How can we leverage science and behavioral psychology to increase our Ecommerce sales without feeling like we’re in Boiler Room or Wolf of Wall Street?
Jeremy Miner is a Sales Coach and Trainer, Founder of the Neuro-Persuasion Sales Method, and the host of the Closers are Losers Podcast.
Today’s episode of Deal Closers is hosted by Izach Porter, brought to you by WebsiteClosers.com, and is produced by Earfluence.
The life science that Miner studied is very much applicable to sales and marketing. One of the biggest questions answered in this episode is, “Why do people buy from you?” Psychology and sales expert Jeremy Miner points out how a sales team continues to reference a common idea linked to Dale Carnegie’s 1936 book How to Win Friends and Influence People, often summarized as “People buy from people they like.” And this notion persists widely in sales circles, often trapping salespeople in ineffective habits that prioritize personal rapport over addressing buyers’ core needs and desired outcomes.
In the science of sales, Miner explains, “If that was the case, nobody would be buying from Amazon, they’d be going down to the local store and buying from that retail store because they like their neighbor. But why did they buy from Amazon? Did they just like Jeffrey Bezos? Maybe, probably not.”
Today, the focus of psychology of sales and marketing has shifted: buyers choose those who deliver the best results for them. “If they like you, that is just a bonus.” He adds.
When you consider the psychology of selling, accept that most visitors do not arrive on your site with a clear list of problems and purchase criteria already defined. They have a hazy sense of dissatisfaction or desire, but they don’t know what their exact pain points are. Sales science expert Jeremy Miner explains that they “don’t sit around thinking about it all the time” and often “don’t even know what their real problems are.” The approach to sales is to make your pages, flows, and campaigns gently surface those latent needs and then contrast them with a vivid, desirable future state for your target market.
Once you understand the psychology of buyers, it’s time to apply what Miner calls the NEPQ framework. This behavioral psychology and online sales psychology gives ecommerce brands a conversion path that mirrors how people actually decide, rather than how marketers wish they would. He explains that you need “a step-by-step structure that gets the prospect to persuade themselves and pull you in,” which is exactly what NEPQ is designed to do. This psychology in sales and marketing concept is applicable to the ecommerce sales process, and its structure can be translated into how you sequence your pages, sales pitch, questions, sales strategy, and offers across the funnel.
First, go with connecting questions that are applied to any type of sales situation (cold calls, outbound leads, inbound leads), which “take the focus off you and put it on the prospect.” In an ecommerce context, this is the job of your hooks and first-screen content: speak to the visitor’s world, not your brand story, and frame the page around their situation rather than your features. Next, you ask situation questions “help…most importantly, [your] prospect understand what their real situation actually is,” because “most of your prospects don’t even know when you first start talking to them.” Translated into CRO, this is where PDP content, quizzes, and filters surface the shopper’s current behaviors, constraints, and pain points so they recognize themselves in the experience.
Next, Miner layers in problem awareness questions, which “help the prospect see what their real problems are” and “start to build a gap from where they are current situation, compared to where they want to be.” On-site, this becomes copy and comparison blocks that make the cost of inaction visible—missed savings, wasted time, ongoing frustration—without resorting to hype. He stresses that top performers don’t stop at a single pain point: “we’re going to help them find two or three or four, or maybe five of their problems,” because if you can help a prospect see “three or four or five reasons or problems they didn’t realize they have,” the chances of them buying from you become “pretty strong…like 100%.”
Once that gap is clear, solution awareness questions “allow the prospect to see what their future is going to look like once all these newfound problems are actually solved,” which is where your benefits, visuals, and social proof show a tangible after state. Miner then introduces consequence questions that get buyers to see “what the consequences are if they don’t do anything about solving these newfound problems…what are the ramifications?” For ecommerce CRO, this can be woven into FAQ copy, urgency messaging, and long-form sections that spell out what happens if they stay with the status quo—without resorting to empty scarcity.
From there, the process moves into presentation and commitment. In a one-call close, he says you “transition into your presentation” and then “commitment questions that get them to commit and take the next step to purchase what we’re offering.” Online, this is the role of your offer stack and CTAs: simplify the decision-making processes, reduce friction at checkout, and make the next step feel like a natural extension of the story you’ve just helped them tell themselves. Miner even reframes the goal: he “doesn’t like the word closing,” preferring to train people to think of themselves as “a problem finder and Problem Solver,” not “a closer.” Practically, that mindset shift is a CRO directive: architect funnels and page flows that help visitors discover and solve their own problems, instead of pushing them through generic, one-size-fits-all paths.
When Porter asks directly whether “an e-commerce company [could] use that same process to build a funnel,” Miner’s answer is that “a lot of really savvy marketers already kind of do that.” They “connect in a certain way,” help prospects “realize what their current situation is,” “feel that they have maybe problems they didn’t know they had,” and then see “what the future is going to look like, once they have whatever you’re offering to get them where they want to go.”
Science sales-wise, Miner links this “best result” bias directly to trust signals, which is where authority bias and trust heuristics show up in ecommerce. When Porter asks how trust fits into the picture, Miner says people buy a product or service when they “trust you, they view you as an expert, and authority,” and will “pay far more from you if they view you that way than just some other salesperson that’s asking…a few questions and going into pitch mode.”
Porter immediately connects the psychological principles to Google’s ranking factors: “Google’s algorithm is based on three factors…expertise, authority, and trust. Which is exactly the three reasons that you said that people buy.” That parallel matters for ecommerce because it shows that shoppers and search engines rely on the same shortcuts: they gravitate toward brands that look and feel like credible authorities, using reviews, content, social proof, and overall presence as quick filters in a crowded market.
Taken together, these moments in the conversation frame cognitive biases as the hidden engines behind online purchasing. Outcome bias pushes a potential customer toward the store they expect will get them the “best result,” which often means speed, reliability, and ease rather than charm or personality. Authority bias then amplifies that preference when a brand presents deep expertise, visible proof, and a track record that feels safer than lesser-known alternatives.
For ecommerce operators, the implication is clear: you do not win conversions by trying to be the most liked brand in the feed, you win by becoming the brand that looks most capable of delivering the outcome shoppers care about—and backing that perception with clear, authority-building signals at every step of the journey.
In this sales conversation, Miner also takes a look at three modes of seller, which can be directly translated into persuasive design choices for ecommerce. He critiques the first two methods and presents an argument on why NEPQ is effective.
First, Miner contrasts “boiler room” selling with more modern approaches, which are applicable to sales psychology in ecommerce. In his words, this mode is the classic Wolf of Wall Street style, where salespeople “manipulate and pressure” and try to dominate the prospect, which triggers equal and opposite resistance. He notes that tactics like heavy-handed presenting—hour-long slide decks full of “we have the best service, best quality, AAA rating” and awards—are surprisingly low on the persuasion scale. Every company claims to be “the best,” so shoppers mentally discount those messages the way they discount TV promos that promise “the most dramatic season ever” of The Bachelor every year. The more you lean on superlatives or trash-talk competitors to create a sense of urgency, the less your claims register as believable.
Second, he critiques classic consultative selling for staying at the surface level. Questions like “Who besides you would be involved in the decision?” or “What are you looking for in a solution?” tend to elicit equally surface-level answers and never tap the emotional drivers that actually move buyers. Miner’s alternative is to reframe these into deeper, process-oriented prompts such as “Can you walk me through your company’s decision-making process when it comes to solving problems like this?” That wording invites a narrative, exposes hidden stakeholders, and feels like joint problem-mapping rather than qualification. For ecommerce, this implies designing flows and on-page prompts that help users explain their context and constraints to themselves, instead of peppering them with obvious or self-serving questions.
Finally, NEPQ’s “dialogue” mode is one of the excellent psychological tricks to increase ecommerce sales and offers a blueprint for interfaces that let visitors persuade themselves. Rather than pushing a predetermined story, NEPQ relies on neuro-emotional persuasion questions that guide prospects below the surface and “trigger internal tension,” so they recognize the cost of staying where they are. Miner emphasizes that the goal is to become a “problem finder and problem solver,” not a closer, and that small shifts in wording can be the difference between resistance and openness. Applied online, persuasive design becomes the art of structuring pages, messaging, and microcopy so users gradually surface their own problems, see a clear path to a better outcome, and naturally choose your brand—not because you shouted that you’re the best, but because the experience helped them reach that conclusion on their own.
This episode’s UX lessons sit less in layouts and more in how your brand “feels” in the first seconds of contact. Miner argues that most salespeople “sound like scripted freakin’ robots,” reading lines so stiffly that prospects immediately categorize them as telemarketers. He contrasts this with actors like George Clooney: everything is scripted, but it “doesn’t sound scripted” because the lines are memorized and delivered naturally. Online, your UX should work the same way—clear, intentional flows and messages that never feel canned, generic, or obviously “templated.”
Miner explains that prospects pick up “verbal and nonverbal cues” in the first “seven to 12 seconds” of any interaction, which push their brain into either openness or fight-or-flight. When a salesperson comes across “aggressive,” “assumptive,” or “needy,” they trigger reactions like “we’re not interested,” “we already use a company,” or “just tell me the price,” all of which are protective responses to perceived pressure. Translating that to ecommerce UX, aggressive pop-ups, pushy countdown timers, or overbearing CTAs can provoke the same reflex—users bounce, skim, or shut down mentally, even if the offer is relevant.
The antidote Miner offers is a more neutral, detached, and calm stance: sounding “unbiased” and “not quite sure we can even help yet,” which makes prospects “curious enough” to lean in and engage. UX-wise, that means designing pages that guide rather than shove: CTAs that invite exploration, helpful comparison tools, and onboarding flows that feel like collaboration, not interrogation. Microcopy matters here: Miner specifically warns against phrases like “just to be honest with you” or “just to be transparent with you” because they make people wonder if you’ve been honest up to now. He recommends neutral substitutes like “just so you’re aware” or “just so you know,” which convey the same information without triggering suspicion.
For ecommerce, this kind of humanized UX means treating tone as part of the interface. Error states, form labels, promo banners, and chat prompts should read like a steady, competent guide, not a desperate closer. As Miner puts it, once you “learn how to humanize your sales process,” prospects “view you much differently than…most salespeople,” and their default becomes openness instead of resistance. That shift—from pressuring visitors to calmly helping them make sense of their options—is where UX optimization and behavioral psychology meet.
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