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We’ve all heard the phrase:
“Walk in the customer’s shoes.”
But there’s value in walking in the customer’s mind too.
Most sales training focuses on what to say.
Very little focuses on what is happening in the other person’s brain while you’re saying it.
Yet that’s where the real decision is being made.
Long before a customer agrees, disagrees, signs, delays, objects, or disappears altogether, their brain is already running a series of calculations in the background:
Am I safe?
Can I trust this person?
Do they understand me?
Am I being sold to?
Do I need to defend my position?
Many salespeople don’t realise how easily a threat response can be triggered.
A question that feels like pressure.
A recommendation delivered too early.
An assumption that makes someone feel misunderstood.
A challenge to a belief they’ve held for years.
None of these are necessarily bad.
But when the brain starts to perceive threat, something interesting happens.
Curiosity narrows.
Defensiveness rises.
Listening decreases.
The conversation becomes harder.
The customer rarely tells you this is happening.
You’ll simply hear:
“I need to think about it.”
What’s fascinating is that there are ways to reduce that threat response before it ever appears.
Not through scripts.
Not through clever closing techniques.
But through the way the conversation is structured from the very beginning.
How you create psychological safety.
How you demonstrate understanding.
How you help someone feel seen before they feel sold.
The more I’ve studied neuroscience, the more I’ve realised that many of the topics I speak about - leadership, , performance, change, adaptability or even sales, are essentially about human beings.
Sales conversations just happen to be one of the most fascinating places to observe all of that happening in real time.
After 20 years of being, working with, and leading advisers, relationship and sales professionals, I’ve become increasingly interested in what happens inside a customer’s mind during those moments.
Because often the sale isn’t won or lost when the recommendation is presented.
It’s won or lost much earlier.
Long before either person realises it.
Based on recent enquiries to "go beyond internal sales structures" and "tell us what the customer is thinking and feeling", it’s one of the areas I’m exploring more deeply in my keynote speaking sessions, and the feedback has been amazing.
What do you think creates the biggest sense of trust, or threat, in a customer conversation?
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I'm Alex - a keynote speaker in Sydney
I help leaders and their teams require their brains using neuroscience insights and cogntivie illusions to transform, experientially, how they think, lead and adapt to high-performance, human connection and change.
If you're looking for a more interactive, engaging speaker, please reach out.