Dennis and Leah explore the power of priming in sales communications. They discuss how exposing people to specific words, images, or psychological states can unconsciously influence their receptivity and decision-making. Through examples like sales call agendas, discovery questions, price positioning, and social proof, they illustrate how strategically priming prospects can enhance their openness to your message and product without manipulation. Priming lays the foundation for authentic, persuasive sales interactions.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome to another episode of Connect & Convert.

The only place you can get insider secrets for small business owners to

accelerate your sales like lightning.

Hey, I'm Dennis Collins, and my partner today is

Leah Bumphrey.

Hi.

You're you came back again.

I'm I always wonder if you're going to come back.

When I say partner, I'm going to wonder if you show up, but thanks for coming back.

We're...

Absolutely, we have a lot of fun.

We do.

And hopefully we say some stuff that's important every once in a while.

I hope.

Yeah.

I love this topic that we're going into today.

This is going to be fun.

The top is called the power of priming.

What the heck does that have to do with sales?

But what?

First of all, Leah, you have to explain.

Priming to me 'cause I'm a city boy and I don't know anything about priming.

You say.

It's something you like.

You know this, when we were talking about this, this is when I figured out

what kind of a city boy you are because you know, when I think of priming, I

remember, you know, when we were living and I, I wasn't on a farm, although

we worked on one and had an acreage.

Yeah.

When you have a pump and if you're priming a pump, and if it's a water

pump, if it's a gas pump, whatever it is, to prime it to get it going, you

have to give it just a little bit of what it is that it's gonna be pumping.

So if you're at a well and you're trying to prime that pump, you put

a little bit of water in so that it starts pulling up the rest of the water.

Huh, really?

And then when you and I were talking about priming, even you know,

paint priming, because I know you and your wife were recently painting, and the

putting on of that prime, because what happens when you throw it on the wall?

That prime paint gets sucked in so that then you can put the actual coat on.

So that prime is that foundation no matter how you look at it.

That's what my wife told me.

You know, I, I don't, she loves to paint.

I don't know a whole lot about it, except she taught me that you have

to put that base down, that prime down first, or the set, the actual

real paint won't look so good.

And you know, she's right.

Well, and if you're talking when, you know, we are, of

course, they're talking about sales and helping small businesses, that's why

we're sponsored by Wizard Academy, right?

That is, uh, you know, part of our mandate is to make sure that

we're inspiring small businesses.

But when it comes to sales, when it comes to business, we're always priming

ourselves for the success that comes next.

It's that little bit.

And whether you're priming yourself for an interview or you're going in to

meet a potential new client, all that practicing that you do is priming yourself

for that actual moment when you're going to be sitting in front of someone and

able to explain to them what you bring to the table and how you can help them.

For sure.

And, uh, there's no better place to get primed than the

Wizard Academy in Austin, Texas.

If you haven't been, you gotta go.

It's transformational.

wizardacademy.

org.

Find, there's a whole list of great classes.

You might even get to meet Leah and I there.

You wouldn't care about me, but Leah is worth meeting.

We do have fun when we're there.

We do.

And learn something.

Yeah.

So, You know, again, as we said, we, we now,

I've now have an education in priming from my wife and from you.

So I have a pretty good idea what it is.

So how is priming going to relate to this?

I mean, what we're talking about in this podcast is, you know, person

to person communications, right?

Primarily to sell them something.

How do we communicate?

How does priming help in selling situations?

Well.

Let me dive into a, I, I, you know, hate to have technical definitions, but

let's get a technical definition from the American Psychological Association.

What do they say priming is in the communications business?

It's a form of rapid cognition or intuition exposing a person to

specific words or images that create a psychological state within the subject.

Okay.

It's unconscious.

It's an unconscious way to activate a specific part of the brain, so

they are more likely to recognize something that's in front of them, okay?

So the concept was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell.

Did you read his book, Blink, by any chance?

I did.

I'm a big fan of his writing style and the topics that he picks.

He tends to really dive deep on specific things and give you a, huge

cross section of things to think about.

In this one, he was talking about that study, and I hadn't heard about

it when I played Trivial Pursuit.

I should have when I was on the right team, but the concept was getting

people who before they were playing into a room and then telling them.

First of all, these group to start imagining that they were

college professors, and then the other group that they were just

hooligans on the football field.

And I'm not saying all football players are hooligans, but you're...

oh, I will.

I'll say that.

Ha ha ha.

No, no, I have three sons and two of them played football.

Oh.

They weren't hooligans.

I know they weren't.

Alright.

I believe

You know what?

Guess who did better?

Oh, well let me guess.

The hooligans.

Ha ha ha.

Well, they did better at something, but not at trivia pursuit.

Oh.

So they were primed with the thought That what they were, they were

primed when they thought, what would it mean to be a professor?

Okay, that's right.

And the others were primed to say, well, what would it mean

to be a football hooligan?

Is that pretty much how it went?

That's exactly, exactly what happened.

And of course, the team that was primed to be the professors, they were the ones that

now it's not giving them information or knowledge they didn't have before, but it

put them in a state that they recognized, Hey, I got this, I can do this.

They started working as a team in a whole different way.

as compared to the ones that were told basically they didn't have what it

took to win a game of Trivial Pursuit.

So what you're telling me is that the associations,

the prior associations mentioned before the actual activity totally

influenced their performance.

That's exactly right.

Amazing, isn't it?

Hey, speaking of that, I have another little quiz I'd like to give you.

Are you up for a little quiz?

You know I am.

Okay.

So I'm gonna read off two lists of words, okay?

They each have five words, each of the phrases have five words.

And I want you to describe from the five words that I give you, which

one is the words of a saint and which one would be the words of a criminal.

Okay, are you ready?

I'm here.

You can, okay.

Number one, giving, helping, other, selfish, taking.

Number two, taking, selfish, others, helpful, giving.

What's the criminal?

What's the saint?

The saint's the first one.

Giving.

Helpful.

Why would you say that?

Well, you, the words you were using.

Giving, helpful, you, right off the bat I could, I identify those as a saint.

But you're, you're smarter than the average bear.

So you probably, do you think most people would get that?

You know, well, the study has shown that.

And that, that we have to be honest with the people listening.

Of course, you and I have talked about this before, but it is fascinating

that those, that those first words that you, you said, and the list

that they were giving helpful others.

That's what you hear.

And what am I thinking?

I'm hearing Saint.

The next group, those first couple words, taking, selfish, taking, selfish, I'm

thinking, yeah, I'm thinking criminal.

Did you notice that all, that it's the same words in both phrases?

It's crazy.

You probably noticed that right off.

It's the same exact words, but it's a different order.

And we're primed, we are primed by those first words, Dennis.

Perfect example, isn't it?

So let's jump into a little more detail about what priming means for sales.

Uh, I am a huge, huge advocate of what's called the sales call agenda.

Some people call it the upfront agreement.

Okay.

It is basically your effort as the salesperson to control

the agenda of the call.

And, uh, to me, that's priming.

Here are the five things that I'd like to talk about today.

A, B, C, D, E.

Okay.

Is that okay?

And get an okay.

And to me, that is the best way to prime a sales call.

Do you have experience with that?

Oh, absolutely.

You know what?

People, when you're coming in on a sales call, Dennis, they

know you're trying to sell them.

They don't want to do this.

They don't want to be stupid.

They don't want to make a wrong decision.

That those first few seconds, it's a little adversarial.

You come across too friendly, happy, give them a hug, you know, with your voice.

They're ready.

They are ready and they have, we've all had that bad experience with, with a

salesperson who just comes across like they are only out there to sell and

not motivated by doing the right thing.

Well, the sales call agenda, if done

properly, is about the customer.

Right?

Right.

Exactly.

And so the next step is the proper upfront discovery questions.

The right questions.

And of course, asking the questions only half the job.

What's the other half?

Well, listening.

How about, how about listening?

What?

Absolutely.

What was that you said?

Can you hear me?

And isn't it funny because you can be so, tragically busy

talking to clients, talking to the people we work with, talking to our

spouses about, and we're thinking so much about what we are saying next,

because we've got stuff that we're getting through, whether it's a sales

call, whether it's supper, whatever it is, that we're not hearing what they say.

And then there's no connection that's being made.

Uh, I've heard this a lot.

Well, you know, we were ready to buy from that other

salesperson, the last guy we saw.

But he was a jerk.

He didn't listen to a thing we said.

What's up with that, Leah?

Well, and then you have to think about what your

response is to that because it's your opportunity to prime them.

It's your opportunity to have a real connection with them.

It's like, oh, I hate when I hear stuff like that.

That's happened to me.

I will try and not do that.

Please tell me if I come across the same way.

Right?

You're opening yourself up.

You couldn't say it better.

I mean, accept that as a moment to prime what's going to follow

by agreeing and say, wow, I am sorry you had to go through that.

I hope that didn't color your opinion of me because I avoid that at all costs.

Okay, I will prove to you by repeating back to you and summarizing that

I listened to everything you said.

How's that?

Boom.

Prime.

Okay.

You primed them to the fact that you're going to listen.

Um, You shared with me that you want a solution that is long lasting.

Our solution is the most durable on the market.

Would that be a good prime?

Absolutely, because you've, you've, Listen to what they

said, you're repeating it back, showing that you are on par with them.

Similarly, and man, every sales call, anybody that you speak to about a

product, I don't care what the product is, I don't care what the business is,

price is going to be a consideration.

But depending on how they say it, right, if they're saying it, that they want

good value, or they're, they only have so much money, or they're concerned

about price, or they've heard prices have gone up, this is an opportunity,

again, to prime the call to prime the conversation and say, you know, whether,

whether the dollar is your best value, or I'm sorry, the product is the best

value, whether, um, you know, you have the best financing solutions, you heard

what they said, and so, dot, dot, dot.

So what you say first determines their response

to what you say next, right?

That's the prime.

That's what I'm hearing.

Yep.

Yep, absolutely.

That's the prime.

Because words?

Matter, but more important, as we've learned here today, their order,

the order of your words matter.

Okay?

How are they used when you prime your prospect?

Uh, either they'll be primed to buy or be primed to run for the hills.

Have you ever had a customer run for the hills?

I hope not.

I gotta think about that.

I have.

I live on the prairie so it's pretty nice and flat, but yeah, there's,

there's hills, hills in the mountains.

I, well, I have, unfortunately, um, what, what is

the way to prime in this area?

What is your solution going to do, right?

Yes, exactly.

Yep.

Because again, it's got to be prospect oriented.

It has to be oriented to what they're thinking.

If you didn't hear them say what it is that they're after and you're offering

them to do, the, you know, the, the, the absolute lowest or the absolute

highest option that you have, but you don't know that the sweet spot is here,

totally unrelated to either of those.

You've lost that opportunity to prime.

You don't know how it's going to impact them.

So to that point, impact, how do you like this question?

Do you ask questions?

Would you advocate asking questions?

How's that going to make you feel?

How's it going to make you feel?

That's a question that a lot of sales people I think, think

is too touchy, feely, squishy.

What do you think about that question?

How does this solution make you feel?

I, I think everyone has a gut reaction and if you've had enough

of a, of a introduction and a bit of a conversation so that you know, you

know, how they are relating to you.

It shouldn't be an awkward question.

How do you feel about this?

How does this line up to what you were thinking?

Is this, am I, am I out to lunch?

Again, keep it real.

Talk the way you talk.

I like that.

Am I out to lunch?

I would ask that question.

It acknowledges the fact that most of us human beings buy

emotionally and justify with facts.

So yeah, feeling comes into this and that's a prime for sure.

How about, here's a big one.

I get this all the time.

Price priming.

How and when you present your price matters.

Okay.

Price priming alone sometimes backfires, but how do we price prime?

Well, again, questions.

We want to know where they're at.

The worst thing in the world.

Is to make an assumption, yeah, I know you're not interested in that one.

Never, ever make that, that, that call.

I've told you about my dad who sold cars for years and years and there was

a gentleman that came in and nobody would talk to him because he had a braid

that was all the way down to his knees.

And his shoes were not the fanciest shoes.

But my dad sold him three of the most expensive vehicles on that lot over the

next couple of months and his manager said to him, and this was a story my

dad told me, How are you doing this?

Well, because I talked to him.

This is a person.

Like, you can't make the assumption that they don't have the cash.

This guy had more money than anybody working in that dealership.

Uh, I can, if I had just a dime.

You don't have dimes in Canada.

We have nice dimes.

Yours are skinnier than ours, but we have dimes.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you know what a dime is.

I don't mean, don't use jargon on you, but if I had a dime for every

time that I have coached, worked with a salesperson who made assumptions.

Okay.

I know what this guy's going to say.

I've been down this road a hundred times.

We would out, be out on my yacht today doing this podcast.

Yes.

Somewhere in the Caribbean.

But anyway, that's another story.

How about customer experience priming?

How do you, how would you prime for customer experience?

What would you talk about?

Well, think about the product and think about the customer

and what does experience mean, right?

It's, is it going to be convenient for them?

Is it going to be something that's going to be very satisfying that for them to

go home and tell their, tell their spouse about or let their brother in law know?

Um, what's positive?

What kind of experiences?

And these are, and Dennis, I've learned so much about social proofs from you,

but, what kind of stories can you tell them about other people that have had a

great experience so that they can start living that, so they can start feeling it?

Years and years ago, we used to call it the puppy dog close.

You know, you take this home, once you get that puppy dog in the, in the,

in the door, it's not coming home.

Once you get that car in the driveway, once someone is emotionally

attached to the decision, because what does Roy Williams say?

The heart will go where the mind is, right?

Or, I'm sorry, I'm set that wrong.

The mind's going to go where the heart is.

Yeah, and the heart is the one that we want to influence so that we

will justify it, we will make the reasons to make a buying decision.

And similarly, if I decide I don't like you and I'm not going to buy from you,

I don't care how badly I want that.

It's not going to happen.

It ain't happening.

Being a dog lover, I can't tell you not comment on your dog reference.

There have been at least three dogs in my life that were

not supposed to live with us.

Okay.

They were fostered, right?

They were coming for a brief period of time and they all left 15 or

16 years later when they passed.

So there you go.

I love it.

I love it.

The puppy dog close, it still works.

It still works.

So, I'm glad you brought up Social Proof as well.

We've done a couple episodes on Social Proof back in the archives.

If you'd like to catch up with that, you can check that out.

It is one of the least used and most powerful primes that

you could ever possibly use.

We look to other people when we're not sure what to do, not sure whether to buy

this or buy that, we look to other people.

What they did, we do.

to make up our mind.

And the important thing, sorry, Dennis, go ahead.

I'm going to say, I have a bunch of recordings here in my computer

of sales calls of actual real sales calls.

And I defy you to listen to those like I have and find a social proof story.

Come on guys, you got to use that.

Okay.

You know, people have to remember that priming is not a trick.

This is not a bait and switch.

This is not a, Ooh, this is a way for me to trick somebody

into, into buying from me.

Priming is the most professional, the most legitimate way of showing

a firm foundation as to why someone needs the product that you're selling.

The very fact that you're having a conversation means that they're

considering that they need your product or a product and service that's similar

so all you're doing when you're using social proofs is showing them legitimately

that other people have benefited and why.

And that prime gets them ready to be raving, raving customers who

absolutely love working with you.

Well, you said it right, and um, uh, just like priming this

wall in this room, it's not a trick.

Priming a pump is not a trick.

It's required to get the result that you want.

Think of that in sales.

It's not a manipulation or a trick.

Without priming, you're not going to get the water to come out of the pump, and

you're going to have a lousy paint job.

Without priming in sales, uh, good luck on making your close.

That's right.

It's not going to stick.

It's not going to stick.

So, I hope this was helpful to our listeners.

I mean, positive images.

Prime with positive images, associations, stimuli, before presenting your product.

Positive images sell.

Create more favorable attitudes.

Predispose them to buy.

Enhances their receptivity.

Uh, in closing, how would we do a prime for our Sales Rx?

I mean, gee whiz, what's a good prime?

What's a good prime?

Well, you know what?

Every time you tune in to our, our, uh, um, our podcast, our information,

you are getting a foundational bit of information that you're going

to be able to grow your business.

It's not product specific and think about the best sales people you know.

They didn't start out becoming experts in, I don't care if it's

radio sales or selling vehicles or even selling vacuum cleaners.

It's the right person who's open to learning how.

So if you're open to learning how, wow, there is so much information out there.

And Dennis, I learned so much from you.

And I think it's just a matter of how to present it and a vehicle to get it.

We're trying to make it as easy as possible.

What a great prime!

Jeez, you're hired!

Good show!

Leah, this was fun.

I enjoyed priming.

Uh, thanks for, for all your contributions on this.

You are so spot on.

Uh, I think we need to close out this episode of Connect & Convert.

But never fear, we will be back soon.

Excellent.

Stay tuned.

Bye.

See ya, Dennis.

Mhm.