Why Your Content Gets Views But Not Customers (Sales Psychology)

Welcome back to another episode of Running with Wolves You Guys. I am very excited about today's episode because you guys will know that the number one thing that I always preach to you is that your marketing should be doing the heavy lifting when it comes to your saves. And what I mean by that is that marketing should not just be creating virality for you. It should not just be creating engagement for you. It should actually be creating website traffic, leads, sales, et cetera, whether you're a product or service-based business. And I think that the biggest mistake that I see business owners making or brands making in their marketing where they stay stuck in this element of I'm going viral, I'm getting engagement, I'm doing all these different things, but I'm not seeing it translate into sales is that their marketing does not incorporate sales psychology tactics into the strategy. So today and to be totally frank, like that is the thing that turns your followers, that turns your subscribers, that turns your audience into actual customers or clients. So today we're going to do a pretty in-depth episode where we walk through a lot of different sales psychology tactics. And we're actually going to talk about what it looks like to incorporate those into your marketing, whether you are a product-based business or a service-based business. So I am really excited about that. So we're going to kind of dig into overall what sales psychology is first things first. So you guys have a clear understanding. We're on the same page and then we'll go into the different tactics and how you can use it for your business. Right now, I kind of watch the same story, play out multiple times. Anytime I have a new client start with me. The story goes, I'm getting great views, I'm getting great engagement, but I'm really struggling to see that same level of results when it comes to my sales. And the biggest difference maker is that the brands who are making more money, the brands who are making more sales, don't just care about aesthetics. They don't just care about vanity metrics. They are ruthless in their use of sales psychology tactics. It's really interesting. They're not better creators. Their marketing doesn't look better. They're not more polished. It's not more aesthetic. They are better psychologists. So they use sales psychology in their marketing day in and day out to show people that they ultimately should be buying their product or investing in their service and why they should be doing it now. And the reality is that if your marketing is built on just aesthetics or vanity metrics, your audience, it will probably be the most frustrating scenario of your life because you will feel like you should be creating a ton of sales, but experiencing none of them. So you'll have everyone in your audience telling you how fantastic your content is, how much they love your brand, but then they go and hand their credit card to somebody else. And you're going to be so pissed off about it until you start to implement these tactics. What I ultimately want you to remember because when I do marketing audits for any of my clients or any of my audience members, nine out of ten times, the piece of advice or the strategic shift or addition that I give them is don't change anything when it comes to your visibility or your engagement content, your attraction or your warming content. But we need to either add in or make your converting content that they are not selling. And when I say selling, I mean selling the impact of the product or the service that they were actively marketing. So what you need to realize is that the income ceiling that you keep hitting every single month, no matter how much more you push, how much more content you put in. Out how much more work you put into your messaging that ceiling is only going to break when you start to incorporate sales psychology into your marketing. People do not buy because you're popular people don't buy because you're the best brand. They buy because your marketing changes the way they think feel and perceive things to be. If your content informs or educates or engages or entertains, people will consume your content. If your content shifts belief, they will buy and that is ultimately all coming from sale psychology. So before we kind of dive into the different tactics, let's talk about what sale psychology and marketing actually means because there are a lot of people who will throw around buzzwords and we'll talk about sales psychology tactics and things like that. And the way that they explain them either is number one way to fucking complex. It's actually very simple or they will throw around buzzwords like they know what they're talking about and they ultimately don't. I think sales psychology is like this thing that people throw in where they're like, I know an laptop. And in reality, it's a very, there are very simple concepts and tactics that are actually really easy to implement into your strategy and create very real results because it's literally just how your brain works and we're catering to that in your marketing. So I looked up the definition of sales psychology to compare it to mine to make sure that it was really on point. So I'm going to read you kind of like the overall description of sales psychology. It's not manipulation. It's understanding how human beings make decisions based on how our brains work. So it's literally the study of what makes people move based on how their brain operates from I like this to holy fuck, I need this ad to cart checkout in marketing. Sales psychology is how you intentionally design your messaging so that your audience doesn't understand your product, they feel compelled to act. So it's literally the difference between, eh, I'll save this for later when I have more money or I will save this for later when it makes a little bit more sense for me to purchase or invest in this or I should probably spend my money elsewhere. It's the difference between that and I need to buy this now or I will make the money to go and purchase this now because when you think about it, any objection or any delay in purchase does not ultimately come from a lack of time or money on your consumers part. It comes from a lack of priority. Think about like, for example, how many people sold like basically their left kidney or their first born for a ticket to the Taylor Swift errors toward, right? How many people when a new brand drops a new product or when, you know, a new service is introduced at one of their favorite brands, if even if they don't necessarily have the money or it doesn't make a ton of sense for them to purchase it right there in that moment, like the new iPhone, for example, people going to debt to go buy the new iPhone. It's not because they don't have the money that they're not purchasing. It's because your marketing hasn't convinced them that they need to purchase now. And it's ultimately the reason and I see this actually all the time why two businesses can have the same product or service, the same audience size, the same marketing and one business can be excelling when it comes to their sales and the other can be genuinely failing or flopping. And the one with the sharper sales psychology in their marketing will always win the sale. Okay, so let's dive into kind of the first tactic, which is going to be urgency. This is, I would say one of the more important. There's probably like the top two sales psychology tactics that I can recommend to you and urgency is one of them urgency is probably one of the more important ones because it shifts your audience from kind of exactly what I was just talking about of this is a great product for your service and I'll buy it when it's convenient for me to I need this now and I will figure out a way to have it. Interestingly enough, when you think about like the psychology of it urgency actually shows that waiting to make that purchase is risky, right? Like there is a consequence that could happen from waiting to purchase like the cost of inaction essentially. It kind of taps into loss a version, which is essentially the concept that people are more motivated by what they have to lose than what they could ultimately gain. It's kind of this constant debate between what motivates people more in the nightmare or the dream, right? Urgency kind of plays into a little bit of both, but oftentimes it's easier to talk about as far as like loss aversion or the cost of inaction or what they're ultimately going to lose if they don't make that purchase or that investment right now. There's what most people think that urgency is when you put it into your marketing. It's I only have X amount of spots left in my program or this product is low stock and I don't know when it's going to be restocked. People think that it's limited quantity, limited capacity that that's what drives urgency. But to be totally frank, I don't actually think your consumers give a fuck about any of that because there are so many brands or businesses who will be like, yeah, I only have two spots left to work with me. And then I don't know a couple of weeks go by and they're like, just kidding. I'm opening up five new spots to work with me after they fill those two and you're like, I know exactly what you just did. Or there's a product drop where people are like, oh, well, we don't know when this is going to come again. Like this is the one and only drop that we're going to be doing. Meanwhile, behind the scenes in their strategy meeting, they just talked about the fact that in Q3, they're going to drop this again, right? So I think that when you do limited capacity or limited quantity as a way to create urgency, people have seen what happens when they play into that with brands or businesses and they've been kind of burned by it. They feel like brands or businesses have kind of lied to them in some way, shape or form. And so because of that, that's not as motivating as you talking about what they could have or what they could lose out on if they don't make a purchaser investment right now. Real urgency makes the cost of inaction feel bigger than the cost of buying. So a couple of ways, and I wrote down some notes about this last night when I was creating this episode, a few ways to use it in your marketing is number one, show the consequence of waiting. Number two, naming what people will lose by being stuck or staying stuck. And then number three, tying action to a time window, an opportunity or a season. Seasonal urgency is actually some of the easiest to create, but you can always create urgency to buy no matter what's happening in your business. So instead of saying in a role now, you would say every month you delay, you're leaving money on the table, right? Or like the last episode that we just did, we talked about like set active and their marketing strategy. So a way to create urgency for them would be like every day you wait to purchase one of our sets, getting dressed stays difficult. Like you're going to be running late, not feeling as confident, blah, blah, or you could flip it and have it more be like positive urgency around what they could have. The second you get your hands on a set active set, getting dressed becomes easier. You instantly feel more confident, blah, blah, blah, right? So it's what you're missing out on by not purchasing or investing or what you could have by purchasing or investing. This urgency is really rooted in their reality and how it shifts based on their decisions or in decision. A really common mistake that I see business owners making in their marketing is using urgency very randomly instead of strategically. And I can always tell when people use urgency when they need sales to happen because oftentimes what you see is that in their marketing, they don't create any urgency. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh shit, I'm not going to hit my goals. You guys need to buy now because of XYZ, right? So they panic sell instead of purposefully selling. They create fake urgency, which a lot of times unfortunately destroys trust with your audience, kind of like what we just talked about where it's like when you say you have limited quantity or capacity and then a month goes by and your audience is still paying attention. And clearly you're either restocking or you have more spots opening up and they're like, okay, well, so that wasn't true, right? Like you didn't have limited quantity. You didn't have limited capacity, which like I said destroys the trust with your audience. Real urgency is logical. It's not dramatic. It's not like, oh my God, the world is ending. You got to buy now. Like, hey, if you want XYZ to happen or if you're tired of allowing XYZ to happen, you should probably purchase or invest. So a product-based example, right? Let's go back to our like classic skin care brand examples. They could say every month you wait to treat your acne, the scarring becomes deeper and then connect it to a limited treatment window or like a new formulation that they're dropping or something, right? So that's why I'm saying suddenly feels expensive because you're already super insecure about your acne scars. And so once you're able to see that you're going to continue to feel insecure and then on top of that those scars are just going to get deeper the longer you wait to treat them. You're like, oh, well, I should probably do that now, right? A service example. So I have two client examples I can actually think of of my own clients. I have one who sells a baby lead weaning like book or resource and then I have another client who is a puppy trainer. So hearing different industries, obviously, one's product, one service-based and the product-based company. So the baby lead weaning book, it's like a full program. They have like an app. They've got a book. They have a bundle. They do all the things, right? The way we create urgency because they have two kind of demographics. They have parents of babies who are not six months yet, but they're looking towards baby lead weaning. So they're prepping in advance, right? Then they also have parents where for the baby lead weaning, they've gotten to six months, they haven't prepped at all. Their pediatrician is like, hey, you should probably think about starting solids and they're like, well, fuck, we should probably figure it out, right? So the urgency comes from for both of those demographics kind of moving forward and just taking your pediatrician's advice and like winging it and trying solids for the first time with your baby, which can lead to having picky eaters, you know, allergy, like flare-ups, different things like that, right? So we actually created urgency around if your baby isn't six months, even if your baby is two months, three months right now. That'll be here before you know it. And the most successful families when it comes to baby lead weaning and having a kid who will literally eat anything, the most successful parents are the ones who like prep in advance and start kind of like planting those seeds and there's a right way to go about it and there's a wrong way to go about it. Again, this is their brand. This is their like promise. So that's how you can handle that urgency there of if you want your baby to be able to do XYZ when it comes to like eating food now is the time to move, not waiting until they're six months. If they're already six months, it's every day that you wait for them to ultimately like do baby lead weaning, try new foods, etc. your solidifying their palate and allowing them to be a picky eater, which is going to impact you a lot in the long run and like turn into a ton of like fights around food with your kids blah, blah, blah, right? So that's how you can create urgency really easily. It's like, Hey, you don't want to stay stuck in this place. And if you don't want to stay stuck, you need this resource or if you want to accomplish XYZ goal, you need this resource, right? And then same thing for the puppy training, right? If you wait or you trying DIY this, you're allowing your puppy to solidify habits in their brain that you haven't trained them through, which is going to lead to really tricky behavior for you to undo later on. That's how you can create urgency there. Or if tomorrow you want a calmer puppy, boom, here's like now is the time basically for us to work together. So urgency, I would say is tied to their like I said before, their reality, very real lived experiences and very real like consequences to in action. That's the way to move people to buy immediately. All right. So tactic number two is going to be social proofs. Now I like I said was writing some notes. So forgive me for looking at my phone. But let's talk about really quick, the definition of social proof. Social proof is the idea that people look to others to decide what is safe, smart and desirable. Okay. Humans, I always say I love people, but people are like sheep when one moves, everybody moves, right? And so humans trust crowds more than claims. It's why when you go on any website and you're looking at a product again or a service, you immediately look at the reviews. You immediately look at other people's experiences. You're like, yeah, you're promise and what you're telling me is going to happen when your product or service comes into my life sounds wonderful. But I want to make sure that that is going to actually be my reality and that other people had experience to that transformation. Most people use social proof. You guys terribly, terribly. Okay. They will people are like, what are you talking about? I shared social proof like a million times this week. And it's just a screenshot of a review that somebody gave them or like reposting someone being like, oh my god, I got this product, right? Or a client win who was like, wow, thank you so much for creating this win for me. Blah, blah, blah are creating this result for me. No context, no information, no actual marketing of the social proof, just a screenshot. And they're like, well, that should be sufficient. No, it's not. You cannot dump random screenshots of reviews, testimonials, whatever and expect that to create sales for you. So here's how to kind of use it in your marketing. Good social proof actually tells a story. There's a beginning, a middle and an end, right? Or a continuation if that client is still working with you. You need to include in your social proof who this person is, whether it's a customer or a client, who they were before they got their hands on your product or your service, what they were struggling with. And then ultimately what changed after buying from you. So where were they before coming to you? Where are they now? And then there's kind of like the the middle meeting ground, which is what you did or what your product did because remember, if you're a service-based business, you are the product, right? And then if you have a product, what did that do to get them from point A to point B? And again, the more context that you can provide, the better. And in fact, I actually always tell people instead of just saying like what their reality was before they got your product or service, I also want you to incorporate what their buying process was like as well, right? So like what were their hesitations? What were their objections? Why did they almost not buy your product or your service? And then what tipped them over the edge in order to actually check out or you know, sign the contract and pay the invoice, right? Numbers matter, but narrative matters more. Like the context, the storytelling, the why it happened matters so much more in people's decision making process. So an example for a product-based business would be instead of screenshotting like, oh my god, this is a five star review. Blub, blah, blah. People are loving our product. Say Sarah tried three cleansers that dried her skin out. And after two weeks of using ours, her redness is calmed and she's stopped canceling all of her plans because she doesn't want to go outside with her skin looking the way that it was. And meet her. Ideally, someone who has really irritated skin, someone who is insecure to go out because they feel like makeup doesn't cover like what they're dealing with is automatically going to want to purchase that cleanser because Sarah down the street had the result that they're looking for from using that product. They tie the result to the product because it's proven through other people's experiences. Or a service-based example would be instead of saying, "Oh, my client made 100K this month, say, no, no, no, she went from insanely chaotic launches sleepless nights being on this income roller coaster to predictable 50K months with one simple marketing strategy. That is ultimately what's going to convert." All right, so let's go into tactic number three, which is going to be authority position. What I want you guys to remember is that authority is not about credentials, it's about perceived expertise. The reality, and you've heard me say this before, is that people buy from people, but people also buy from the brand or business that makes them feel the most understood. And so if you can show that you understand your problem better than anyone else, that's ultimately how you build that authority and it comes from that kind of clarity. So in terms of using it in your marketing, a couple different ways you can kind of build authority would be naming patterns that other people miss or other brands miss, which again, we'll talk about in just a second, diagnosing problems accurately and explaining why things aren't working. Right? If you can explain someone's situation better than they can, they will trust you instantly. A really common mistake that I see people make when we talk about building authority is that people think that authority means bragging nonstop. It means constantly talking about your experience, your knowledge, bragging without insights, oftentimes feels very empty. And insight is ultimately the thing that builds the most authority. So if you can drop like even a golden nugget, right, and shift people's thought process in your marketing around your industry, around your topic, if you can give them value and again, insights that no one else really can, that's what builds authority, not you saying like, oh, I was able to accomplish all of these different things, right? So examples of this, if you are a fitness brand, a product based brand, right? You could say you're not failing your diet, you're under eating protein and over restricting calories, which slows your metabolism. That sounds like an expert. So instead of you being like, oh my god, I got my client to lose all of this weight blah, blah, blah, blah, no, no, no, no, you want to tell them why they're not losing weight. You want to tell them why they're failing their diet and then show that you are the solution to that. That ultimately sounds like an expert in builds authority. Let's say if you're a service based business and you're, I could even speak for myself a marketer, you could say you don't need more content. You need clearer positioning in your warm audience. That's ultimately what's going to establish authority is me saying, hey, here's your problem, not what you think it is. And here's what you should do about it. That is what builds authority. Me providing those insights rather than me just like randomly bragging, right? Next, sales psychology tactic is going to be contrast and comparison. So here's ultimately what that looks like. People don't buy in a vacuum. They buy in comparison, right? Oftentimes when we're thinking about purchasing a product or investing in a service, we're going to shop around. So contrast helps people see why your solution is better than alternatives. Now, there are two kind of ways that this happens. This is by comparing your product or service to other alternatives that are not the same product or service. So for me, for example, if my target audience was looking to increase their sales, getting organic marketing or like digital marketing consulting is one option. Other option would be ads. Another option would be PR. Another option would be hiring a done-for-you market agency, right? They need to decide, okay, do I want to go with Savannah's consulting or do I want to do done-free? Do I want to do what is the solution I'm ultimately looking for? Then once they're sold on the solution, they have to be sold on you as that solution. So that's where when they know, okay, consulting is the thing that I need. Now I'm going to go compare Savannah to all of these other consultants, right? Same goes for a product-based business. If you are looking to kind of going back to even like our acne scarring example, if you're looking to get rid of your acne scarring, there are so many ways you can do that. Facials, peels, micro-needling, you know, medical grade skincare, right? All of those give that promise. So you have to decide, okay, what's the route that I want to go? And then once you decide what route you want to go, that's where you compare all of the different products or services that could give you that same solution, right? So here's how to kind of use this in your marketing. So you contrast what they're doing now versus what actually works. So you could basically say, for example, you can keep posting daily and guessing or you can map your funnel and make every single post convert. And I would go on to say as far as mapping your funnel and making every post convert, you can do that with my consulting. That's what I help you with. And here's how that's better than any of these other solutions. And here's why my consulting is better than any of my other competitors. Same thing on the product-based side of things. And this is a really, I would say, a very common mistake that people avoid this tactic I think because they think that it's like quote unquote negative. Now contrast though, you need to understand your audience cannot make a clear buying decision. They will ultimately go and invest or purchase from the competitor who is giving them that information because that is a very clear part of the buying journey. And so if you're not addressing it, you bet your butt that your competitor is and they're going to go with that person because their marketing is better. So a product example of how you can do this. Let's say you're a supplement brand, right? You can say most pre workouts will give you jitters, ours gives clean energy without the crash. There is a reason to choose you for two things. Number one is that pre workout is going to be able to give them clean energy without the crash instead of chugging espresso or instead of chugging a Celsius or whatever, right? They're saying, hey, pre workout is the thing that you want. And then if you go and look at any of these other pre workouts, they're going to give you jitters. They're going to make you itchy. They're going to do whatever ours doesn't do that. That's why you need it. You're comparing and contrasting yourself to any of the other things they could ultimately be purchasing and showing why you are the best. A service based example, if you are, let's say, I don't know, a marketing coach, you can say you can keep chasing algorithms or you can build a strategy that converts regardless of trends. That frames what the best choice is going to be for them based on their current reality and what they ultimately want for their business. All right, tactic number five is going to be commitment and consistency. So here's kind of what that sounds like. Once someone identifies with something, they want their actions to match that identity. So if you can get someone to see themselves as your target audience, they are far more likely to purchase or in must. So here's what that looks like in your marketing. You sell identity, not just a product, not just features, not just deliverables, right? Instead of selling features, you sell who they become. This is also kind of known as like building the dream, right? So for example, you can say this is for women who refuse to settle for average results. Now if they're a woman who refused to settle, refuses to settle for average results, they're like, well, hold up. That's me. So like, maybe I should look into this product or service, right? Now buying feels like aligning their values. And like I said, this is a really common mistake that most people make where people sell features instead of identity. We've talked about this a lot. People will sell a deliverable. They'll sell how many calls you get. They'll sell what ingredients are in the product. People don't care about that. They care about the bigger picture, the bigger message, the bigger movement. So because features don't create commitment, identity does. And so let's say you're a product based business. Let's say you have like a luxury candle brand, right? So many people will be like, well, how do you fucking market a luxury candle brand, right? In this instance, the sales psychology tactic that we're using, you could say, this is for a woman who curate their home like a five star hotel. But I know that's me. And so if I saw that in their marketing, I'd be like, well, clearly, I need this candle because that's me, right? Now it's a lifestyle. It's not a pot of wax. For a service based example, a business mentor could say, this is for CEOs who want leverage, not hustle. And so buying kind of becomes this like self definition, that's who you are. And now you're just taking action that makes sense for your identity. So what you need to remember when you're thinking about all of these different tactics is that if people are consuming, but not buying, the problem is rarely your product or yourself. And I said this in the very beginning of the episode. I need you to understand that the product or service, the business or brand that has the best marketing that ultimately incorporates all of these sales psychology tactics is the one that's going to win the sale. Your competitor, Sally down the street, who's thriving, even though she started her brand or business a year after you did, and as far surpassed you in terms of your sales, the reason why is because she knows how to incorporate this stuff into her marketing. She knows how to tell her audience what they need to hear in order to buy. And when I say what they need to hear, I mean, she knows how their brain operates around purchases or investments and how to play into that with her marketing. You don't need more content. You don't need more marketing going out. You don't need to spend more money on ads. And then, again, I have done this for the last six years. I've worked with hundreds of thousands of clients in every single industry in every single niche. The number one thing that I tell people is they need to sell and sell better with like better sales psychology, basically. And so because of that, you need sharper thinking. And the reason why I say that I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it.