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PsychSelling
The Secret Strategies of the Psychiatrist Applied to Sales
An interview with PsychSelling creator Greg Bennett
Greg Bennett
Copyright 2011 Greg Bennett,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0542-1
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Dedicated to all my family, friends, colleagues, and clients – you’ve always inspired, encouraged, and believed…thank you.
Special thanks to my sister, Deb Meissner, LCSW, LIMHP, LADC, for her assistance with the content of this document, and to my daughter, Blaire Bennett, for the tedious work of transcribing several interviews.
Introduction: A Quick Note From Greg Bennett, Creator of PsychSelling
Well here is the book I’ve been trying to push out for a few years now. Yes, PsychSelling is finally here! If you haven’t heard me yacking about it in a workshop or seminar, PsychSelling is all about the secret strategies psychiatrists use to effectively conduct patient interviews, and control various situations. I just adapted the strategies and ideas to the world of sales and have been teaching them to sellers for over 20 years.
For the first time I’ve captured everything I’ve gathered from my many years of study on psychology and psychoanalysis processes, and from interviewing many professionals in the industry. In this book I reveal:
•The mindset of the psychiatrist
•The body language of the psychiatrist (not extensive, but a few tips)
•The personal mind-control practices of the psychiatrist
•The questioning strategies of the psychiatrist
•The deeper listening strategies of the psychiatrist
•The way psychiatrists present solution options to patients
•The way psychiatrists “close”
I am certainly not saying the strategies, habits, and ideas presented here are the only ways in which psychiatrists act and respond, they’re just a few that I’ve observed, learned about, or gathered in my years of work.
All I know is that when sellers learn these strategies and practice them on a regular basis, they experience HUGE results! Best of all they don’t feel like “typical salespeople” (and we all know what that God-awful image looks like, right?); they feel more in control, more genuine, and better able to form relationships and partnerships with clients.
My hope is that you will discover what many others have, that learning and practicing these concepts will make a big impact on your success and happiness!
Respectfully,
Greg Bennett
2011
P.S. The following material was gathered from several Q&A sessions that followed various workshops or seminars.
1: How I Got Started With Psychiatry and Sales Training
My name is Greg Bennett, and I developed the concepts of “PsychSelling” in 1988 when I was first getting my sales training company started. At the time, I was a member of a radio advertising sales team and was being exposed to a variety of different sales trainers and motivational gurus. Each sales trainer or coach we were exposed to had their own spiel, including their systems and processes, tips and ideas, and of course their own lingo. While I seemed to pick up a thing or two from each of them, I felt something was missing. Some of their ideas were okay, but most of it felt fake; too “salesy”, or obvious. I, along with most of my colleagues, really didn’t feel comfortable using the strategies on a regular basis. So if we weren’t going to use the techniques, obviously we weren’t going to see positive results. The whole thing made me frustrated, and left me thinking that there had to be a more effective way to succeed in sales without looking and acting like a typical, scripted, “rah-rah” sales person. This led me to look completely outside sales; hoping to find another profession that had the attributes I was looking for in what I called a “partner selling model”, and then applying those attributes to sales.
The whole thing made me frustrated, and left me thinking that there had to be a more effective way to succeed in sales without looking and acting like a typical, scripted, “rah-rah” sales person.
The practitioners I was looking for had to possess the following attributes: they had to practice deeper questioning and listening skills; put more of a focus on the “other person” in an interaction between two people, have an ability to face conflict without taking it personally, have an ability to compartmentalize when faced with not being liked or accepted, care about people and have compassion, and have the ability to influence without being obvious or pushy.
With those characteristics in mind, I looked at a variety of professions, including doctors, lawyers, teachers, police, reporters, and a few others. And while they would have all made good models for a sales process, I felt the perfect model would be the psychiatrist. They had everything I was looking for in a model for a sales training program: the right mindset, habits, disciplines, and the right “control strategies” (though they don’t like to call them that), that would enable someone to be an effective salesperson.
…I felt it the perfect model would be the psychiatrist.
Q: If you don’t mind me asking – who are you and why do you feel you’re qualified to be talking about psychiatry and selling?
Those are fair questions and I’m glad you asked them. First of all I’m not a psychiatrist, or a doctor or any kind; I’m a professional sales trainer and coach and have been since 1988. What I’m going to present to you in this book merely represents my study of psychiatry and how doctors interact with patients. These are just my observations, they’re not official studies designed to be presented to a medical review board. I study pop psychology, I’ve studied many books and articles on psychology and how doctors approach the process, and I’ve talked with several doctors, group
