Theory of Constraints Handbook - James Cox Iii [422]
However, the point is that the supplier (the label company) and the customer are more closely integrating. Both sides stand to benefit from this business collaboration. The offer needs to be presented in a way that gets the customer engaged, interactive, and ready to buy. The way to do this is very different from what salespeople do today in a typical sales call.
The biggest issue we see after someone already has a good Mafia Offer is in how it is delivered. So let’s talk about that. How should a Mafia Offer be presented? We need to get this right because a good offer, delivered poorly, won’t increase sales.
We have already discussed what happens when you go into blah, blah, blah mode—your prospects stop paying attention. Therefore, we need to present our offer in a way that is compelling, gains their trust, and gets them to take action. To improve on my ability to successfully present Mafia Offers and to help my clients successfully present their offers, I’ve studied and applied some basic psychology. This psychology, combined with the TOC buy-in process, has lead to the success we have had with Mafia Offers and marketing in general.
The Psychology of Delivering a Mafia Offer14
Neuroscience, using a technology called functional MRI, has helped us to understand what part of our brains is involved in making decisions. The outer-most part of our brain (the newest or youngest part) is where rational thinking takes place. The middle part of our brain gives us our gut feelings and all the emotional components related to making a decision. Nevertheless, the decision maker is the core of our brain. This core is the oldest part of our brain and has been called the old brain, the reptilian brain, the first brain, or the limbic system. It doesn’t matter what you call it, what matters is that we use (and our prospects use) the most ancient part of our brain to make all of our decisions.
Brain scientist Leslie Hart determined that the old brain is the part of our brain that decides what senses get transferred to the new brain, and more importantly, what decisions will be accepted. (Hart, 1975).
This means that we must better understand how the old reptilian brain makes decisions for us to sell successfully. There is good news and bad news with this. The bad news is that our prospects and we are making decisions at the primitive level of a crocodile or frog. The good news with the old reptilian brain is that it’s so ancient and so primitive that it becomes predictable; it’s been estimated that the old brain is approximately 450 million years old (Ornstein, 1992). Therefore, if we can understand how to predict what the reptilian brain will do, we can better sell to it.
According to Renvoise’ and Morin (2007, 11), the old reptilian brain, besides processing input from other parts of our brain, only responds to six stimuli. Those stimuli are:
1. Self-centered—It’s all about me and my preservation.
2. Contrast—Say the same thing I’ve already heard and I tune out. Say or do something in contrast and you have my attention.
3. Tangible input—Simple, straightforward is best.
4. The beginning and the end—To conserve energy, the old brain may stop paying attention in the middle.
5. Visual stimuli—Visual works best with the old brain.
6. Emotion—Emotion rules. We are not thinking machines that feel, we are feeling machines that think (Damasio, 1995).
Therefore, if we can understand how to apply the use of these six stimuli, we have the key to engaging our customers/prospects in our Mafia Offer. In addition, if we combine this with the TOC solution for sales (Goldratt and Goldratt, 2003)15 and buy-in processes, they may actually decide to buy from us.
So let’s review the buy-in process in light of these stimuli. The buy-in process has evolved over time and you can find different versions of it. I’m going to review the steps we typically cover when presenting a Mafia Offer and how we might do them keeping the six stimuli in mind.
Agree on the Problem
Since the old reptilian