Present first or last to sign more agreements

In this article we apply psychological science to sales, and in so doing provide you with a brilliantly simple way of increasing your sales ratio.

Introducing "The Primacy Effect"

To help you easily define and understand the power of the primacy effect, review Person A and Person B, then ask yourself whether you would most prefer to work with Person A or Person B…

Person A is…

Intelligent, Hardworking, Impulsive, Critical, Stubborn, Envious

Person B is…

Envious, Stubborn, Critical, Impulsive, Hardworking, Intelligent

As you have likely noticed, both person A and B are the same person. The feeling of preference for person A is a result of “The Primacy Effect”.

In essence, your immediate judgement is most effected by what, and in this case, who is presented first. Your immediate judgement is also effected by the sequence of values/ benefits associated to the offering.

When to present first?

You would ask to present first if you knew a decision would be made by the buyer on the day, or within the space of two weeks, (the strength of the Primacy Effect is lost after two weeks).

Using the example of personal values (presented above)

The sequential placement, and communication of the most desirable values build the power of the “Primacy Effect”, for example… hardworking follows and adds to the value of intelligence, and intelligence has an effect of reducing the negativity one would likely associate with the concept of impulsiveness.

Practical application in a complex sale

So… if yourself and team are pitching against other suppliers for the same contract, being the supplier who presents first gives you an opportunity to create the structure and context for what excellence is, with the buyer unconsciously comparing and contrasting ensuing proposals with the/ your primary presentation.

Countering the Primacy Effect

If you are not the first supplier to present, then finding a way to understand, negate and replace structural/ contextual elements within previous proposals would help you increase the likelihood of being chosen.

The exception

The Recency Effect works in much the same way as the Primacy Effect, but as the polar opposite… in that, when presentations from competing suppliers are separated over a time span which is longer than two weeks, being the last supplier to present has a decided advantage, in that there is a factor of memorability and consequently better recall of the offer as an individual/ distinct proposal, whereas the rest are likely blurred, and due to the poor quality of the memory would require a diligent review of all offers in order to make a decision based on well-defined comparisons.

In general we can be confident that the buyer will make a decision short cut… and this short cut is statistically more likely to go in favor of either the Primacy or the Recency Effect, (dependent upon time frames between assessment and decisions).

Practically speaking

Your challenge is to understand the buyers buying and decision making time frame, ensuring yourself/ offer are either the first or last proposal to be made – benefiting from the effect of Primacy or Recency as a result.

If a decision is going to be made on the day you present...

Ask the buyer to list/ decide on the pros then cons of your offer. (The pros represent "Primacy", and as long as they outweigh the cons, the likelihood of closing increases).

Additionally, you can reinforce the strength of this approach by having a list of pros associated with making an immediate decision, (inducements such as a "discount for deciding today").

And lastly...

(A quick plug, when it comes to getting agreements signed, you can close the deal quicker, more effectively and efficiently by having your buyer sign with Scrive... For a free trial, you can visit www.scrive.com)

Best of luck,

Robert