#56 Derek Borthwick On The Psychology of Selling

Summary

In this episode, Ben sits down with Derek Borthwick — sales expert, bestselling author, and founder of Power2Mind — to talk about what actually makes people buy. Spoiler: it's not your pitch deck.

Derek dismantles the classic "sales playbook" approach and explains why scripts, product dumps, and logical arguments consistently fail to persuade. Drawing from neuroscience, NLP, and decades of hands-on experience in asset management and corporate sales, he lays out how human decision-making really works — through the reptile brain, the emotional center, and only then through logic. The problem? Most salespeople (and most managers trying to push for change internally) do it in reverse.

Ben and Derek cover practical techniques anyone can start using immediately: the echo technique for deeper listening, the "my friend John" storytelling method for subtle persuasion, how to control your own emotional state before a meeting, and why addressing "What's in it for me?" (WIIFM) is non-negotiable. They also discuss why PowerPoint is killing your presentations, how rapport stacks like sheets of paper, and why your boss is more likely to say yes right after lunch.

Ben shares his own experiences from robotics sales and his time at Ford, where live product demos and test drives consistently outperformed spec sheets — proving Derek's point that emotion drives decisions and logic just fills in the gaps.

Derek Borthwick is the founder of Power2Mind and a leading expert on the psychology of communication, sales, and persuasion. He is a multiple bestselling author with books covering sales psychology, body language, negotiation, public speaking, and verbal communication. His work draws from neuroscience, NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), and clinical hypnotherapy to create what he calls the Power2Mind method — a practical framework for understanding how people actually make decisions.

Derek has over 25 years of experience in sales and marketing, including extensive work in asset management where he helped generate well over $1 billion in sales. He has trained and coached teams at FTSE 100 companies and lectured at leading Scottish universities. He holds diplomas in Clinical Hypnotherapy, NLP (Master Practitioner level), and Transformational Coaching from the Henka Institute. He also served as Area Director for Toastmasters International. Derek is based in Scotland.

Derek Borthwick / Power2Mind

• Website: www.power2mind.com

• LinkedIn: Derek Borthwick (search on LinkedIn)

• Books on Amazon: "Inside the Mind of Sales", "Body Language", "How to Talk to Anybody", "The Art of Negotiation", "Public Speaking: How to Speak Effectively Without Fear"

Mentioned in the Episode

• Derren Brown — "Person Swap" experiment (search "Derren Brown Person Swap" on YouTube)

• HeartMath Institute — research on heart electromagnetic fields and synchronization: www.heartmath.org

• Israeli parole study — research showing judges grant more parole after eating (Danziger, Levav & Avnaim-Pesso, 2011)

• Change Blindness — the psychological phenomenon behind the "person swap" and why we see what we expect to see

• The dress illusion — the viral blue/gold dress debate as an example of how perception differs between people

• "Product vomit" — term coined by John McPherson (Scottish sales trainer) for overwhelming prospects with product information

Links & References