5 dark psychological hacks that double your close rate

If you want to be good at sales, you got to be good at tapping into people's psychology. I've closed $9M+ in sales myself, and these are the five dark psychological hacks I use on every call to double my close rate. Steal them.

Double binds and internal presuppositional questions

A double bind is a conversational illusion of choice. You give the prospect two options, both lead to what you want.

Don't attach this to the option close, that doesn't work anymore. Attach it to discovery questions instead, where there's way less pressure to "decide" anything. People buy into your frame without even noticing.

Example:

"What would you change about the quality of leads or the amount of leads if you could?"

Two options. Either answer helps me.

Now pair that with an internal presuppositional question. This is a question built so the answer is already baked in, and the cause is internal. It's their fault. Something they're doing.

"What are you not doing that is causing the marketing not to work?"

If they answer that, they just bought into the frame that they are the problem. And that's exactly what you want, because you can only sell a solution to someone who believes they're the problem. You can't fix the economy. You can fix their marketing.

Stack both together and it gets even stronger:

"What do you feel like you're saying, or not saying, or maybe even how you're coming across in your tone, that's causing you to get all these objections?"

That's technically a triple bind. Saying, not saying, or tone. All three lead back to them.

Creating dissociation

This one's fun. Dissociation is getting someone to disconnect from their own thoughts or identity, to view themselves in third person.

When people view themselves from a detached point of view, they care less about consequences and make decisions they normally wouldn't. Less emotion attached, more likely to take action.

You do this by pointing out there are two different "people" or voices inside their head, and then you play them against each other.

Here's how it sounds on a call:

"It almost seems like there are two different voices in your head fighting each other. One telling you to pump the brakes, and the other saying go for it. Would you agree?"

Everyone agrees with this. I've never had someone say no. Then I label the voices:

"I call it the scared voice and the boss voice. The scared voice always thinks things are gonna go wrong. The boss voice believes in you and tells you to go for it. Let me talk to the boss voice for a second. What's it saying?"

Now they're not "them" anymore. They're observing two characters in their own head. Less attachment, less fear.

Then I give them a binary and force a choice:

"No matter what voice we listen to, it's gonna get louder. So what voice do you want to make louder, the scared voice or the boss voice?"

Follow it up with consequence. "What happens if you make the other voice louder?" That's the gut punch that gets people to actually move.

Hijacking authority

Authority is one of the most powerful levers in the human brain, period. Look up the Milgram experiment if you haven't. People in lab coats told regular participants to keep shocking someone, even past the point where that person stopped responding. Over 65% kept going. Against their own will. Because a guy in a coat told them to.

Authority, charisma, and composure are a master key to the human mind. And they're skills. You can build them.

Appearance. If you look like an authority, people treat you like one. Look healthy, look put together. Studies show people who look healthier get listened to more. Clean skin, clean hair, dress the part for your space.

Confidence. Confidence is certainty in yourself. Most reps tell prospects to "find the money" and "just take action," then they won't take action on their own goals. You gotta take your own advice first.

Then imitate what confidence actually looks like physically: good posture, relaxed shoulders, slow movements, a relaxed face. A lot of confidence is just comfortability. Give yourself permission to be the most comfortable person in the room.

A few truths that help here:

• Everyone is faking it on some level, even the people at the top
• The worst case scenario on a sales call is someone tells you to eff off, and that's survivable
• Limiting beliefs in your head aren't real, if you're confident you're unconfident, that's still confidence

I build my own confidence through gratitude. Being grateful for what you've already done makes you more confident as a person, full stop.

And I'll hijack other people's authority too. I quote Tony Robbins a lot because he's an authority in self improvement, which is basically what I'm selling, a better version of someone.

Storytelling and tactical vulnerability

When someone hears a story, they automatically put themselves in the protagonist's seat. That's the hack. We use embedded commands inside the story and open up emotionally first, I call this tactical vulnerability, so they open up to us.

An embedded command is a phrase hidden in normal language that goes straight to the subconscious, past the critical, analytical part of the brain.

"I asked my dad what I should do, and he said, what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail. I thought that was a good point, so I did it. I decided to take action."

"I did it." "I decided to take action." Those are the embedded commands. Emphasize them slightly when you say it out loud.

Stories also pre-handle objections before they even come up. That same story pre-handles the fear of failure objection. You can build a story for money objections, partner objections, whatever comes up most on your calls. Just make sure it's actually your real story. Authenticity is what makes it land.

Hacking identity

This is the one that moves the needle the most. Sales isn't just a transaction, it's a transformation. The deepest change happens when someone changes how they see themselves.

There's research on this. People who believe they handle stress badly get worse health outcomes. People who believe stress is something they handle well don't get those same negative outcomes. Same stress. Different identity. Different result.

So your job is to find their current identity, shift it, then cement the new one. Once someone adopts a new identity, they want to stay consistent with it. That means fewer objections and better results after the sale too, because they're now acting like the person who gets that outcome.

Here's how I open this up:

"I've always struggled with social anxiety, so I really appreciate how open you are. Have you always been this open, or did you have to work on it like me?"

That's tactical vulnerability plus a double bind stacked together. Either answer locks them into the identity of "I am open," which is exactly what I need from them to go deeper in the call.

Here's another sequence I run:

"Do you know someone, or know of someone, who is where you'd like to be? What are the characteristics, not skills, that let them be that way? Based on that, what do you feel like is missing in you? Why is that? What happens if that's always missing?"

That last question is the consequence close on identity. It forces them to picture staying stuck as the same person, forever, if nothing changes.

The bottom line

None of this works if you're faking it just to manipulate someone into a bad deal. These are tools to get people to see the truth about themselves faster so they can actually make the change they already wanted to make. Stack double binds with presuppositions. Use dissociation to lower the emotional wall. Build real authority through appearance and confidence. Tell your own story with embedded commands. And above everything else, work on shifting identity, because that's what actually sticks after the call ends.