pendulum Theory

Prospect: “We are always open to new ideas.”

Salesperson: “You’ve succeeded in the past without changing, why would you consider changing now?”

Prospect: “Why don’t you submit some numbers and we’ll take a look at them? If you are the low bidder we’ll certainly consider you.”

Salesperson: “We are never the lowest. Assuming we are going to be higher, does it even make sense for us to submit a proposal? Why?”

Whether you are dealing with a positive, negative or neutral prospect, it‘s always a safe and sound strategy to apply subtle negative selling when applicable to control the momentum of your prospect’s interest. You curb your prospect’s enthusiasm when they are dangerously overly-interested by subtly taking them negative. When your prospect is negatively responding, you don’t resist them, you move with them, by subtly moving with them in a negative direction. When your prospect is dead center and neutral, you meet them in the center, while still being subtly negative. As you can see, going negative can work effectively in just about any sales scenario.