Episode #014: A Buyer’s Unspoken Fears with Barbara Weaver Smith

Jeff: We’ve all heard it, what you don’t know won’t hurt you, right? When it comes to your customers, nothing could be further from the truth. Stay tuned.

Announcer: Welcome to “The Buyer’s Mind” where we take a closer look deep inside your customer’s decision-making mechanism to reverse engineer the perfect sales presentation. Now, please welcome your host, Jeff Shore.

Jeff: Welcome, everyone, to “The Buyer’s Mind” where we take a look at exactly what’s going on in the brains of our prospects who are considering a purchase decision. And that’s really what this podcast is all about. It’s about taking a stroll through the buyer’s mind. It’s about knowing the customers so well that, that sale begins to roll out right in front of you, but we’d like to have a little fun and celebrate this wonderful, mystical, wacky world of sales along the way.

I’m your host, Jeff Shore. You can read the full bio in the show notes. You can also jump over to jeffshore.com, and while you’re there, you can make sure you sign up for our free weekly video newsletter every Saturday morning. A little inspiration, some questions answered, and all kinds of fun stuff on Saturday morning. So, you can sign up for that on, jeffshore.com. Joined, as always, by our show producer, Paul Murphy. Murph, how are you doing today?

Paul: Hey, doing great. Great to be here.

Jeff: Let me ask you, Murph, how do you keep up with stuff in the tech world? I mean, you seem to know everything there is to know about tech stuff. How do you keep up with a world that evolves so quickly?

Paul: You know, YouTube is great because there are short little videos to kinda help you keep up with stuff. Google, of course, when you’re looking for things, but, you know, I think it’s funny that nothing quite replaces reading. With all the new fangled technology, most of what I learn is gleaned from reading. At least that’s how I try to stay on top of it, and I usually find an area of tech that I wanna stay on top of, and I read the most about that, because it’s impossible to stay on top of all of it.

Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. No question about it, it’s interesting. When you look at how quickly things are evolving, it’s gotta be a big task just to be able to stay on top of it. But yours is a complicated world sometimes, yes?

Paul: Sometimes, sometimes.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah. Well, we’re glad you’re doing what you’re doing. Hey, before I forget to mention, make sure you stay with us because we always, always give something away at the end of the podcast. We’re going to, with this episode as well, so make sure you stay with us.

Let’s get to our quote of the day to get started, and I love this. This is from Marcus Aurelius. This is the Roman leader, Marcus Aurelius, and this is what he says, “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it. And this, you have the power to revoke at any moment.” We’ve got a corresponding quote, of course, that we could give you from FDR that says, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” But, “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it. And this, you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

For your customers, I would suggest this fear is as real as they allow it to be. The job of the sales professional is to understand the basis of the fear and to provide hope and confidence in its place. That’s really the great sales exchange. The customer brings fear, the salesperson brings confidence. And I really think that this is where the term sales counselor comes into play. It’s about understanding the fear first and then about providing a remedy that raises that customer’s confidence. And I happen to think that confidence is one of the most underrated and underappreciated aspects of greatness in sales.

We think confidence is about boasting and bravado, and just saying, “I’m good enough. I’m smart…” That’s not the case. Confidence is the intersection of belief and mastery. Let me repeat that, confidence is the intersection of belief and mastery. When I believe very strongly about what I’m doing, about why I’m doing it, and when I have mastered the way in which I do it, the result is confidence. I’m not faking it. It’s justified. It’s well founded. But now, I bring that belief and I bring that mastery to a customer, and my confidence helps with their fear. So if you’re dealing with customers who have a lot of fear, and we’re gonna talk about that on today’s podcast, then you really wanna ask yourself, “Is my confidence strong enough to overcome the customer’s fear?” Confidence is contagious, and you have to have enough confidence for you and your customer.

Well, we wanna let you know that the podcast is brought to you, in part, by our good friends at HomeStreet Bank. This is our show sponsor, but this is also my lender of choice. I used HomeStreet in my last home purchase, and I will tell you, smoothest transaction ever, and I’ve purchased quite a few homes. They were professional. They were dependable. Really great rates, but it was the service that really made them stand apart. And if you’re a real estate professional, you’re not gonna find better people to work with in taking care of your clients, and I know that that’s what matters to you. And they could do it all: banking, home loans, credit lines, whatever you need. Go to homestreetbank.com. You can learn more. That is, homestreetbank.com.

Well, before we get to our interview, let’s talk about our sales tip of the day. And in our tip of the day, and I wanna take a little time unpacking this because I wanna understand the role of fear in the buying process. So, if I can understand the role of fear from the buyer’s perspective, then I can tailor my sales presentation in order to handle that. That’s the idea. We teach at Shore Consulting this formula, that people buy when their current dissatisfaction times their future promise is greater than their cost plus their fear, okay? So you’ve got motivating factors, current dissatisfaction and the future promise that work together, they’re multiplied together, and those two things have to be greater than the cost and the fear.

So, when we think about that formula, we see that on the inhibitor side: cost and fear, fear is the single most compelling inhibitor to a purchase decision. Now, the customer might talk about cost, but it’s really fear that holds them back. It’s fear of change. It’s fear of salespeople. It’s fear of making a mistake. It’s fear of timing. It’s fear of making the wrong choice over a competitor, I mean, there are all kinds of fears that are gonna well up here. So, what do we wanna do about that? How do we deal with that fear?

Well, I’m gonna suggest to you right from the very beginning, you cannot deal with fear that you do not understand. So, when you have developed the trust relationship, which we all know is critical to being the counselors that we wanna be, you wanna be straightforward with this. When you think about moving forward and buying, with this product, and you place yourself six months into the future, what excites you and what scares you? This is the type of question that I could ask a customer with whom we have a trust relationship. Now, be careful about this. Because if there isn’t a significant amount of trust, it’s gonna sound like you learned it at a training class and it’s gonna come out cheesy, “Hey, when you think about moving forward with a purchase decision, and you place yourself six months into the future, what excites you and what scares you?” That’s how it’s gonna come off. But if I’m truly consultative, if I’m truly thinking in terms of a counselor, I really wanna know, what is it that excites them in the future, what scares them in the future? Be direct.

Now, look, the relationship has to be there, but what it is, leverage that. The more you can get your customer to be honest about their fear, the better prepared you are to serve at the highest level. Think of you, think of yourself as a consumer and you’re walking onto a car lot, or you’re attending a timeshare presentation. Now, look, there are a lot of really good people in this businesses and the fear that I might have walking onto a car lot or a timeshare presentation, is based on either experience, or stories, or phobias, or whatever it is. We carry that fear. That’s normal. But your customer owes you nothing just like you don’t owe anything to that car salesperson, or the timeshare salesperson. The burden is 100% on you. It’s on the salesperson to break through that fear.

So we establish that trust first, in order to get to that point. But once the trust is established, I wanna encourage you to be very straightforward in ascertaining the fear, in asking about the fear, in trying to figure out what the mental hang-ups that, that customer will share. And then when they do share, thank them for that. I mean, they’ve just done you a tremendous favor. Thank them for that and tell them, “I can help you so much more when I understand what’s holding you back. So, thank you for trusting me with that. It’s gonna help me a lot in helping you.”

Before we get to our interview, I want to tell you about an opportunity here, and that’s to be involved in our 4:2 Formula Academy. This is an intensive training program, specifically for real estate sales professionals, where we’re using modern selling strategies as skills just for today’s buyers, just for today’s market. The 4:2 Formula is the core real estate principle that we talk about at Shore Consulting, but it’s gonna give you several days, and, actually, spread out over the course of an entire quarter, a program that allow you to just transform your presentation. We’ve put so many people through the 4:2 Formula Academy, always with tremendous results. You can go to jeffshore.com/events to learn more about the 4:2 Formula Academy.

Well, let’s get to our interview. We’re thrilled to have with me Dr. Barbara Weaver Smith. Barbara is the founder and CEO of The Whale Hunters, also wrote the book called, “Whale Hunting,” very, very interesting. And we’re thrilled to bring her on to talk about the buyer’s unspoken fears and what that means. Barbara, thanks so much for being on the program. Glad to have you here.

Barbara: Oh, I’m thrilled to be with you, Jeff.

Jeff: You know, you started out in your career, you didn’t start in the sales arena. You actually started as a professor and a college dean.

Barbara: I did.

Jeff: How does one make that transition, and what did you find in your career in the academic world that has translated well into what you do now?

Barbara: Well, actually, a lot of things. I was an English professor, okay? So, you’d probably think that’s the furthest thing from being a salesperson, but I concentrated on the part of teaching writing, teaching freshmen how to write their dreaded freshman…you know, their three-paragraph, five-paragraph theme.

Jeff: Sure.

Barbara: But, really, the background of that was Aristotle, and he’s kind of the real father of sales, because he was the original teacher of the art of persuasion. So, really, I’ve been in sales forever, just didn’t start as a practitioner.

Jeff: Got it. Got it, but the dots are now connected. Fascinating.

Barbara: They sure are.

Jeff: And you’re right. I think there are a whole lot of salespeople out there who are like, “Oh, English class. No. Kill me now. That’s why I’m in sales, so I don’t have to deal with the English professors anymore.” Let’s get into the topic here that I wanna get to here, as we’re looking at the unspoken fears of our buyers. And the formula that I teach, it states that people are gonna buy when their current dissatisfaction times their future promise is greater than their cost and fear. And we tend to think that the cost is usually the great inhibitor because that’s what customers talk about, but you suggested fear has a far more crippling effect. Tell me about that.

Barbara: Yeah. I don’t disagree with your formula. I think it’s a very reasonable formula. But I definitely think that fear is much, much more important than cost. I agree with you that cost is what people talk about because it’s so easy to talk about that. But, really, very seldom is cost the…at least the last factor that it comes down to. That’s just an easy excuse, and I think it has a lot to do with everyday buyers, too. And their bottom line was that making a buying decision is all about avoiding risk. And I think that’s true most of the time.

Jeff: Let’s talk about the unspoken fear here, because…I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, but is your contention that the fear is, oftentimes, unspoken, because when you look at the emotion of fear, it doesn’t really have a language to it, that is it resides in our brain in a way that I’m feeling fear, but I don’t know necessarily, even how to describe it. Is that part of the reason why fear remains unspoken much of the time?

Barbara: I think that’s probably part of it. I also think it’s because I don’t wanna talk about it. You know, I’m afraid to buy this because I’m afraid of making a mistake. I’m afraid of looking foolish. I don’t wanna tell you that. I mean, I might actually know that. You know, it may not be lurking in my subconscious. I might be very aware of it, but I don’t wanna talk to you, the salesperson, about that.

Jeff: Is this a basic trust issue in your opinion?

Barbara: I think it’s more a self-preservation issue that the salesperson needs to address in a different way than you might address a trust issue.

Jeff: So, tell me more about that. What can a sales professional do to even encourage the sharing of fear, or should that be the goal of a salesperson to get the customer to share their fear?

Barbara: Good point. I think you have to encourage the sharing of it. And, for example, if you assume that people may be afraid of making a mistake, you might bring that up and give them reasons why they needn’t be. For example, if you have a guarantee, if you have a 10-days return policy or something, that’s the way to mitigate that fear. You know, if you wake up tomorrow and you wish you hadn’t done that, you can bring it back, that kind of thing. You know, those are typical things that companies do to mitigate that fear of making a mistake.

Jeff: Yeah. You know, I find it really interesting because that fear can be so crippling. It can absolutely paralyze us. And, at times, we just…we’re not even quite sure where that fear is based or where it’s coming from. And I think that’s what really intrigues me, is that, you know, it’s one thing if I say, “I’ve got this real fear and I don’t wanna share it with the salesperson,” but there’s a whole another state here of unconscious fear, right, or non-conscious fear that, I suppose, we all carry around to some extent.

Barbara: People are afraid of change. They’re more afraid of change than they are of their current dissatisfaction. A lot of times you lose a sale to…rather than losing it to some other choice, you lose it to the choice to do nothing. Doesn’t that drive you crazy?

Jeff: Yeah.

Barbara: If you sell technology, you might come up against fear of more work. I just recently installed the Microsoft 365 Business Premium in my workplace computer. So I was using the Microsoft 365 Home version and I wanted to upgrade, and I had been putting that up for a long time because I knew it was gonna be a big project for me to do that, and it was. It was a whole lot more work than I anticipated.

Jeff: You were talking about some of those fears that are out there. Do you think that one of those fears is just the fear of salespeople? Because, you know, I’m thinking back to, you know, Daniel Pink’s book, for example, “To Sell is Human.” And he talks about that bias that people have. Just that mindset, “I’m gonna talk to a salesperson. I don’t like that very much. I have a fear of salespeople in general,” and it affects even the way that they have that conversation. Do you think that’s part of it?

Barbara: I think that’s absolutely true, I think, and especially in certain settings, people still, I think, hate to buy cars, don’t they? You know what it’s supposed to be. Everybody knows. It’s so transparent these days and still there are dealerships where salespeople go through those motions that nobody believes anymore. And so, I think you do have those deep-seated feelings of mistrust in a lot of circumstances.

Jeff: How much should we, as sales professionals, confront this fear? How direct do you think we can be? Is it healthy to say to a customer, “Look, you know what? I can help you so much more. I can be of so much more service to you if I understand what keeps you up at night, if I can understand what your fears are about making a decision. The more I understand about this, the more I can help.” How direct should a salesperson be in that process?

Barbara: I have never found that, “what keeps you up at night” question to get me very good answers, because they don’t necessarily know. I like to use examples of some people. I have found some people find it hard to make this decision because they worry about X, Y, Z. And so, here’s what we do for them, you know, or here’s how we explain that, or this is what we can do to make sure that’s not a problem for you. That’s how I would address it, typically.

Jeff: One of the things that I find interesting is the fear associated with anticipated regret, the “what if” fear. And this is a very difficult one because, as a buyer, I don’t really know exactly how to quantify that or even how to categorize that. But I’m of the opinion, more and more, that, that anticipated regret, when it is left unchecked, will really just shut down a buyer. They can’t move forward because that anticipated regret is sort of looming over their head. Is that making sense?

Barbara: Oh, yes, absolutely. Sometimes that’s a fear of conflict. Is there someone else in the background that’s going to help them feel regret, that you don’t know about? You know, somebody…is there a spouse? Is there a parent? Is there a roommate? You know, somebody else who…or a child, if it’s an older person. You know, somebody else who might take issue with their decision.

Jeff: Right. The fear, obviously, resides in the emotional part of the brain. So, how much can you overcome the emotion-based fear with logic-based fact, or do you have to approach it more from matching a positive emotion against the negative emotion?

Barbara: If someone is afraid of making a mistake, then one of the things you do is offer them a guarantee. Now, a guarantee is a logical and rational thing. And so, you express the guarantee in terms of, if this is not to your satisfaction or if it turns out to be not what you expected from us, then, you know, we will make it right, or we will take it back. We don’t say, “If you change your mind.” You know, we don’t present it as an emotional thing. We present it as a logical thing.

Jeff: Yeah. And that certainly makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, you’re really triggering a negative emotion in your customer’s mind.

Barbara: Yeah. Because people want to believe that they’re making a rational decision. They need to convince themselves that they’re making a rational decision. They’ll believe they’re making a rational decision. And it’s important to allow them to believe that.

Jeff: How did you get to the point of really wanting to take this deeper dive and to, specifically, specialize in the area of the fear of a buying decision?

Barbara: Well, mostly, I learned it through working with my clients. So I work with small and mid-sized companies and I help them grow by learning to sell big deals to big customers, and so, they work with teams of buyers. And so, I’ve had a lot of experience with…not so much with individual consumers, but with people who represent their company on a buying decision. Since I’m representing small companies, see, they have to overcome the fears because the fallback position for the buyers is to buy from somebody big and well-known, because then, they won’t get in trouble.

Jeff: Sure.

Barbara: So if they buy from somebody small and unknown, they’re elevating their level of risk. Human psychology is interesting, anyway, don’t you think?

Jeff: Sure.

Barbara: Salespeople are endlessly interested in how other people behave.

Jeff: Right. Well, let’s wrap it up talking about salespeople for just a moment, because, you know, we’ve been having all these conversation all around the psychology of the buyer and the fear of the buyer, but the salespeople have their own fears that they carry with, and that are gonna influence their behavior, that they’re gonna…it’s gonna dictate the way that they’re staying mentally and emotionally strong, even for their own customer. What advice do you have for salespeople to make sure that their fear is not getting in the way of their own effectiveness?

Barbara: If you’re struggling in a relationship or if there’s a point in which you have trouble in a lot of sales, you know, look to yourself or, you know, look to your mentor to see if there’s something that you’re displaying that’s getting in your way.

Jeff: Sure. Great stuff, Barbara. Thank you so much for your insight, for your wisdom. I really, really appreciate it, really good having you on the show.

Barbara: Oh, it’s been my great pleasure, Jeff.

Jeff: Thank you so much.

Barbara: Thanks so much.

Jeff: All right. Hey, Murph, any immediate reactions? What do you think about that conversation?

Paul: Well, I mean, I totally relate to the customer being fearful a lot. That’s me, right? You know, I don’t wanna look like a fool. I don’t wanna make a mistake. I don’t want my wife to think, “Oh, you messed up.” Just all these fears exist inside of me.

Jeff: So you really resonated as the consumer, in that case, looking at it and saying, “Yeah, I know what that feels like?”

Paul: Yeah. I do know how that feels like. That is totally where I’m at.

Jeff: Okay. So, I would throw it back to you then, Murph, and say, the expression of that fear to a salesperson, does that become a fear itself to you?

Paul: You know, I’m cautious about what I wanna share with them. I don’t wanna say the wrong thing and admit my ignorance in certain areas, you know, so I’m just fearful going into the whole setup.

Jeff: You know, what I find interesting is that…I wanna go back to episode two of “The Buyer’s Mind.” We had Steven Gaffney who is a communications expert, and his specialty is about honesty and honest communication. And one of the things that Steven Gaffney was talking about was it’s not so much of the lie, it’s the things that are not said, the things that are held back. And he affirmed that in that conversation, much like Barbara did, to say that there is a trust barrier that is often there that’s gonna cause somebody to just hold back. And I’m assuming, Murph, that if you’re in that situation, you have a significant amount of trust in your salesperson upfront, you’re more likely to share what your concerns are.

Paul: Absolutely. If I know my salesperson and I know that I can trust him with things, I’m gonna share more. But if I don’t know them and I’m just getting into the relationship, then I’m not as likely to let it all hang out.

Jeff: Yeah. It’s interesting to me, too, that there is a withholding of information at times, based on the fear of what the salesperson is gonna do with that information. So, for example, if I’m a consumer and a salesperson asks about my budget too early in the process and it’s out of sequence, then I’m like, “Boy, that information is gonna get used against me.” So, at that point, what am I gonna do? Probably, not gonna tell him or I’ll just lie. And I think that this is what happens if there’s a lack of trust, either we won’t answer or we’ll give a false answer. So, I think it all comes back to the same thing. If we really wanna understand what our customer’s experience is like and we really wanna get to the fear, then the path to fear goes on the road of trust, because establishing trust is really the antidote to fear.

One of the things that we teach at Shore Consulting is that concept, early on, of being coffee-worthy, what we call coffee-worthy. The idea that, you know, “I’m not trying to make my new BFF or find a vacation buddy. I just wanna know that, a few minutes into the conversation, that this customer would wanna have a cup of coffee with me,” right? And when you think about it, if you think about the people that you wanna have a cup of coffee with, what are the attributes? You think about people that are fun, interesting, informative, interested in you, good listeners, good sense of humor. All those things that we wanna have a cup of coffee with, it’s the same thing for salespeople, the same attributes that we would want for salespeople. And once we’re in that environment, then the trust is there.

I would take it one step further for sales professionals who are just trying to chew on this and asking the question, you know, “How much can I ask about fear?” Well, I would put it back on you and ask, “How much of a professional are you?” I’m not challenging you with whether or not you are professional in your demeanor. That’s not the point. How much of a professional are you? You see, my doctor, my accountant, my attorneys, they’re gonna ask me really personal questions, right? They’re gonna ask me questions that in other environments would be very, very uncomfortable, and I would not wanna answer other people. So, if just anybody random that I met throughout the course of the day asks me how much money I make, I’m very uncomfortable at answering that question. But when my accountant asks me, there’s no problem. I just tell him, because I see him in that role.

So if you see yourself as the professional, then it really does give you reason to ask the questions. You have your job to do and you have to ask these questions in order to be able to serve your customer best. So, if you’re established, the trust relationship is there, you’re coffee-worthy, you’re established as the professional, then you can ask the questions. You can ask about their fear, the same way that your doctor would ask about your pain or your accountant would ask about your finances. Trust yourself. Just get to that point where if I am of that mindset where I’ve got that trust relationship with my customer, then I’ve got to ask the question.

Well, before we head into the wrap-up, let me just ask you this. What are your fears? If you’re a salesperson, you’re listening right now, what are your fears? What stands in your way? And the follow-up question to that, what stories do you tell yourself to justify those fears? What stories are you telling yourself that speak to what you can and cannot do in your career and in your life?

I’ll give you an example. I’ve been an ice hockey fan since I was a very small kid. I’ve always loved ice hockey, but I’ve never played. And you know why? Because I didn’t know how to ice skate. And I would say to myself, “Oh boy. I’d love to play hockey.” Now, was that true? Did I really, did I really want… “Oh, I wish I could play hockey.” I would say that, “I wish I could play hockey.” Did I? Did I really wish I could play hockey? Because I’m gonna suggest to you that if I really wish I play hockey, you know what I would do? I’ll play hockey. But I didn’t. I didn’t. I fell in love with the sport when I was, I don’t know, five years old. And even into my early 50s, what did I say? “I don’t know how to skate. It would take too long.” And the story just kept evolving. “Well, I’m too old to learn how to skate and play hockey now.” That’s the idea. It was until I turned 52 years old before I looked at him and said, “This is stupid. These are stories that I’m telling myself.” And so, I changed my story. I’m bold enough to do it anyway. “You know what? This is gonna be a great story. The guy who, at age 52, didn’t know how to ice skate could not go on the ice without grabbing the wall. That guy is gonna learn how to play hockey.” I changed the story and the actions followed suit.

And I wanna ask you, what negative stories are you telling yourself? What are those fears that are standing in the way? The fears manifest themself in stories, so figure out the stories and you’ll trace them back to the fear. I look at playing hockey. You know what the fear was, more than anything else? The fear of looking stupid, the fear of looking stupid. And how often does the fear of looking stupid completely stand in our way and prevent us from living the life that we could lead and that we are really supposed to lead? Because of the fear of looking stupid. Now, I’m out there every Sunday night. I’m like a little kid wishing that I had started playing hockey 30 years ago.

Now, look, don’t wish down the road what you should have done. Determine the stories that you’re telling yourself that are not healthy. Trace them back to those fears. Then, go back and rewrite the great stories. It’s a great way for you to turn the page and do something spectacular.

All right, well, listen. At the beginning of this show, I told you that we were running a contest. You have the chance to win the Bose QuietComfort 25, Acoustic Noise-Cancelling Headphones. I love these headphones. I wear them when I’m traveling. I wear them when I’m listening to a podcast or when I wanna hear the strongest quality in my music. So, for the winner, you could take your choice of either the over-the-ear or the noise-cancelling ear buds, so you can listen to “The Buyer’s Mind” Podcast while you’re working out, while you’re going for a run, whatever it is. You get both a physical and a mental workout at the same time. So I’m giving away several Shore Consulting swag bag sets, my five books, a coffee mug, my motivational CD, and a bag to carry it all in, but one grand prize winner will win the QuietComfort headphones as well.

So, all you have to do is download “The Buyer’s Mind” episodes on iTunes. So go to iTunes, download the episodes, subscribe to the podcast, and then just leave a quick review. It’s gonna take you all of 30 seconds. Once you’ve done that, go to jeffshore.com/podcast and click on the Contest link. It will just ask you for your email address and the name that you used for the review on iTunes so that we can pick the winners. We’re gonna give away 10 swag bags with the books and the mug, and the CD and everything else. And then the grand prize, you’ll have your choice of either the Bose QuietComfort 25, Acoustic Noise-Cancelling Headphones, or the noise-cancelling QuietComfort 20 Ear Buds. So, there you go. Get on that right away.

All right, that’s a wrap on this episode of “The Buyer’s Mind.” Hope you enjoyed our podcast. Until next time, go out there and change someone’s world.