Facts Don't Sell

I was recently reading an article by James Clear, Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds, and I feel that it resonates well with problems we face in sales. How many times have you sent an email with multiple data points about how you solution can help your prospect?

• X saves customers 75% on their bill
• Increase your time to complete a task by 58% with X
• Customers who switched from Y to X increased their revenue by 82%

On the surface, those all sound like incredibly compelling metrics. Who wouldn’t want to save money, time, or increase their revenue? But the problem is, facts don’t change people’s minds when it is coming from someone they don’t know.?

Think about the last time you overheard a conversation where someone stated something you knew to be blatantly wrong. What are the odds that if you tried to correct that person, that they would change their mind and take your side? About as close to zero as you could get. But what if it was someone you have been friends with for years, I would bet your odds would go up. Why? Because their is mutual trust between friends and more than likely, you probably agree on 98% of topics. This makes it easier for both of you to take what the other says with more validity.

How does this relate back to sales? Think about the last time you cold emailed or called someone, if the first thing you lead with was “we can help you increase your revenue by 57% if you switch to our solution”, you probably got an immediate “not interested”. There is no trust built between you and that person yet you are asking them to completely abandon their “tribe” and change the status quo.

Now, if you were to call someone and start to find common ground (i.e. things that they already believe that you can confirm, or in other words you both agree on), then that trust grows. If you and the customer agree on 90% of the topics, then they are apt to put more value in the differing opinion you present.

Take these two emails for example:

Email 1

Email 2

Which one do you think is getting a response and which is going straight to the trash?

Another point worth touching on is building relationships with people before trying to convince them to change their opinions. This is why face to face meetings, in person meals, and taking clients out to events in person was so big back in the day. You are creating a friendship with your prospect, sharing meals, and becoming “human”. It is a lot harder to blatantly shut someone down when you are staring them in the face and have fond memories with them.

Many people make decisions based on the group of people they are close with. Asking someone to abandon those beliefs is asking them to risk being left out in the cold, unless there is another tribe which they are integrating with. This is why losing to Status Quo happens so often, not many people want to be the one to rock the ship.

At the end of the day, if you are trying to persuade customers with facts without building trust or a bond, you will not get very far in sales. If you focus on creating common ground, building trust, and creating a relationship with the other person, you are more apt to be successful convincing them to change their beliefs.