Selling doesn’t have to feel uncomfortable. In fact, when you think of selling as inviting someone into a solution they genuinely need, the entire experience changes. Use the sales triggers here to capture more profit in your design practice.
Episode Timestamps
- 10:15 Involvement through Inquiry Forms
- 15:30 Transparency Builds Trust
- 22:45 Leveraging Social Proof for Credibility
- 34:20 Creating Urgency with Expiration Dates
- 40:10 Offering Immediate Benefits for Satisfaction
Here are 15 psychological and emotional sales triggers to capture more profit, helping you attract ideal clients and encourage faster buying decisions without resorting to pushy tactics.
These are from Joe Sugarman’s book “Triggers,” and I was fortunate enough to get this via Joe Polish and The Genius Network, check them out at geniusnetwork.com.
1. Involvement: Clients are more likely to buy when they feel involved in the product or service. It’s one of the key sales triggers to capture more profit.
TAKE ACTION: Homework during design discovery bonds clients to you and to your process… Leverage A Clever Quiz, A Robust Website Inquiry, An In-Depth Client Questionnaire, A Detailed Furniture Investment Guide.
2. Honesty: Being truthful and transparent with your market builds trust and increases sales.
TAKE ACTION: They need to understand the basis and range of your fees and the necessary investment in products, so they can plan an appropriate investment.
3. Integrity: Maintaining a consistent and ethical approach in business practices creates long-term client loyalty.
TAKE ACTION: Most often trust is given at the start, if breached, it’s darn near impossible to heal that and get back on track. Always be honest and ethical.
4. Credibility: Establishing a reputation for reliability and dependability, along with leveraging key sales triggers to capture more profit, encourages clients to buy.
TAKE ACTION: Social proof helps make you credible, google reviews, yelp if you use it, IG, FB and LI are also sources of determining your reputation and reliability. Make sure you have current and historical reviews, and that when a reply is possible, you reply to the reviews graciously.
5. Value: Demonstrating the value and benefits of your products and services effectively educates clients into the buying decision.
TAKE ACTION: Share the rationale for your selections and your recommendations every step of the way. By using sales triggers to capture more profit, you can explain why one choice is better than another. Be prepared to answer the question: What are your favorites? What would you do if you were us?
6. Justification: Providing logical reasons to support the purchase decision helps alleviate buyer’s remorse.
TAKE ACTION: Consider these 7 features.
✓ Durability
✓ Low maintenance
✓ Uniqueness (one of a kind)
✓ Custom crafted (bespoke)
✓ Finest (rarest)
✓ Long term benefits of comfort, style, made for them.
✓ Curated for the client
7. Greed: Offering incentives or deals can trigger the desire to take advantage of a good deal.
TAKE ACTION: Look for inspired opportunities like these.
✓ VIP savings if they step on board now vs. Later.
✓ Sale by a source that you want your client to get the savings.
✓ What can you include that they’d ordinarily pay extra for?
8. Authority: Positioning yourself, your product and services as an authority in the field increases trust and sales.
TAKE ACTION: Define your “ONLY” factor and tout it.
✓ Are you the only firm using renderings in your area?
✓ Are you the only firm that’s been in business x number of years where you are?
✓ What press have you been featured in?
✓ What community support has your business provided?
✓ What charities do you support?
9. Conviction: Ensuring and conveying that the client will be satisfied with the design experience, transformation and outcome fosters confidence.
TAKE ACTION: Answer the questions here for your firm.
✓ What warranties and guarantees do you provide?
✓ Do your manufacturers, installers, contractors, and workrooms provide?
✓ Do you guarantee your design quality?
10. Uniqueness: Highlighting unique aspects or features of the product and services can make it more appealing.
TAKE ACTION: Leverage your storyteller’s ability to bring products and materials to life. Tell origin stories, craftsman and manufacturing stories, or stories about the artists and custom makers. By using sales triggers to capture more profit, you can enrich each piece with provenance—even when it’s new and not antique or vintage, you can always tell a story.
11. Hope: Selling the possibility of a positive outcome through the product.
TAKE ACTION: In the case of a design a positive outcome is a foregone conclusion: the client will be more comfortable, feel more confident and at home, function more efficiently in their renovated or new interior, experience feelings of worthiness and pride.
12. Curiosity: Engaging the market’s curiosity can attract them to hire you.
TAKE ACTION: Put your client in a place of imagining what their interior will look like, feel like, smell like, taste like, sound like… make design about being a sensory experience and invite them into that reality. You are the vehicle that can take them there.
13. Urgency: Creating a feeling that prompts faster buying decisions
TAKE ACTION: Always use an expiration date on your design agreement. Deploy your VIP paid waitlist or a feasibility package. Each one creates urgency. Discussion on availability of products, on client desired completion date, on pricing always increasing, and on contractors losing availability if they wait, are also effective means to generate urgency.
14. Fear: Addressing and alleviating fears or concerns can influence clients to hire and buy.
TAKE ACTION: Employ the answers to the questions here.
✓ What is the cost to them if they don’t move forward now?
✓ Which of the three universal problems have you identified as a trigger?
15. Gratification: Offering immediate benefits or rewards can attract buyers.
TAKE ACTION: Get inspired by the options here.
Take design off their plate, allowing them to focus on what they do best.
Create a celebration for them, so they know they have a spotlight moment to share with friends, family and peers (and so do you.)
Positively impact their relationships, their confidence, their self worth.
Now I want you to know that there are 15 more triggers coming your way in the next episode, so be sure to listen in and collect all 30 and apply them to your design practice, and watch your results soar. By using sales triggers to capture more profit, you can elevate your business to new heights.
Stacking is the concept where you stack value, in this case, when you stack triggers, you create a level of irresistibility where the client can’t move forward without hiring you, you hold the keys to their new kingdom.
Key Takeaways
When you layer these psychological triggers strategically, you create a powerful effect that makes it easy for clients to say yes. Selling isn’t about manipulation—it’s about providing solutions and guiding clients toward outcomes they already desire.
When you’re ready to increase your interior design practice profits, work exclusively with ideal clients, and enjoy the time and resources for your extraordinary life, explore your coaching options. We’ve got your back in the business of interior design.
