Sales Success Through Authenticity and Emotional Connection featuring David Priemer
33m 14s
In this episode of "Selling From The Heart," hosts Daryl Aimee and Larry Levine welcome back David Primer, a former Salesforce VP and author known for "cerebral selling." Primer discusses how authenticity and emotional connection are critical in modern sales, especially as product features become overwhelming. He challenges the notion that the best product always wins, citing research that customers often choose based on feelings—such as the desire to feel smart, secure, or aligned with a market leader—rather than objective value. Primer introduces the concept of "hidden insights," where salespeople act like doctors, identifying unspoken challenges or fears that customers won’t articulate, such as a CIO’s anxiety about AI strategy. By addressing these hidden needs, sellers create a positive emotional experience that builds trust and drives decisions. The conversation underscores that the buying experience itself is the true product, and that authenticity—not just product knowledge—is the key to winning in today’s distracted, choice-saturated market. Primer’s approach blends science with empathy, encouraging sellers to lead with genuine connection rather than rehearsed pitches.
Welcome to the Selling From The Hard Podcast on the Salescast Network. You've joined a global movement of sales professionals who are dedicated to being authentic and building trust. We call it Selling From The Hard. Together, we are on a mission to bring sincerity and substance to the sales profession we all love. Get ready to be inspired and equipped as we join our host Larry Levine and Daryl Aimee. Are you ready to discover what sets the best workplaces apart? We are so proud to introduce Culture From The Hard. Our newest show will be diving into conversations with the CEOs of HeartCentered Companies, leaders who built cultures that inspire and thrive. And we're on a mission to find the heart-centered CEOs of America. Join us as we uncover the secrets behind award-winning workplaces and learn how these visionaries lead with purpose. And you can help. Do you work for a company with a heart-centered CEO? We would love to interview them. You can nominate them now at www.culturefromtheheart.com And if you have a CEO that's heart-centered, nominate them today at www.culturefromtheheart.com. Hello and welcome back to the selling from the Heart Podcast, your co-host, Daryl Aimee. Here today with Larry Levine, what's going on Larry? Hey, first of all, great seeing you. What isn't going on? We have a lot to talk about today, Mr. Daryl Aimee. Yeah, get ready to experience David Primer. You're going to really love this conversation. And we got so many fun things going on. But today's shout out is extra special. Larry, this one's going to be fun. And for all the listeners out there, you know a big part of selling from the heart is our ability to serve. And I really believe you need to serve out in the community. This shout out is to it's near and dear to me. It's to my whole entire Coana group in the city that I live in in Thousand Oaks, California. I appreciate you because you've changed my life over the last 15 years. I love it. And shout out to everybody that is serving in your community as well. And I love the way that week after week, month after month, as long as I've known you, you've been engaged with that group. So so much fun and absolute shout out to all our co-onians listening in all over the world. Well, today's guest is a repeat guest, David Primer, the brilliant mind behind cerebral selling. Known as the sales professor, David brings blends the rigor of science with the power of empathy to transform how we think about selling. As a former VP of commercial sales sales force, a best selling author and an adjunct lecturer at leading universities. David's ideas have been featured in the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Entrepreneur and Inc. Magazine. From starting his career as a research scientist to leading high growth sales teams, David discovered that the key to winning in today's distracted, choice saturated, chaotic market isn't just about tactics. It's about changing the way we connect with buyers. His books sell the way you buy and the sales leader they need have inspired a generation of authentic sellers who aim not just to hit the numbers, but to truly win hearts and minds. And he is here today to win our hearts and minds as well. David, welcome back to selling from the heart. It is so good to be with. I'm still hung up on this intro video that you did. It's like a WWE wrestler like walking into the air. I need a video like that in my life. When I empty the dishwasher or just something that just helped me up, I love it. This is what happens. This is what happens to you. Come hang out with us and sell them from the heart, David. That's right. Hey, it's all about the experience. And by the way, if I had a video like that, I might empty the dishwasher more. I think you'd go a lot better for me. Hey, we get started. You know the question that every guest on the selling from the heart podcast answers. David, and we've heard your answer before. I'm looking forward to it again today. What does it mean to you to sell from the heart? Well, it's funny. So I didn't prepare in terms of like comparing my first answer to this answer. So we can we'll review the tape after the fact. But you know, I still believe that selling from the heart means this element of authenticity. You know, I always talk about the SID of like conviction and authenticity in that customers can tell whether you believe in what you're selling and what you're saying what you're doing, whether you believe or not, your customers can tell. Especially in a world where we're so starved in many ways for authenticity. It's something that we actually look for. So I still believe selling from the heart is still selling with humanity authenticity because again, whether you believe or you don't, your customers can tell. Hey, you know, I am so glad David you brought this up. And I've always said it's like the sixth sense. People sense all of this stuff. And somehow sales people think, you know, it's not going to happen. They're not going to call me out on the carpet. Believe me people. Some may tell you some may not. It's the silent things. And I think that's what you're alluding to David. 100%. You know, and it manifests in different ways, you know, even when you ask me like, oh, so what do you do when I'm a salesperson, I tell you. And there's kind of like that, you know, like, or like it just kind of falls flat and I can kind of tell us a seller, it feeds into those experiences as well. But I'll tell you one of the biggest problems that I see, especially now, is that as the number of solutions in every category continues to explode as they get more and more specific. Oh, we have an AI platform that does this or does that. What happens is we end up enabling our teams to go really deep on the product. Right. Like when someone goes, what do you do? Like we go really deep on the product. And to be honest, like our customers don't really care that much about what the product does. And so in what in many ways is a seller like it erodes our natural sense of authenticity because we go out there thinking, oh, we're going to win. All we have to do is talk about how great our product or services. And and again, our customers can tell that sometimes we as sellers are emotionally encumbered. I'm like, I don't want to talk about this stupid like, you know, not that I don't love my product, for example. But like, I know if I'm going out there, I'm leading with a pitch and I'm leading with words and tones and expressions that are inconsistent with how I am in my normal everyday life. And people can absolutely pick up on that. I'm so true. And you're right about the landscape shifting. And I think there's, you know, we all want to pretend that we've got the best product, the best service, the best, whatever. Because that's, you know, I hope I hope you believe that that you do. And yeah, we all want to say we're, you know, we're AI enabled and all of that stuff. Well, I think what we want to talk about today is AE. And instead of artificial intelligence, let's think about an authentic experience, we've got a new acronym to bring in the conversation. But it's selling from the heart. We've believed for a long time that inspirational experience is core to building trust. It's one of the four pillars of the trust formula in Larry's latest book, selling in a post trust world on sale at Barnes and Noble and retailers near you along with our grab a copy of David's book as well. But seriously, inspirational experience, inspirational experience is such, I think it's maybe the most overlooked, underused, massive potential differentiator out out there. It's that experience that we provide to our prospects and customers. What say you David? Well, you know, 100% I'm a big fan of this, this mantra of like the experiences the product, it doesn't matter really what you sell. But the experience that you create for your customer during the buying process and actually, you know, in the post sale process, that is really what they're buying. And, you know, the example I often give, you know, and this is, I think this leads in perfectly into selling from the heart is I say to people, okay, think about if I were to go into your CRM. Okay, so if you're listening to this, think about this, if I were to go into your CRM and look at all of the deals in the last year that reached the end of the line. Okay, now deals only reach the end of the line in one of three outcomes. Number one is they bought you yet, congratulations. Number two is they bought someone else, like they, you know, they built it themselves. They saw the solution another way, they saw the problem another way. Or number three is they did nothing, which sometimes that makes sense. And you should probably just do nothing and wait. So here's my question. If you were to look and this is a, you know, I want you to, if you're listening to this, I want you to think about it. But, you know, Larry and Darrell, I want you to think about what the answer that you would get for this is if I were to audit all of those opportunities that reach the end of the line and ask myself the question. What percentage of the time did the customer end up doing the best objectively, the best thing for them? How often would you say meaning? So when they bought your product, that was the best thing for them. When they bought the other solution, you know, like again, like let's just assume you don't care about your product. Like, yeah, like maybe the other solution was actually better for them or doing nothing. You know what that, that was the best thing for them. What percentage of the time would you say that customers actually do the best thing for them? Well, based on this Darrell, I think David's setness up on this. So I'm going south of 50%. Yeah, I got aside with Larry on this. The reality is the number is probably really low. So what's the answer? What are you discovering out there? >> The answer is whatever you say it is, but I have asked this question hundreds of times to like thousands of people. So, and I'm sure that you guys have been doing this.
and I on and still away by I talk about this. And the most common answer if I were to give a range would be like in the 30% range. You know, Larry's right, like less than 50%. Let's just assume it's less than 50%. - Yep, yeah. - Let's say, you know, 30 to 50% range. So what that means, and by the way, it would be a similar kind of answer. If I said, you know, if I asked you to write down everything you ate for lunch in the last month, and then I said, I'm gonna take that list and I'm gonna give it to your doctor. I'm gonna ask your doctor, what percentage of the time did this person eat the best thing for them? You know, for lunch, you know, calorically food groups, you know, it's like the same kind of answer, not most of the time, for most of us, right? Not most of the time. So let's assume if it's less than 50%, 30%, 40%, that means that most of the time, 60%, 70% of the time, people are making their decisions based on something completely different than what the best solution was for me. And so the question is, what are they basing their decision on? If not, what the best decision for me would have been. And the answer is, you wanna know what the answer is? I think I know where you're calling, but go ahead, 'cause I gotta take on this afterwards. They're buying feelings. They're doing what? It's exactly what I was gonna say. Here you go, you see? They're doing what they feel, right? Like it's like when you eat something for lunch, that maybe wasn't the best decision for you, like you don't feel bad. You feel good. It's like when you get home at the end of a long day and you say, oh my gosh, I had a long, hard day selling stuff. You know what I deserve? And then you fill in that blank with something that's generally not good for you. But you don't feel bad about it, right? It's just what you feel in the moment. So I talk to my clients about this and I say, hey, look, so you've proved to yourself that most of the time, you are the best product does not win. But 100% of the time, people do what they feel. So why are we not leaning more heavily into, and by the way, like again, I'm like a research scientist. You know, I, 20 years in the sales trenches, I did four startups, they all were acquired. I was a Salesforce for five years. I love the hardcore sales motion. Don't get me wrong, right? But when you take a step back and you ask yourself, what are people actually buying? It's feelings, right? Like how does, and it's funny, like I have these conversations now, like I work with tons of tech company, Salesforce is a client mine still as well. And I think about like when I talk to people, and I say like when people are buying, let's say a market leader, what are they buying? You're in the Gardner Magic Quadrant, you're in the top right hand corner. Does that mean you actually have the best solution? Yeah, not necessarily, right? But it means that when I buy you, I get the feeling of buying the market leader, right? Like that's the feeling I'm buying. When I buy a product from a small scrappy startup, I'm buying that like feeling of agility of like working with that company, right? And when I make my purchasing decision based on the experience I have with your company, I'm like, you know what, maybe your product is better, maybe it's worse, I don't know, but you know what, I really like working with you guys on this. Like I always felt like you always came to the calls prepared, you had really good insights, you made it easy for me to sell this thing internally. I'm gonna go with you and I'll tell you like I have, you know, like big company clients, like even like think about like Salesforce, for example, why would a small startup buy from Salesforce? You would think on one hand, okay, like it's good software, but it's also expensive compared to like, maybe I can get a cheaper solution somewhere else that actually probably just serves the need. But I've had clients and certainly customers in this kind of you know mindset that have said, we buy expensive software even as a startup as a signaling mechanism to our investors and board of directors to say, look at us, we're buying big kids software, we're serious, you know, we're in for the long haul and we are willing to pay money, you know, for these kinds of things. And when I say kinds of things, like the feeling that we get, it's like I was just describing this to a friend of mine today. It's like, and I'm totally stealing this from one of my favorite thought leaders. His name is Roy Sutherland, he's a the vice chairman of Ogil V, which is a global marketing firm, he's based in the UK, he's done lots of TED talks. Anyways, I love his stuff. And he talks about wine. He's like wine is really just a signaling mechanism. When you buy someone, you know, wine, it's a signaling mechanism for how much you paid and a measure of hospitality. So, oh, Darryl closed the biggest deal of his career, I get him a bottle of, you know, $80 champagne. Oh, it's like Wednesday night, just sitting at home and watching a movie, that's a $20 bottle of wine. You know what I'm saying? So we spend money on wine as a signaling mechanism. And I also believe that from a sales perspective, we vote with our dollars, in many cases, as a signaling mechanism to like, you know, the feelings that we bought. When we bought that product. - Hmm. Okay, so I still gotta go down the road. I'm so glad you brought up wine. We could flip this whole podcast and just talk about wine for the rest of the time, but wrong show, Larry. - At wrong show. I want to, this continued down this feelings road for a second, 'cause I get what you're throwing down, but I want you to speak to the leaders and the executives that are out there going, you know what, I get it, but come on, David. You're telling me that feelings matter and my sales people gotta get, I'm putting air quotes around this. I'm just, so we can go down this road. So you're saying that my sales people gotta get touchy feeling, right? Type thing. Expand on that, because I really believe this is where increased revenue and profit comes from, is how you make somebody feel. But you gotta go down this road for those that are the Debbie doubters or Donald doubters, listen to those. - Oh yeah. No, you know what, when I say touchy feeling, or you say touchy feeling, I'm not saying I have to be like super nice and appealed to you. - I totally get it. - I totally get it, but I'll give you an example. So one of the things I talk a lot about is this concept of like the unknown, unspoken or hidden insights, meaning when we try to sell things to our customers, you know, there's things that they don't know. There are problems that they're experiencing that they're not even aware of, right? So for example, I was just working with a client and what they said is like we can help automate some of the things that a company does. And you know, Larry Darrell, we can take this process that you run and usually takes you two months, we can take it down to two weeks, right? And one of the questions I asked this client was I said, when you talked to your clients about this two month to two week transformation, do they know that the thing that they're spending two months on can actually just be two weeks worth of work or do they know that it could be faster and they're just not capitalizing on it? Or do they think that two months is normal? And they said yeah, like a lot of times they think that whatever they're doing today is normal. And when I come to them and I blow their mind by saying no, like first of all, like in the doctor patient relationship as a salesperson, you're the doctor, you see patients all the time, right? So a patient comes into you with a problem that they think is unique. Oh, I have this rash. I've never seen it before. You've seen it a million times, right? So you can be a lot more prescriptive about how normal it is, you know, how to make it go away, why it's there in the first place. And doing all that for the patient makes them feel comfortable, it makes them feel that like you're the kind of doctor that I want to talk to because every time I come to you, it's like you're so calm, you blow my mind with all these great insights and so on. So I say like even like let's take AI as an example, there's so many organizations that are trying to figure out, well, how do I use AI to like grow my business, right? And as a CIO, I'm being asked by my organization, the board to come up with like an AI strategy. But I hear AI all over the place, I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to use this thing for, right? And this is an example of like an unspoken challenger fear that a lot of sales people encounter, that CIO is never necessarily going to tell you, hey, look, I don't know what I'm doing and I really need some guidance. But as a salesperson that comes in and recognizes that this is often like an unspoken challenge. Like if I ask someone what their problems are, they're not going to tell me, because it's like it's either embarrassing, it's confidential, or you're just not even aware of it. If I can come in and I can pull that challenge out of you and make you feel comfortable and confident that I'm in a really good position to help you, because I see this stuff all the time, that imparts a feeling to you as the customer and makes you want to do business with me. Even if my product is not the best product, right? It's because I make you seem smart, I make you seem comfortable, I add value. That's the feeling when you're buying. It's like if you went into a best buy to buy a TV and you asked the salesperson, what's the difference between the Sony and the Samsung TV and all he did was they read the little cards that were like underneath the TV, where he's like, oh, this is many megahertz that like, I'm not an idiot, I could have done that. That's what so many sales people do. It's just they're just reading the little cards, right? Versus the adding of the unspoken value, that's what creates the feeling and the affinity, the end of the day, that's what people are buying. - So many thoughts about this. The main thing I'm thinking as you're talking is, if you had something in a pipeline and you were a sales leader and you were going to your sales professional and saying, tell me about this deal, why do they want to buy? We would expect a list of all the reasons, all the cerebral reasons that they want to purchase this. Which is good. I think we should understand that for sure. However, what if we also followed up with a question of what feelings is this person wanting to have a person
upon committing to this. And to almost with as much rigor or more even to say, okay, yeah, here's their criteria, here's their goals, here's their gaps, here's what they wanna achieve. But really understanding that at the end of the day, the feeling is gonna be the most important. What if we brought that to the surface in all of our deals? I can only imagine that the transformation in the way we think about how we approach that and the importance of the experience. So I have an emolament here David, but thank you. I'm feeling something, I'm really feeling this. I just wanna say that I think like we should be able to itemize the desired feeling outcomes of every deal. - Well, I'm so glad you mentioned this. And thank you for full screening. I know if you're listening to this, you know, just audio wise, you're not gonna see what I'm about to show you. But I do wanna throw something up here, just so you can see it if you're watching this on YouTube, but you'll still get it, so not to worry if you don't. Exactly Darryl, what you just described, I call this, if you can see this, I call this full spectrum selling, which is I ask people like, why would a customer buy your product or service? Right? And I say like, imagine each of these marbles, I have on the screen I have a bunch of multicolored marbles and I say like, imagine each of these marbles is a reason why people buy your stuff. And there's like what I call reason A, which is like the main thing that you usually say when someone says, why would you buy this? It's like, look, if we all do sales training, we do like speaking engagements and so on, I would say like, why would someone bring you in to do any of that? Well, like reason A would be like, look, they hope that you're gonna teach them some kind of tactic or approach that will have an impact in some elements of their funnel that will increase conversion and ultimately revenue down the road, 'cause shoot, we're paying Larry and Darrell to come in and do all this stuff. Like, why would we pay them money if we didn't think that we were gonna have this impact a little bit later on down the road, right? Like, that would be like the main thing that we usually say. But there could be all of these other reasons that are actually quite valid and more important than the main thing we usually say. So for example, if I want to hire Larry and Darrell to come and speak at my sales kickoff, I see this all the time, right? And I have, you know, my clients will say the same thing to me. They'll say, hey, you know guys, we're trying to figure it. Do we just have an internal speaker? Do we ever see our O get up and talk about, you know, the future of whatever? They're really smart. They know stuff like they can share some insights about how to be better at selling. But you know what? We like the message that bringing someone in from the outside sends. It's like the worry settle in bottle of wine. It's like the fact that we spent money to bring in Larry and Darrell from the outside to help you and to speak at our sales kickoff is a signaling mechanism that we believe that investing in you is important. And if we don't invest in you, you will leave and go to a different company where you feel more invested in. And so it doesn't mean that we bring in Larry and Darrell to do the session that they don't fulfill a reason A. Yeah, there'll be tactics that will learn that will improve our conversion rate. But there's another reason, another feeling that we're buying when we bring them in to do this event, which in some cases could be more important than the main thing. So I actually ask, I'm so glad you asked that, Darrell, because I actually asked my clients explicitly, what feeling are your customers buying when they buy you? You know, it's like the, no one ever got fired for buying IBM. Like what does that even mean? It doesn't mean that IBM has the best solutions. It just means that I value preserving my job. And if I buy IBM, if I buy Salesforce, if I buy Oracle, work, they Microsoft, Doc, you sign, whatever have you, no one's going to question why I did that, because they're the market leader. And when I buy them, that's when I'm buying that feeling of safety and security. Right? So I ask people to get in touch with what feelings they're buying. Oh, this is so good. I'm sinner listening to all of this. And this is the word that just dancing through my head. And it's kind of the, it's the feeling where it's inspiration. And really what you're unpacking is how they feel in turn so you can inspire these people in a very positive way to take action. Agreed. 100%. Well, you know, it's funny. Like one of the things I talk about, when we talk about like, you know, conveying the value of what we do, oftentimes the people that we're talking to in our customer organizations, they're not the final decision maker, right? Like there's a committee, there's more, you know, senior people. And so like when we explain what we do, they have to go into their own organization. And with passion conviction, share what it is we do. There are ambassadors, there are coach, there are champion on the inside. And if all we've armed them with is like functional technical product knowledge, then that's a very fleeting number two. Like they're not really gonna be able to talk about that. In most cases, with the passion and conviction they need to convince someone else inside their organization, this is something they can do. So, you know, imagine, you know, if I was the buyer and all of a sudden I came to you as my senior leadership team, I said, oh my gosh, guys, like I just spoke to Larry and Darryl selling from the heart. And they blew me away. I mean, we talked about this, even just my enthusiasm would be enough, like, you know, or, you know, be a huge feather in the cap of convincing you that how important this was, right? So being able to impart some of your passion, conviction is important. But then also helping your customer be in tune with the feelings that they're buying as well. Because, you know, oftentimes we don't connect our, the emotional response, the response that we have to a product or service with the detailed feelings that they're buying, you know. You just know that I love working with Larry and Darryl 'cause every time I talk to them, I come away with just, you know, great insights. But you won't go to the level of depth to say, you know what, I'm secretly afraid of seeming like I don't know what I'm talking about in front of my leadership team, 'cause I've only been in this role for one year and I need to make sure that, you know, I continue to impress them. And I love that, you know, that if I bring in Larry and Darryl, they're gonna make me look good and they're gonna substantiate my like, no one thinks that explicitly, but you feel it. - Mm-hmm. - And so in the equation of buyer and seller, one of those people has to be more in tune with, you know, with the feeling that they're trying to impart, and that's gotta be the seller. - Mm-hmm. So as we wrap this up, this whole time I've been thinking, how does a cerebral seller come to the conclusion that feelings matter? Like this is such a, like to begin as a cerebral seller, and then to go feelings matter, this is amazing, but how did this transformation happen? - Well, isn't cerebral not feelings? Like, you know, it's everything that, you know, goes on in your mind. No, you know, the origin story is like, is that I was a research scientist at the turn of the top gumbum. So this is like, I can't, it's like 25 years ago, right? And I ended up getting into sales then, and I joined the startup, 'cause that was the cool thing. I didn't wanna stay as a research scientist, decided to join the startup, and I fell in love with sales, 'cause there was all this nuance of like, when I explained to people like this, they get it, but when I say like that, they don't get it. So there was all this kind of almost like an engineering problem, all these patterns that were emerging. And so, you know, I spent my time like I said, across these four high growth tech companies, they all ended up being acquired, and my third one ended up getting acquired by Salesforce. So that's how I came over with the ship. I was there for five years. I used to run small business sales for the Eastern US at Salesforce. And I realized like in a big sales machine like Salesforce, a lot of people, they do things in their sales motion, 'cause it's what they were taught. But I'm also now sitting there, and people are prospecting into me, like I've been a VP of Salesforce four times, people are prospecting into me all the time. And I'm like, I'm not having any of these tactics. So like why would I think that these same tactics that people are using on me, or what I should tell my team to do, right? So the stuff, I wasn't selling the way I buy. So I started to like get even deeper and say, okay, hold on a second. You know, if selling the way you buy is important, then none of this stuff is working on me. Well then what would it have to, what would it have to be the case for any of these tactics to work on me? And so I kind of had this like, you know, religious experience saying, you know what, like we need to go back to the science of like how people actually make purchasing decisions, 'cause the science will not lead us astray no matter what buying environment we tend to find ourselves in or what the cool, you know, tech of the moment is. And so that's where it came. So I just became really curious and applied like the scientific principles to like figuring out, okay, well, how do people actually make purchasing decisions? And then created a whole, you know, books practice curriculum around these kinds of things. - So good. I love it. - Hey, Gerald, you know what? I'm feeling we're onto the right track which sells from the heart based on this conversation. I feel you, I feel confident we're leaving our guests with a really, really great episode here. And I also feel confident, David, that our guests are thinking to themselves right now in this moment. How do I get more David Primer in my life? - Oh my goodness. Well, I would be grateful to be invited into people's lives. No, so I have tons of content. cerebralselling.com is my website. So I have tons of free stuff, you know, articles, videos, YouTube channel. But everything is cerebralselling.com. You can find my books there as well and my books are available on Amazon, sell the way you buy and the sales leader they need. But yeah, everything's on the website. - Well, we'll get all those links in the show notes. For everybody's convenience, you're gonna feel
terrific when you click the order button for David's books. And I'll tell you what, I feel terrific right now. I'm really, really thankful for the time we got to spend together. David, I love the cerebral cellar is also selling from the heart. This is a really beautiful thing. And I want to let you know we're cheering you on. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your heart with us today. Incredible. Oh my putt. Look, we're soldiers in the same army here. We want the same thing. I'm fighting for the same cause. So I appreciate you as well and all the good that you put out into the ceiling. I love it. I love it. Thank you David. Wow, Larry, I just, that was a really profound conversation. And to me that thought about what are the feelings that your buyers want to have. Some of that is reading between the lines. Some of that's asking to me, this is a really profound thing for everyone to go back through the, even their pipelines right now and go what feelings do each one of these buyers want to have. And how can we deliver those? This is such a profound and simple thing to unpack on this. I'm loving the beginning. David said, 130% bought the right thing. 100% bought what made them feel good. Very, very powerful insight. You know, absolutely. And here's what I would encourage everybody just to give some thought to or now keep this right at the forefront. Think of all the sales people, all the companies out there that your clients or future clients are engaging with. You're not the only show. But how are you making them feel? And I double-dog dare you to even go and ask. Yeah. And just ask, Hey, I'm just curious, how do you feel most of the time when you engage with people just like me? Now, keep in mind, you're just going to have to take the dose however you take the dose. But you're going to unpack a lot of stuff. This is going to help you position yourself to make them feel better about you. I love it. Well, thank you for joining us today. We've got a great roster of guests coming up throughout the summer. So make sure to like and subscribe. Thank you to everybody this leaving a review on this show. It helps us spread this word about authenticity and trust right here in this sales profession. We all love till next time, keep being genuine, keep being authentic, keep building trust. Consider your client and prospects feelings. And most of all, sell from the heart. Thanks for listening to this selling from the heart podcast. If you enjoyed the show, make sure to hit the subscribe button so you don't miss an episode. We appreciate your encouraging reviews as it helps us spread the word. As always, we would love to connect with you. So look for us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and your favorite podcast platform. This podcast is produced by our friends at salescast. Learn more at www.salescast.co. We look forward to seeing you next time.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The podcast introduces "Culture From The Heart," a new show focusing on heart-centered CEOs and their award-winning workplace cultures.
Guest David Primer, "the sales professor," emphasizes that selling from the heart means authenticity and conviction, as customers can always sense whether a seller believes in what they’re selling.
Primer argues that most customers (60-70% of the time) make buying decisions based on feelings rather than objective best solutions, comparing it to food choices that aren’t always optimal.
He advocates for creating an "authentic experience" (AE) over relying on product features, noting that the buying experience itself is the real product.
Primer highlights the power of "hidden insights"—unspoken problems or fears that salespeople can uncover to build trust and make customers feel valued, even if the product isn’t the best.
Summary:
" Primer discusses how authenticity and emotional connection are critical in modern sales, especially as product features become overwhelming. He challenges the notion that the best product always wins, citing research that customers often choose based on feelings—such as the desire to feel smart, secure, or aligned with a market leader—rather than objective value. Primer introduces the concept of "hidden insights," where salespeople act like doctors, identifying unspoken challenges or fears that customers won’t articulate, such as a CIO’s anxiety about AI strategy.
By addressing these hidden needs, sellers create a positive emotional experience that builds trust and drives decisions. The conversation underscores that the buying experience itself is the true product, and that authenticity—not just product knowledge—is the key to winning in today’s distracted, choice-saturated market. Primer’s approach blends science with empathy, encouraging sellers to lead with genuine connection rather than rehearsed pitches.
FAQs
Selling From The Heart is a movement and podcast focused on authenticity, sincerity, and building trust in sales, emphasizing genuine connections over tactics.
David Primer is a former VP of commercial sales at Salesforce, a best-selling author, and adjunct lecturer known as the 'sales professor.' He blends science with empathy and has been featured in Harvard Business Review and Forbes.
It means selling with authenticity and humanity, as customers can sense whether you believe in what you're selling. In a world starved for authenticity, this is crucial.
AE stands for authentic experience, an alternative to artificial intelligence. It focuses on creating inspirational experiences that build trust, which is a key differentiator in sales.
According to David Primer, customers buy based on feelings, not just logic. They make decisions based on how a product or company makes them feel, such as confidence or comfort.
It refers to problems customers don't know they have or are hesitant to share. A skilled salesperson can uncover these, making the customer feel understood and confident in the seller's ability to help.
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