Sales Tips for Successful Sale Meetings

4 Ingredients to Creating a Bliss Point in your Sales Meetings

There is always a point in a purchase where your customer will probably not go back. It’s the Bliss Point. Everything they want and imagine around your product is happening inside their brain, inside the conversation that YOU are creating with them. The brain does not distinguish between what is real and imagined.

What is the Bliss Point?

Howard Moskowitz is an American scientist of experimental psychology and coined the phrase The Bliss Point. He discovered the three magic ingredients that got people addicted to food; salt, fat and sugar. Moskowitz discovered through lots of tasting and testing with people that a perfect ratio of salt, fat and sugar would tip people over the edge to The Bliss Point of loving a particular food. It created a feeling that they could never get enough of it, not unlike an addictive substance.

He was the mastermind behind the explosion and love of convenience and junk food. He consistently identified the Bliss Point for enjoying food, while being asked to find a way to limit the waste of food among army staff. This has been a boon for the creators of snack and convenience foods manufactures. Ever tried to eat only two or three crunchy, tasty, irresistible Pringles from that brightly-colored tube?

It got me thinking, well, if that works foods we love… surely there is a cross-over with things we buy in everyday life and the business world. There has to be a magic blend of “ingredients” or actions going on for the buyer to reach their own Bliss Point when they decide to buy something.

The Bliss Point doesn’t have to mean that your buyer is falling over you or your product. But…there is a point where they do positively experience and imagine what life or business could be like if they did make the decision to buy what you are selling. Inside their minds, something does flick the switch. It’s all based on the sights, sounds and emotions evoked while they are in a conversation with you.

What does The Bliss Point have to do with Sales Meetings?

In thinking about sale conversations I have analysed over the years, I started thinking there is maybe more than one Bliss Point in any conversation. Just a thought! You don’t need to buy my idea here.

Your prospective buyer is making tens, if not hundreds, of micro-decisions around the purchase as they speak to you. If you want to test this, watch yourself in a supermarket when you get to checkout; then ask how you got to have products in your basket you didn’t need! As you talked yourself into and justified that extra item staring back at you, you made at least 3 to 4 micro-decisions in the process, where you got the “rush” of how good it would feel to have it. This is what I am talking about in a buying scenario.

So what could the bliss points for your product be? Here are only my suggestions of The Bliss Points in a sales meeting. They may relate to your product or not. Try them out next time your talk to a prospect. You may be surprised at how predictable people are, as Howard Moskowitz discovered, when he looked a little closer at his results.

Bliss Point number 1: Solving the Buyer’s Problem

Everybody feels better when a problem is solved. Right? So start by putting 100% of your focus on the buyer. Make it all about them. Help them solve a burning business or personal issue that make life so much better. When I talk about a burning issue, it’s not necessarily a negative. It could be a problem they can live with, but life would be SO much better if they solved it. A great example is the insatiable appetite for smartphone upgrades. The iPhone 5S is great, but life is SO much better with the iPhone 6 Plus, or so people believe!

For your buyers, it may be a case that they may want to grow faster, do something faster, use technology more efficiently, improve their reputation, expand their customer base, or outsource a process to a third-party more cost-effectively. Before any sales conversation, try and identify at least 3-5 possible burning business issues your buyer might be having that you could solve with your solution.

Bliss Point number 2: Buyer Insights arise from Questions

Ask questions buyers don’t ask themselves. It can sometimes give them insights into their business. Introduce your buyer to new ways of thinking about themselves or their business. The most valuable sales professionals are those who can bring their business acumen and understanding to the table by asking intelligent, thought-provoking questions and insights to the buyer . Above and beyond the price, would your buyer still get enough or more benefits to make them feel like they are getting value, if they were asked questions from a different view point? Here is an example “What could your business create and generate differently with a new way of managing X, Y, Z?” Questions are powerful catalysts for waking up your buyers.

Bliss Point number 3: The Social Proof and the Future Promise

Share real success stories of what your buyer could become, if they bought your offering. Create the scenarios of the future promise that is in store for the buyer. It is important to only use references of what has already happened for other businesses and people who are similar to them. This is where you demonstrate how the burning business or personal issue could go away, just like it did for other people. You show them what they could have. In your marketing platforms, this would be your testimonials, case studies and videos of other happy customers. In your sales conversations, these are the real, verifiable stories and case studies of other people’s success, who bought from you before.

Bliss Point number 4: The Motivated Buyer wants to Buy

Motivation is what gets people to take action. In the buying decision, there is a point where a buyer will be motivated to take the next step and not go back to what the have OR they will halt the buying process. It is important to explore how motivated your buyer is, by exploring what they want less of (pain points) and what they would like more of (gain points) compared to their current solution. This will be captured in how you ask your motivational questions. The questions you ask will trigger the anticipated feeling they are beginning to associate with your product. Here are some “out of context” examples of motivational questions: “What business opportunities could you be missing by doing what you’ve done for the last 2 years?” A positive motivational question would be”What would your business be capable of in the next 12 months with this solution in place?

The key to creating effective sales conversations is your awareness of what is appropriate to the conversation, being authentic and genuinely interested in help your buyers first and you second, and finally always acting from a place of integrity. You exist to create results outside yourself. The reward when you do it right is great sales results, which is probably The Bliss Point you want to experience at the end of every month.