Renvoisé Patrick - Neuromarketing: understanding the buy button in your customers brain

Is There a Buy Button
in the Brain?

How Selling to the OLD BRAIN
will Bring You Instant Success

Patrick Renvois and Christophe Morin

2002-2005. SalesBrain LLC. All rights reserved.

ISBN #0-9743482-2-8

No part of this book may be used, reproduced, summarized or translated in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For information, please contact SalesBrain LLC at info@salesbrain.net

Cover Design by Jay Cabalquinto of Philippe Becker Design www.pbdsf.com

Custom Photos by Frederic Neema of Frederic Neema Photography www.fnphoto.com

Custom Illustrations by Xplane www.xplane.com

Special thanks go to Bonnie Bright for her significant intellectual, design and editorial contribution. Thanks also go to Frederic Neema of Frederic Neema Photography, Dave Gray of XPlane, David Becker, Philippe Becker, and Jay Cabalquinto of Philippe Becker Design, Benson Lee of DSignWright, Rick Crandall, Gail DaMert, and the many people who helped make this book a reality.

We also wish to thank the following companies for granting us the privilege of reproducing their advertisements: Air Canada, BMW, CareerBuilder, CarsDirect.com, DrugFreeAmerica.com, InFocus, IBM, Microsoft, NationWide, Office Depot, Smirnoff and Sprint PCS.

All print advertisements, logos, and trademarks remain the property of their respective companies and are only used with express written consent.

To my wife, Nathalie for her unconditional support during the long and lonely months of research work that led to this book. Her love is a constant source of energy.

To our son Theo. At the age of 5, he already knows how to sell to our OLD BRAIN.

-- Patrick Renvois

To Bonnie for her support, love, and for giving me the strength to be true to myself and my passion.

To my sons Elliott and Oliver, hoping that they will use principles of this book to increase their future success and happiness.

-- Christophe Morin

Foreword by Patrick Renvois

Late in 2001, after spending most of my adult life in sales, I took advantage of a break in my career to research and develop a new understanding of Sales and Marketing. During nine months of retreat and extensive research in sales, marketing, and neuroscience--integrated with my years of experience in closing complex transactions--I developed the basis of a method called the Selling to OLD BRAIN, now recognized as the first proven Neuromarketing approach to closing Sales.

I shared my work with a longtime friend, Christophe Morin. Christophe and I always joked about our respective professional biases. He was a marketing guy, and I was a sales guy. When I asked him to review the first draft of my book, his diagnosis was the following: I love the theory and I am amazed that you have found a way to merge the best of marketing thinking with the best of sales thinking.

That was the good news! However, he continued in his usual manner, I think the development of your key marketing concepts needs some fine-tuning. I wasn't surprised. Having huge respect for Christophe's highly successful career in marketing and management, I put him to the challenge. Why don't you rewrite the sections you think should be improved and help me finish the book?

By now, you know the end of the story. For twelve solid months, Christophe and I partnered to finesse the book and present a solid, proven formula to increase anyone's selling effectiveness. The book is still narrated by me, Patrick, as when I first produced the draft back in late 2001. You'll find it packed with stories, examples, and an effective, scientific formula for success. Enjoy!

Patrick Renvois

PS:

In 2002, Christophe and I founded SalesBrain, a company whose purpose is to lead the charge in Neuromarketing by applying the Selling to the OLD BRAIN method through Research, Consulting, and Training. Since SalesBrain was founded, we have trained hundreds of sales executives and have received exceptional ratings and a multitude of wonderful success stories about the measurable impact of our groundbreaking approach.

Neuromarketing has since emerged as a powerful and exciting new branch on the Marketing tree. SalesBrain continues to grow and has been nominated twice to receive the Next Big Thing in Marketing award by the AMA--American Marketing Association. Neuromarketing is critical to you as both a consumer and as a marketer, and we invite you to learn more about it.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Have you ever been in a sales situation where you were absolutely convinced you had the best solution for your prospect, but you still lost the deal? Even the best of us have experienced this paradox.

Selling today is tougher than ever because:

Buyers are more sophisticated

Competition is more intense

Sales cycles are longer

Buying by committee is more common

Resistance to normal closing techniques has increased

Fortunately, learning about Neuromarketing will quickly increase your selling effectiveness, enabling you to push your targets Buy Buttons and rapidly achieve the following:

Deliver convincing sales presentations

Shorten your sales cycle

Close more deals

Boost your revenue and profits

Radically improve your ability to influence others

You will also learn how to craft compelling messages in your marketing material and on your web site that will bring you a constant flow of new prospects. These techniques can also be used to raise money for your business or to gain new jobs or promotions.

But, before we enter into the science of the OLD BRAIN, let me tell you a short story about my best customer ever. Even though he was homeless, I made $960 an hour consulting for him. Here is how it happened:

One evening, as I was entering a restaurant in San Francisco, a homeless person stopped me. He was displaying an all-too-common cardboard sign that said:

HOMELESS
PLEASE HELP

He showed all the signs of distress with a sad emptiness in his eyes; a poor fellow indeed. I do not pretend to be an altruist, but often, when some of these poor people look me directly in the eyes, my conscience demands that I hand over a dollar or two. But, on this occasion, I decided to go one step further than giving him a dollar: I wanted to increase his selling effectiveness. You know what they say: It's better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish.

The first challenge my would-be client faced was the same that many individuals or companies face: his message was weak, and certainly not unique. There are thousands of homeless people in San Francisco and they are all asking for help. So I handed over two dollars under one condition: that he would let me change the message on his cardboard sign for at least two hours. I even promised him an additional $5 if he was still there when I got out of the restaurant. I wanted to give him an incentive to try even if he thought my message wouldn't work.

I picked up his cardboard sign and on the reverse side, I wrote down a new message. He agreed to use it as I walked inside the restaurant with my friends. Two hours later, as we met him again on our way out, he refused to take my $5. Instead, the homeless man insisted on giving me $10! He happily explained to me he had made $60 in the two hours that I was eating dinner.

He normally averaged between $2 and $10 an hour so he was truly thankful. He forced me to accept his $10, and since the entire interaction had lasted only 30 seconds, this $8 profit translates into $960 an hour.