Book excerpt: How will this book benefit you? Sales people often think: If I’m hard-working and honest with my customers, why do I need a better understanding of things like “neuroscience”, “the psychology of trust” and “reverse psychology”? The answer is simple: there are some truly amazing sales people, who go the extra mile to collect their customers at the airport, entertain them at restaurants, tell funny jokes on LinkedIn and then after doing all these things to impress customers, they find out that the customer bought from their competitor who did not do any of these things to impress them. Sometimes the customer can even perceive dedicated sales consultants as being desperate, causing them to lose the deal. Other sales people still attempt to use mental strategies to persuade their customers to buy their products or services and by doing so they seem to forget that resistance to persuasion is a common reaction in all human beings. This results in salespeople failing to close straightforward sales that should have been very easy to close. This is precisely why salespeople need a deeper understanding of how customers think, whom they trust, and why they decide to buy. Appreciating these concepts will give you a real edge as a salesperson: you will gain the confidence and proficiency to take your sales performance to the highest level. All the techniques found in this book focus on smarter sales, not harder sales. Hopefully, by the end of this book you will have understood that sales success does not depend on your desire to sell or on how hard you try. Rather, it depends on your ability to understand the mechanisms that underlie the buying process. You will learn to be a smarter salesperson, who is confident and relaxed and can dextrously use a handful of strategies leading to success. What this book is NOT about Now let’s be clear about something: some people think that this book is about the dark side of sales. However, this is not the case. Au contraire, if you are stuck in a pattern where you are currently using questionable sales techniques that are making good money but is bad for your reputation, you’re about to learn new methods that are more effective and will give you an excellent reputation instead. The methods described in this book are insightful rather than dubious. Who is this book for? There are three groups of people who will benefit tremendously from reading this book. Firstly, if you already work in sales and perform well, but somehow find that over time your reputation is suffering in the process. Secondly, if you are totally new to sales and would like to get it right from the start, with this book you can learn to master the psychology of selling so that you never struggle in this profession. Thirdly, if you work in sales, have a good reputation, but you need to increase your conversion rate to see better performance, this book will allow you to fine-tune your selling approach. Cautionary notes The tactics explained in this book are best used when selling a credible product or service to the right prospect. Please don’t abuse these tactics to try and manipulate buyers into spending their money on inferior products that they will regret buying. After all, it is your responsibility to preserve your long-term reputation as a sales professional.