Harris is the founder of Harris Consulting Group. He is one of the top leaders in Inside sales. He is a keynote speaker and trainer. Harris trains salespeople on Full-Funnel Sales and provides Operational Guidance. He teaches from SDRs with no sales experience to AE's with years of experience under their hood and the Customer Success Reps on how to upsell and cross-sell.
Harris helps organizations in streamlining their Sales Operations and Sales Process. He creates, audits them with recommendations that will speak to the unique use case and provide the right feedback and guidance.
He was one of the key speakers invited to the US version of the 4th edition of the B2B Binge Event. He helped us, and the ones who attended the event, understand customers at a psychological level. He unraveled the mystery of what goes in the customer’s head when they are looking to buy.
Richard sheds light on why buying is an emotional journey. He explains the three ego states of buying.
a. The child ego state (The emotional state): I want it. It is this egotistical state where all the decision originates.
b. The adult ego state (The rational you): Weighing the decisions to pros vs. cons. It gives the customer a reason to go ahead and make a purchase or book a meeting.
c. The Parent Ego State (The critical self): it aids in choosing something morally excellent vs. evil. It helps focus on what is ethically right vs. what is immoral.
When a salesperson understands these ego states, it becomes easier for the individual to act like a child, adult, or a parent to a customer based on the mutual understanding of the problem statement. And as the discussion moves ahead and the knowledge between the sales rep and the customer becomes better and better, the ego state also changes. Each of them holds a different role then. This evolution of function has to be very organic.
Most of the time, customer act like in a child ego state, but sales rep perceives it as parenting or the parent ego state. Salespeople have focus and listen very closely to understand the ego state your customer is in. Instead of rebelling or acting rebellious while understanding or negotiating a customer, try to understand each other and arrive at a better ego state to appeal to their Child ego state.