The Science of Selling

I am a scientist-turned-into-salesperson. That transition happened two years ago after I finished my doctoral work in neuroscience. I decided to put lab work behind, and utilize my scientific background to sell scientific tools to Pharma and Biotech companies.

I did some research and looked for a suitable basics book for me as a starter. The amount of motivational and professional sales resources is practically endless. There are many recipes that sound helpful, but they lacked the tone of science. They were mostly recollections of personal anecdotes more than a concrete guide of approaches that could be replicated. Eventually I was rewarded by stumbling on a book that hit the right spot, “The Science of Selling” by David Hoffeld. I would like to share my impressions of that book in this article, aiming at helping sales professionals get a well-structured viewpoint of sales.

The book rejects rooting itself in selling, and instead departs from buying; how do we make a decision to buy something? How can a sales professional influence buyers in a way that supports them in deciding more efficiently?

To influence somebody, we may have concrete arguments that are structured in a way that makes them irrefutable (we have a clear message), or we don’t. When we don’t, we refer to instinctive mind tricks (outside the message) that eases the other person into action and dissolves indecisiveness. The author calls the former the central route, and the latter the peripheral route. In addition, there is an emotional grid that must be monitored in order for both previous routes to work. Hereby I review those three influence faculties.

Our brains have limited energy for virtually innumerable amount of decisions. If we use our brains to evaluate every single decision in our day, exhaustion is inevitable. Therefore, our brains are smart enough to create some shortcuts; some saved patterns that reduces the load of decision making. They are called heuristics. They indeed conserve energy, but they do not always stand the…

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