You’re Not a Mind Reader

What is mind reading in Sales?

Mind reading in sales is assuming what your potential buyer might be thinking or what way they are leaning. This is never a good tactic because you ARE NOT a mind reader and honestly are probably assuming the wrong thing. If you do assume it can lead to you coming on too strong as a salesperson and then scaring away the customers.

Other Reasons not to Assume…

Assuming can lead to you misjudging a customer’s needs and them not ultimately receiving a product or service that fulfills their hole. This would be a big issue as solving a customer’s pain correctly is a huge goal in the sales process.

Another thing that assumption could lead to is the lack of upselling or cross-selling. You could simply assume that a customer needs option A when maybe they were eyeing up the better option B that would’ve benefited both sides.

Things like this could lead to customer dissatisfaction or even a loss of trust between the two sides of the sale. This would not only be devastating to the current sale but possibly to those to come as well.

Ways to Avoid Mind Reading

Ask more questions to find out what the person means. You might feel like you are dumb when you ask the questions initially, but you aren’t. Both sides will fare better in the end when you fully understand what the potential customer means. Asking qusetions like “Tell me more about that” is an easy way to get more information and is a way better than assuming what they meant. Also using leading words is a good way to ease into it. Saying “and that’s important because…” is a good way to set up the other person in the sales conversation

Moral of the story is to not assume what people are thinking and instead use the helpful tips above to find out what actual people are actually thinking.