Harry Keshet, Ph.D. Business Psychologist
www.humaninteractionsolutions.com
keshetconsulting@gmail.com
By using data-driven predictive analytics sales professionals and professional service providers; lawyers, accountants, doctors, and other professionals, can predict the personality and psychological issues driving buying behaviors and develop strategies to increase new business and close complex sales.
Predictive analytics can determine the psychological and emotional makeup of key participants in the sales process to determine how people will act, think, and make decisions in “real-time “and how to use this information to gain new business and close sales.
CASE STUDY: USING PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS TO CLOSE SALES
A sales director, representing a high-end security service company, was struggling for two years to get his proposals approved by the CEO of a nonprofit organization. He hired Human Interaction Solutions to help him close the sale.
Our Research & Insights:
We started the process by gathering intelligence about the CEO from interviewing our client and using public and proprietary databases to gain information about his personality and psychological makeup, educational history and career path, publications, his marital history. The data was processed, consolidated, and organized in a format that is conducive to applying predictive analytics.
Our research and analysis of the CEO’s personality, psychological, and behavioral patterns revealed an intriguing challenge. It was evident that the CEO was highly creative, extremely competent, and a highly regarded thought-leader in his industry, but he was also a disturbed individual. Psychologically, the CEO was likely to suffer from significant personality issues compounded by extremely low self-esteem. We concluded that his unwillingness to approve a proposal was directly tied to the satisfaction of power he felt when he denied vendor proposals from moving forward.
Strategy & Outcome:
Sales is a relational process. The emotional element has long been recognized as playing a prominent role in the sales process and closing a sale. Predictive analytics gained access to subconscious emotional material that guide people’s decisions. We then develop strategies to meet hidden motivations that are often the key to closing sales. We needed to address the CEO’s emotional, psychological, and financial needs.
Human Interaction Solutions developed a strategy for the sales director to use to help the CEO gain respect and positive recognition. The sales director acting on our suggestions took the following actions:
- Hired a publicist to place the CEO’s latest article in a well-known trade journal
- Helped the CEO receive an invitation to testify as an expert before a congressional subcommittee and arranged a recognition after-party.
- Arranged periodic meetings with the CEO to discuss non-sales related security issues to build a non-sales relationship.
- Revised his proposal in a narrative format to include the CEO’s thoughts on security issues, facts, and figures.