Sell The Way You Buy

Former Salesforce executive and Cerebral Selling founder David Priemer shows why focusing solely on product features and ROI misses what truly drives sales. Drawing from his experience leading small business sales at Salesforce and building four successful startups, Priemer shares the connection between human psychology and sales results.

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Research shows buyers choose based on feelings rather than logic – a blind spot for many sales teams. When analyzing 70 sales representatives at Salesforce, Priemer found the highest performers built genuine belief in their solutions instead of relying on feature lists. This insight reshaped how their sales teams approached customer conversations.

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Priemer introduces the "love-hate framework" for creating sales messages that connect. His example of Trunk Club shows this in action: "a service for men who love to dress well but hate to go shopping." This positioning helped secure their acquisition by Nordstrom by speaking to customer emotions instead of product specs.

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The discussion examines why business cases alone don't close deals, how real conviction outperforms product knowledge, and what builds lasting customer relationships.
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People don't buy the business case - they buy the feeling that comes with the business case. And we know this because even in business, when we put together business cases for clients and say, 'Look, you spend a million bucks with me, and you're going to make two million bucks,' the only thing that matters is whether you believe that what I said is going to happen, will actually happen. And belief is not an objective statistic; it's a feeling. -- David Priemer

Top 3 Reasons to Listen
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Higher Close Rates: Apply proven methods that increased sales at Salesforce by focusing on customer emotions instead of features.

Competitive Edge: Stand out in your market when everyone else leads with specs and statistics.

Better Margins: Learn how to sell on value and belief rather than competing on price and features.

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Follow David Priemer on Social

His website CerebralSelling.com

Check out his book "Sell The Way You Buy"

Find David on LinkedIn

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More About Today's Guest, David Priemer

Helping you sell more in a noisy market with powerful, science-based tactics

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David Priemer leads Cerebral Selling, a sales training and consulting firm. His path combines research science with sales leadership - he began as a research scientist before spending 20 years guiding sales teams at fast-growing tech companies. At Salesforce, he served as Vice President of Commercial Sales and built their Sales Leadership Academy program.

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David wrote the book "Sell The Way You Buy" and has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Inc. magazines. He brings scientific methods to sales training, helping teams adapt to how modern customers make buying decisions.

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He holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Atmospheric Science from York University and a Master's in Chemical Engineering from the University of Toronto. He teaches at the Smith School of Business at Queen's University and the London Business School.

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David helps organizations build stronger sales teams by combining research-based methods with human psychology. Outside of work, he enjoys cooking, writing, and time with his wife and three daughters.

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Key Takeaways

• Sales Success: Learn why top Salesforce performers won deals through genuine belief instead of technical expertise.

• Decision Science: Understand the research behind why feelings matter more than facts in B2B sales.

• Business Psychology: See how companies like Trunk Club win by speaking to emotions rather than features.

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A Transcription of The Talk

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Mark Drager: So, David, you've written multiple books, and you're a professional speaker, but you wrote the book Sell the Way You Buy. And when I saw that title, and when I saw the book and started to dig into it, I thought—I’m gonna be honest with you—I was like, "This doesn’t make any sense at all," because I tend to be a little bit cheap, although I say frugal. I have my value sets, and if I prescribed my value sets to every single person that I tried to sell to, I wouldn’t ever sell anything. Just because I want to, you know, value certain things, buy certain ways, scope out work certain ways, pay certain fees, doesn’t mean that everyone in the rest of the world has that. So, can you help clarify for me and for our listeners, what do you mean when you say, "Sell the way that you buy?"

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David Priemer: Yeah, it’s a good question. So, there are two things I think about when I hear "sell the way you buy." The first element is kind of what you said at the beginning, which is this empathetic component. And I had this epiphany—so, I'm a startup guy; I've been in four startups, and my third startup was acquired by Salesforce. So, I came over with the ship to this big company, Salesforce. I was there for five awesome years, and I used to run small business sales for the Eastern US for Salesforce. I found that a lot of the tactics in this big sales machine that my sales reps were going out and using were not unethical, and they were not categorically ineffective, but they were just things that were not working on me when other salespeople were trying to sell me stuff—because I'm, like, a VP at Salesforce, and I’m ground zero for prospecting. So, I just found that these tactics wouldn’t work on me.

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And so, yes, there's an empathetic component, but I'd say the bigger element is being really curious about the pathways and mechanisms by which human beings make purchasing decisions. So, it doesn’t matter, Mark, if this is what you do or someone else does—as human beings, we're all wired pretty much the same way. And so, if we understand the pathways by which human beings make decisions of any kind, then we can align our sales motion accordingly. So, yes, there’s this empathetic piece, but there’s also just this thing that we all do when we buy things, which we can align our sales motion with to convert customers in a much more efficient, authentic, and frankly, human way. That’s what it’s all about.

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Mark Drager: And so, in the opening of your book, you shared this moment of realization that, as a busy executive, every single person was trying to get you on the phone, trying to get you on LinkedIn, trying to email you—they’re trying to get a moment of your time. Everyone’s trying to sell to you. And when your head is down, like many of our listeners are, when you're busy, when you're focused, the last thing you want to do is be distracted. Can you share a little bit more and flesh out, I guess, this moment of realization that, "Oh, the very thing I’m asking my team to do is the very thing that would not work on me"?

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David Priemer: Yeah, like, we talk a lot about, "Oh, just, you know, reach out and say, ‘Hey, there’s never been a better time to buy,’ and, like, ‘We have this solution, and it’s going to help reduce costs and improve efficiency.’" This is what we're kind of wired to say. We talk about, oftentimes in business especially, the business case. We talk about the return on investment: "I’m asking you for money, but hey, don’t worry, because you’re going to make more money than this or save more money than this." You know, "What you’re paying me, of course—why wouldn’t you want to do it?"

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But there are a couple of things we run into. Number one is, just because something is important doesn’t mean it’s a priority. So, oftentimes, as salespeople, we think, "Why wouldn’t someone spend this money with me if I could, you know, 2x, 3x, 10x your money? Wouldn’t that make sense?" But it’s kind of like saying, "Hey, Mark, is your health and the health of your family the most important thing to you?" What would you say?

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Mark Drager: I don’t know how I would respond to that, because if I responded "yes," which it is, I would feel like you’re leading me somewhere, and I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to trick me into.

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David Priemer: I love that you're—I was not trying to trick you, but I love that you’re going down this road. No, I love that you’re going down this road because—so, here’s the other part; we'll kind of skip to the end a little bit. In sales, we tell our reps to go out there and, like, ask, "Mark, what’s your budget? What’s the timing? Who’s going to sign this thing?" and they say, like, "Mark, who’s your boss? What does the approval process look like?" I asked my reps to go out and get all this information. And just because, as a sales rep, you want things—you want information—well, guess what? You’re the enemy. So, no one wants to tell you anything, right? Just because you ask nicely doesn’t mean someone’s going to. Imagine you go into a car dealership, and the car salesperson says, "Hey, Mark, what’s your budget for cars?" Exactly what you said is, "Now, is this a trap?" Like, if I say this thing, are they going to try to trap me this way and that way?

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So, there’s a huge disconnect in the sales world, where we just go and execute things without thinking about what’s going on in the mind of our customers. I often refer to this as the science of self-disclosure, and I talked about this in the book and my content—the science of self-disclosure. Like, everyone has secrets that they don’t want to talk about. How do you get customers to open up and tell you things that they don’t want to talk about? So that’s kind of the "skip to the end" part. But the question about, you know, "Is your health and the health of your family the most important thing?" is not a trick question, because most people would say yes, which it is, right? But does that mean that if I followed you around for a week and wrote down everything you ate, where you spent your time, how much exercise you got, how much sleep—all the things that would be consistent with the fact that your health and the health of your family are the most important thing—would I see your actions aligning with that belief? And we know what the answer to that question is, right?

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Mark Drager: The answer is that Halloween was just a little bit ago. If you followed me around last night, you would see that I was secretly taking the dad tax. Oh, see, listeners, he's holding up chocolate—

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David Priemer: If you’re not watching this on video, I have a box of Halloween candy I have, for whatever reason, beside my desk here.

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Mark Drager: Tax. But yeah.

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David Priemer: That's it. So, what you're saying is, okay, something is important, but it doesn't mean you have a sense of urgency to solve that problem. So yes, our customers have problems that ideally would be great if they could be solved, but that doesn't mean it's the number one, two, or three thing that they're focused on. So that's one disconnect. And salespeople are often bewildered, like, "Oh my gosh, I could help 3x this person's money. Why aren't they getting back to me?" It's because there's a difference between importance and priority.

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Now, if I told you—back to the health situation—if I said, "Hey, look, God forbid, Mark, if you don't get on the treadmill—I've done your medical workup—if you don't get on the treadmill in the next few months, you're gonna have a heart attack," all of a sudden, what was important now becomes a priority. So, there are different ways we can help establish priority, help unlock that sense of urgency, but it requires us to really dive down into the science of how people act and behave as it relates to their purchasing decisions.

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The other piece, though, relates to this concept I often refer to as the binary paradox of ROI, or value versus ROI. And it goes like this: You ever hear the phrase, "No one ever got fired for buying what?"

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Mark Drager: IBM, right? Back in the day.

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David Priemer: Exactly. And so, what does that mean? Does it mean that IBM has the best products or services? Like, what, Mark—what do you think that means, "No one ever got fired for buying IBM"?

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Mark Drager: Here’s what we know, listeners: status matters, right? And so, people do not mind making bad decisions. They mind making bad decisions in front of others so they look foolish. And so, there is this social capital that comes down. If nobody gets fired for buying from IBM, then does it make sense—is it worth the risk-benefit to my career, my reputation, and my name to try the slightly better solution that comes with risks attached to it, or to frankly just buy from who all the social proof shows me is a smart decision that everyone else is making? Why would I risk anything when I could just go with IBM? And if it’s B2B, it’s not even my budget or money; it’s someone else’s money.

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David Priemer: It’s an abstract concept. That’s right. It’s funny, we used to say in small business at Salesforce that our clients had a relationship with their money—like, if they spent money on us, it meant that their family couldn’t go on vacation that year. You know, it was very intimate. But in a lot of businesses, money is like a number on a spreadsheet. That’s abstract, you know, to us. But you’re 100% right in your thinking around this: "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." It means that I value my job and not being fired or being thought of as out of the norm, and I’m willing to pay more money for that kind of solution, right? Because what do I value? I value the feeling of security, safety, and consistency rather than trying to be too innovative with what I'm doing.

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It’s funny, not to digress too much on this, but there’s a really great story. There's a fellow by the name of Rory Sutherland—he’s like this older British guy, an ad exec, and he’s brilliant. I love all of his content. He’s done TED Talks and so on, and he tells these stories often. He says, like, there was a flight that British Airways in London set up. They noticed a lot of business people were going from London to New York City for business, and they found it was a massive pain in the ass to go to London Heathrow Airport to fly all the way to JFK. So, they decided, "We’re gonna put on this business-class-only flight from London City Airport to JFK." It’s easier to get to, it’s all business class—it’ll be great. And what did they find? The headline was: not a lot of people booked this flight. And they were bewildered. Like, why would no one book this flight? It ticks all the boxes.

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What they found was that the people actually booking the flights were the assistants of these businesspeople. And what happened was they said, "Look, if I put my boss on a flight from London Heathrow to JFK and something happens with the flight, like it gets delayed or whatever, my boss is going to blame British Airways, because that’s the default route that I would take. But if I book my boss on this unusual flight from London City Airport and something gets screwed up, they’re going to blame me." Right? So, I'm just going to stick with the tried-and-true option because I value my personal brand and reputation.

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So, back to value versus ROI. The idea is that people don’t buy the business case—they buy the feeling that comes with the business case. And we know this because even in business, when we put together business cases for clients and say, "Look, you spend a million bucks with me, and you’re going to make two million bucks," the only thing that matters is whether you believe that what I said is going to happen, will actually happen. And if you don’t believe it, you’re not going to buy in. And belief is not an objective statistic; it’s a feeling. Either you believe or you don’t believe, right?

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So, back to Sell the Way You Buy. This is a thing where, as sellers, we think, "Oh, we put together a business case, we just ask these questions, and boom—sales happen." But the reality is, human beings are complex, messy, and biased much more toward feelings than they are toward logic and reason. And so, when I talk about selling along these pathways—whether it’s discovery, getting customers to open up, your messaging, how you handle objections—all of it flows along these emotional pathways. So, if we can sell along those pathways, then we’ll be in better shape. That’s where Sell the Way You Buy comes from.

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Mark Drager: This is really interesting, and I think we can explore this a little bit more because I've noticed that as soon as someone moves into a business context—as salespeople, marketers, advertisers, business development, an owner, product developer, or whatever aspect of business you're in—people somehow feel that you leave your personality and emotion at the door. I recall, gosh, a bunch of years ago, we were working with a company that sold a Spanx alternative for women. It was focused on the idea that, somehow, you would be able to reduce fat or lose weight by wearing this product. And the whole thing that the business owner came to us with was all of the scientific proof—all the scientific proof.

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But the thing is, I’ve been with my wife now for almost 25 years, and I’ve learned by just watching women in my life that some days they go, “Oh, I look terrible.” And I’m like, “You look great. What are you talking about?” Other days, it's, “I look amazing,” and I’m thinking, “You look exactly the same as yesterday. Yesterday you thought you looked bad; today you think you look great.” And I’m trying to figure this out. And it hit me that it’s not about objective truth; it doesn’t really matter. It’s about feeling, experience, and emotion. It doesn’t matter how you look; it matters how you feel about how you look. Whatever aspect you’re in, whether it’s business or otherwise, this is key.

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But in B2B, or in business, as you mentioned with business cases, we somehow think that people stop being people as soon as we move into a business context. And we rely on logic, we rely on reason, and we overlook emotion. Is that, in your experience, because it's harder, more abstract, leaves more to chance, and requires us to take larger risks that maybe internal stakeholders might not be comfortable with? Why do we assume that as soon as we’re having a business conversation, people stop being people?

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David Priemer: Yeah, well, it’s a great question. I think, number one, it’s just easier to train people on logic and reason. Here’s the spreadsheet, here’s the data—it’s just easier to train on that. It’s the same reason why, when we talk about our products and services, it’s a lot easier to train someone on features, functions, the technical aspects, rather than on the emotional element. Although you do see this in society. You see great brands—Nike, Apple—that sell the feeling rather than the technicalities. But in B2B sales, we think, “Oh, we need to be buttoned up. This is how people work in B2B sales.” And it's not that this approach is categorically incorrect, but times have changed.

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There are so many options now. If you want to go out and buy a cell phone, for example, there aren’t that many choices—Apple, Android, maybe a few others. But if you want to hire a sales trainer, there are a million sales trainers. And in the marketing technology space, there’s been massive growth. We were chatting about this earlier—back in 2011, there were 150 vendors in the marketing technology space. By 2024, there are over 14,000 marketing technologies, which is about a 42% compound annual growth over that time period. So, if you're one of those vendors trying to explain why you're this unique snowflake, you're going to lose because people now have much less discretionary mental bandwidth than they used to have. We’re just consumed with all sorts of stimuli, so it’s actually a lot harder to break through.

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Add to that the fact that the average age and experience level of a seller joining your company is far less than it was 10 years ago. So now, we're telling these younger, less-experienced sellers—who exist in a sea of sameness—to go call on, in many cases, grown-ups and talk about the future of whatever. And they struggle to manifest the confidence, conviction, and the emotion needed to break through. So, to answer your question, a lot of changes have happened in the market. But I think, in general, it's just easier to gravitate towards those features, functions, and ROI as an easier way to train and communicate, even though that’s not really how we buy.

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Mark Drager: And so, what is the solution, in your perspective, to some of these challenges we’re laying out? Because as I hear you talking, I think, "I’d rather not have the overhead—even if it’s a 100% commission role—I’d rather not have the overhead of managing someone who isn’t going to be successful because they’re not capable of selling on an emotional, story-based, or consultative level." If all they're going to do is push features and benefits, and that isn’t going to work, I'd rather not have someone in the role. It's very hard to scale, very hard to manage, and very hard to find people who can do this. So what is the solution to some of the things we’ve been talking about?

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David Priemer: Yeah, I still think there's this element of enablement. You can take a young, less-experienced person—because think about this: if I took someone and asked, “What’s one thing you’re just passionate about?” and then said, “Go out and sell that to someone,” they could do it. If they love a type of music, sport, or whatever it is, they could sell it. But then, if I say, “Now, sell this functional, technical solution,” all of a sudden, they break down. So the question is, how can we put the thing we’re selling on the same emotional plane as this other thing that they’re authentically passionate about in their personal life?

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I do this all the time. For example, let’s say I ask someone, “What’s something you’re not passionate about?” and you say, “I don’t know, taxes.” And I say, “Okay, so you're not passionate about taxes. Tell me about—"

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Mark Drager: Paying taxes! I can be passionate about not paying taxes.

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David Priemer: Well, even if it’s something like the tax code or tax laws. You know, if you think about that, your head spins. But let’s go with it. Let's start from that part. Let’s say you weren’t passionate about it, and I asked, “So, tell me, Mark, why are you so passionate about the tax code?” You’d struggle. You’d be like, “Well, you know, the tax code is really important, and there are lots of rules.” You’d start describing it like if you didn’t like skiing and I said, “Tell me why skiing is so great,” you’d say, “Oh, well, there’s the mountain, the skis, the beautiful weather,” right? Versus if you love skiing or you love—

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Mark Drager: Versus the sunlight hitting that type of snow that's just, like, lightly blowing on the side of a mountain. Do you know what I mean? Do you know that crispness?

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David Priemer: Yeah, you could describe the crispness. You could also say, "Oh my gosh, you know what? Growing up, we skied as a family. This was our default thing. We were all busy during the week—my dad traveled a lot, my mom didn’t do much skiing—but we loved to get away. During the winters, it was like every weekend, clockwork; everything just stopped, and we’d spend time as a family." And now you're telling me a story that almost transcends skiing. There’s all this emotion behind it. Why do you love baseball? Maybe it's because your dad used to take you when you were a little kid, and you’d do this and that. You would tell a story with emotion.

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So, I'm not saying that now you should plunk yourself into the B2B world and start selling advertising, sheet metal, consulting, or whatever it is, right? The question is, how do I manifest the same level of emotion around these things that I have around something I'm just naturally passionate about—even if it's not my core expertise? And there are things you can do. I teach this in my book and my programs, like how to manifest this kind of authentic conviction. It’s almost like a translation function.

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Now, I’ll tell you, people love to talk about their products and services in detail. And it’s really interesting. Full disclosure—I work with a lot of high-growth tech companies, and software companies, big and small. That’s kind of my thing. And the reality is, in these spaces, no one really needs technology, right? But technology evolves quickly, so salespeople go out and say, "Oh, version 3.0 is coming out. It'll knock your socks off! You’ll never believe what it can do." And companies actually train their reps, saying, "Hey, if our reps know how these features and functions work, they’ll be able to go out and sell this thing." But in reality, customers just ignore them because they’re stuck in a sea of sameness. No one has any tolerance for all these little details.

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I was speaking at a sales kickoff event a couple of weeks ago. The CEO gets on stage—this is a 5,000-employee company, a billion-dollar software company—and he says, "I want to encourage all you salespeople to try really hard this year. I want to see you at President’s Club on the beach." And he said to everyone, "Look, we have a lot of new products and services coming out this year. And I’ll tell you, the people I see at President’s Club on the beach every year are the ones who really know these products and services inside and out. So I encourage you to do that."

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Now, this was a couple of hours before my keynote. So I get up on stage and say, "Hey, I want to make a slight modification to what [pretending his name was] Mark said. I do believe what he’s saying is true—the reps who know the products inside out are the ones at President’s Club, having hit their quota. But I don’t believe it’s because they know the products and services and communicate that to the customers. It’s that their knowledge of the products and services allows them to manifest authentic conviction when they connect with customers. They don’t even have to talk about all the nuts, bolts, features, and functions, but customers believe them, trust them, and feel comfortable with them. Those reps can create an amazing, relaxed, authentic human buying experience, and that’s why they’re successful."

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Yes, having that competency and conviction is key. I actually saw this firsthand at Salesforce. Quick story: I was at a leadership off-site, and we were at this restaurant at a golf course. The server—the lead server—came around and took everyone’s orders. There were maybe eight of us, and it was a nice menu, with maybe eight items. He comes to me last. I’m one of those people; when I order in a restaurant, I don’t just say, "I’ll take this," because maybe that dish isn’t great. We’ve all had that experience—you order something that looks good, and then it disappoints. So I asked the server, after everyone else had ordered something different, "This tenderloin dish on the menu—it looks pretty good. How is it?"

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He puts down his pad, looks at me all serious, and says, "Oh, sir, it’s the best thing on the menu." Then he goes into detail about the maple syrup production, the mashed potatoes, and everything. I’m like, "I’m having this." And you know what happened? Six out of the other seven people changed their order to that dish.

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Now, was it good? Yeah, it was good. Was it the best thing on the menu? I don’t know. Maybe the server was lying, maybe they had a surplus in the kitchen, or maybe it was more expensive, and he thought he'd get a bigger tip. I don’t know. But in that moment, he had a lot of conviction that this was the best thing on the menu, and he managed to convert most of us—sales leaders—at the table. So I thought, “This means something.”

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I went back to Salesforce and pulled a report of all my 70 sales reps, showing who generated the most sales pipeline this year. I found that the reps at the top of the list had that same authentic conviction. Yes, some were tenured, some had deep product knowledge, but the top performers transcended narrative beyond features and functions. They were willing to make strong recommendations and lead their customers. To be honest, that’s what the best salespeople still do today. If you want to be successful in today’s market, stuck in a sea of sameness, with razor-thin attention spans, leading with that authentic human conviction will help you win more. It’s proven by science, data, and experience.

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Mark Drager: Let me run something by you. Part of what I value at our agency and part of our approach consists of two things. One, I always tell my team, and remind myself, that we have to own the outcome. It’s our responsibility to own the client’s outcome—not just the sale, but the actual value-for-money exchange and the outcome itself. And second, I need to do right by these people. This is not just a big company; it’s my client’s career, their reputation. If it’s their business, it’s their dollars.

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I loved what you said about small businesses at Salesforce—the realization that these dollars are coming directly from personal income. I often think, in my opinion, most companies aren’t willing to do what it takes to truly take on responsibility for the outcome. They’d rather be a bit more hands-off, dip their toe in, not make a firm recommendation, and avoid accountability if something goes wrong. I think that subtle shift makes or breaks this conviction you’re talking about. And as we go through sales, and also as we go through delivery, I remind myself that I need to do right by these people. It’s our responsibility to do right by them. Do you think these values or this positioning can help train others and lead them toward this conviction? Are we saying the same thing here? Or is this just my interpretation of it?

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David Priemer: Yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve hired lots of contractors for my business, too, and I find that whether the service they provide leads to ultimate success or not—of course, you want it to—one thing I value in contractors I go back to, or even refer, is that I believe they care about me and my business, regardless of the outcome. They care about my success.

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As a startup guy in the software trenches, where your solution may not be 100% there, especially in the early days, you attract like-minded customers who believe what you believe. When you deliver an amazing experience and demonstrate that you genuinely care, those customers will give you more chances, even if you don’t hit the mark perfectly every time.

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So, yes, what you’re describing is 100% true. It’s almost like a cheat code. Simon Sinek often gets asked how he’s such a great speaker, and he says, “I cheat. I only speak about things I know a lot about, and I only speak about things I’m passionate about.” People can tell. Look at Elon Musk. Whatever you think of him—with all due respect, he’s a horrible speaker. He’s not well-practiced, stumbles through his words, and often riffs it. But I believe he believes in what he’s saying. He’s 100% authentic, and you can tell by how he runs his businesses and invests his resources.

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This authenticity has made Tesla the most valuable car company in the world, and its stock value fluctuates based on what people think of him personally. I can’t name the CEO of any other car company, let alone predict how the stock would react based on their personality. But Elon commands this because he’s so authentic.

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So, just like with Simon Sinek or Elon Musk, when you care about the results your customers receive and they feel that, that’s what they’re buying into. I’ve given contractors second, third, and even fourth chances because I felt they genuinely cared about my business and its outcome. And that’s real. This is where people are spending their money. So, 100%.

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Mark Drager: Funny you mention it. I am not a fan of Elon Musk, but I will learn from anyone. And I was watching—I don't know if it was CNBC, I don't know what the clip was on YouTube—but I got a clip of him talking about the opportunity with Robo-taxis, and how the fact that the entire Robo-taxi play is going to move margins from, you know, 20 cents on the dollar to 70 cents.

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That it's not an auto play; it's actually a software play, and that it's going to blow all consumer sales, retail sales out of the water. And no matter what has happened before, things are about to change in extremely dramatic ways.

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And by the end of this 45-second clip, I was watching it going, I went from cynical and skeptical to I don't really know how to validate what he's saying, to "Oh, man, this is how this guy gets people to fund and back this stuff."

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Like, by the end, it was like this little clip, this little master clip of, surely, if he didn't believe it, no one's gonna buy into it. No one's gonna give him hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in financing his belief in it.

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Whether I could validate it or not, I felt, and I was thinking, I need to figure out how to do that kind of stuff better.

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David Priemer: You know what? When you read Sell the Way You Buy, in chapter five I talk about this. So I call it, like, messaging conviction and leading with what you believe. I actually call it a belief statement.

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So instead of talking about your product or service or company in terms of what you do, start your narrative with, "Well, at our company, we believe that," and then kind of go down that road.

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For example, if you didn't even know what I did—and I say your product or service should be nowhere near this narrative, right? But if I said, "You know what, look, Mark, I believe sales is the best profession in the world when done the right way. And I believe that while there are a lot of bad salespeople out there, I also believe they're not bad people. There are good people going out and using these bad tactics. And I believe if you want to be successful in the market of the future, you have to use sales tactics that are rooted in science, executed with empathy and conviction. That's what I believe."

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Now, nowhere in that narrative did I say anything about my company, what my products or services are. But if you're out there and you're listening to this or reading it, and you say, "You know what? Yeah, he's making sense. I believe what you believe," now all of a sudden, you're leaning in and you're interested to hear what I have to say.

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This is like Marc Benioff in the Salesforce Mobile days saying, "Hey, look, Mark, we at Salesforce—we believe, as a busy entrepreneur, you should be able to run your business from your phone. Why would you want to go and sit in front of a computer all day? You're on the move! We believe you should be able to run your business from your phone."

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There's no product there. There's no service. It's a belief statement. And people like Simon Sinek say, "People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it." And so when you lead with what you believe, it's very powerful.

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In fact, I've had clients, literally in the last couple weeks, who said, "David, this training has been fantastic." I said, "So you've even closed business as a result of these tactics?" I said, "Give me one tactic that you used that you were able to close business from," and this belief statement keeps coming up.

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I've been doing this for years, but like they say, not only did the belief statement allow us to align with the emotional value system of our customers, but our reps were able to use it with a lot more conviction, because now we're not talking about products or services; we're talking about feelings. And as humans, it's much easier to talk about feelings than anything else.

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So anyways, this belief statement, as we're talking about here, is very powerful when it comes to converting customers.

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Mark Drager: I have two more questions, and I appreciate—I think we're bumping up against the clock, but listeners, if you'll stick with us, two questions just popped into my head.

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Salespeople and entrepreneurs are often perceived as being overly optimistic and willing to say whatever they need to say to get a sale. And that has not been my experience. My experience is, in fact, that most people in a position for business development or sales tend to, again, be afraid to make bold claims, be afraid to really put themselves out there.

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They would rather play it safe, and then they fall into the sea of sameness because they are doing what everyone else is doing. In your experience, where do people tend to fall? And should we be injecting more hope and more optimism into our messages, or is there a very real risk of overselling?

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David Priemer: Yeah, in my experience, it's definitely more the latter. People get stuck in, like, the functional, technical—the details of what it is—and not on the emotional state of the customer.

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It's also different now, like saying whatever you need to say to get the sale. The reality is, like, that worked—this is, I'm going back to Dan Pink, and he talks about this in To Sell Is Human, which I love. And he says, back in the day, there was this system of information asymmetry, meaning when you went to go buy a car, for example, you didn't know if the car was great or a piece of crap. The salesperson knew, but there was no way for you to really find out about that car.

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And nowadays you can just Google everything, and there's all these reviews, so people—there's a lot more transparency. There's that information parity now. It's not like you can oversell something. If I go on Amazon or Expedia and I see a thing that's rated a 3.8 out of five, it's gonna be very difficult for you to tell me that this is really, you know, a mind-blowing thing that's gonna change my life.

So definitely, I see the problem being more on talking about, like, the functional, technical and, like, kind of the lower level—like what it is—versus it's not overselling to speak about something with emotion.But yeah, I don't see a lot of people just saying whatever they need to win a deal these days.

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Mark Drager: The real push for us is to make those bolder claims—be able to lead with conviction, lead with empathy, tie things back to the real pain points of the business. Paint a picture—future-cast. Paint a picture of what the future may look like implementing your solutions or using your solutions. Just getting a lot more, what, personal and emotional? If I wrapped everything up, is that fair?

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David Priemer: If you wrap everything up, I talk about this—people don't buy solutions; they buy feelings. And we know this from science; we know this from research. So the idea is, how can we align our sales motion along these emotional pathways? It doesn't mean making false promises.

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But, for example, there was a customer of ours at Salesforce who did a really great job of this. They were a big company based in the U.S.; they were called Trunk Club. And Trunk Club—if I don't know, do you know? Do you remember? Trunk Club was acquired by Nordstrom for a few hundred million dollars.

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But essentially what it was—imagine, instead of going shopping, it was an online platform where you'd go in, and it was originally geared towards men who would say, "Okay, here's my size of shirt and shoes, and here's what I like to wear in my color scheme." And then they would have a virtual stylist—a person—pick out clothes and put them in a box—the trunk—and they would send it to you every month. And whatever you liked, you kept, and whatever you didn't like, you sent back—like a personal shopping online service for men.

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But that's not what they said. They said, "Trunk Club is a service for men who love to dress well but hate to go shopping." Now, if you're a man and you love to dress well and you hate to shop, now you're like, "What is this? I'm leaning in. Tell me more." That's what—it's just that simple. It's the emotional pathways.

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Like, people love to buy things; they hate talking to salespeople. People love feedback—you know what they hate? Performance reviews. This was my third company that we got acquired by Salesforce—that's what we said: "People love feedback, and they hate performance reviews." I call this the polarizing love-hate statements. You see all these statements I say—they have "love" and "hate."

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And then people love feedback; they hate performance reviews. Men love to dress well; they hate to shop. This is emotional pathways. That's it. There's no false promise. I'm just taking my solution and saying, what is it that my customers want, and what is the enemy that's blocking them from getting it? And just throw that into a statement with the words "love" and "hate."

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I have tons of content on this, and I talk about it in Sell the Way You Buy, and lead with that. That's the simplest way of pitching your product with emotional clarity.

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Mark Drager: I've been speaking with David Priemer, who is the author of Sell the Way You Buy. So David, one last question for you as we wrap up this episode: What would be your number one tip or strategy to help those of us listening sell more?

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David Priemer: Yeah, when people ask me that, I just go back to Sell the Way You Buy, which is, again, just being really curious about those emotional pathways. Don't do the thing that you've been doing for years because that's what traditionally people have done. I'm seeing this today with all of my clients.

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If you fall into that habit and you keep doing what you've been doing, even though it's not working as much anymore—and it shouldn't be working as much anymore because of all of the different changes in society—then you're gonna lose. So always be in that learning mindset.

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This is what I took away—we didn't talk about it—I started my career as a research scientist, and then I got into sales by accident at the turn of the dot-com boom. But I never lost the research scientist's curiosity. And so I'd say that's my number one tip: Don't keep doing the same thing over and over again. You need to adapt your motion based on science and the way people actually buy, but then also harmonizing that with what's happening in your particular market, which is—if it's like other markets—changing every month, every week, every year.

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