Sales Intuition, Memory & Chester

 I consider myself fortunate. I have the privilege to work with the top salespeople at the world’s greatest companies. Yet recently I spent some time with the most motivated people I have ever met—the MBA students at UC Berkeley’s Haas business school where I teach the art and science of sales (Go Bears!).

 We had some incredible guest speakers this past semester. VPs of sales, CEOs, and  Chester. Chester fascinates me. You see, Chester Santos is the 2008 USA National Memory Champ. In a matter of minutes Chester can memorize a deck of playing cards, hundreds of random words, and match a mindboggling combination of names to faces. You can learn more about him by clicking here.

 

 As salespeople, we spend most of our time trying to predict the behavior, intentions, attitudes, and feelings of our customers. In essence, the goal of every salesperson is to be able to anticipate the future. The “tool” you use to accomplish this is your “sales intuition.” Memory plays a fundamental role in determining the strength of your sales intuition. The ability to store more sales call experiences in your memory will actually strengthen your sales intuition.  In honor of Chester, I once again share six principles to help improve your sales call memory:

    

Sensory information. During the sales call, consciously gather as much information as possible from your sight, sound, and touch senses. A vivid event is more likely to be memorized than a dull one, and the more sensory information that is incorporated into your memories, the higher your likelihood of recording it.

    

Association. Thoughts and experiences are more readily recalled when they are linked to a specific association. A very simple association would be the success or failure of the call. The association may be further defined by the customers’ technical and business requirements or their objections to purchasing your product.

   

Specificity. The persistence of a memory is directly related to the precision of details that are input at the time of the experience. During a sales call, you may even want to tell yourself that some information is important and is not to be forgotten.

 

Unique events. Many sales calls are free-flowing events that lack a strict organization of facts. Therefore, it is easier to remember any unusual and unique aspects of a sales call that stand out from the ordinary and mundane.

   

First and last. Most salespeople are quick to remember how a sales call began (the big opening) and how it ended (the grand finale). This is a natural characteristic of memory, whereby we tend to remember the information that is presented first and last more than the details in between. This particularly applies to longer sales calls, more than an hour. One way to help remember all of the in-between information is to mentally break the sales call into smaller segments (or chunks) either by time, presenter, or topic of discussion.

     

The good, the bad, and the ugly. Be forewarned, your brain has been trained to block out unpleasant images. However, it is critical that all information during a sales call, both good and bad, be stored.

  

Never forget, how something is remembered will determine how much is remembered.

Comments

[Adam]

For those of us older sales guys, a CRM can make up for fading memory skills.

Thanks for taking the time to write this. I really enjoyed it.

-Adam

[Ben]

An outline of the interview, saved in your CRM, will definitely help fill in those middle details. I like to read through the history notes of a contact before any call or meeting. I don't like to rely solely on my memory, even if I'm their only point of contact.