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Selling With Emotion

You know what's overrated? Rationality. I know, I know, it's important to have your feet firmly planted on the ground in order to grow roots, in order to have a foundation, a base from which to work. But in business the idea of rationality has become supreme and I think we've lost something in the transition from 'mom and pop' business to faceless corporations that is an integral part of selling our products or services, especially when dealing with an affluent clientle.

In order to be seen as vital and viable to our affluent prospects and clients, we must link to their emotions and their other-than-conscious minds. In previous articles, I've gotten detailed about how we can access these powerful conduits, so here I'd like to discuss why we should do this.

Our core emotions drive us to take action. The same things that ruled our ancestors, rule us--our need for food, shelter, sex, fight or flight. There wasn't an overabundance of products and services to choose from at that point, there were just the basics. With no thought to the concepts of choice, luxury or affluence, decisions were simple. And yet, we are still hardwired to think about these core needs first and foremost.

In our interactions, we need to have foremost in our minds the goal of appealing to their core. Gut instincts can be honed to be even more powerful than our rational thought processes. And when we combine the two, that is where the real power is.

In an instant, our gut instincts kick into action. In the book 'Blink', Malcolm Gladwell writes about thinking without thinking, that rapid cognition that happens in the blink of an eye. Our rational brains take five times longer to assimilate than do our emotional processes.

Think of this through the frame of how sales used to be and how they are now. At our core we are like cavemen, and on the surface we are incredibly sophisticated. In the last thirty to sixty years, we've seen the 'features and benefits' style of sales and the Dale Carnegie method of sales, both of which were passable for their time. As competition has increased and the marketplace has grown, so has our ability to detect B.S.

The ability to elicit the emotions that feel best--being understood, feeling at ease. . . these are responses we want to duplicate in our clients over and over. By accessing their values, eliciting their criteria, infusing everything we do with honesty, integrity and sincerity, and having a product or service we believe in to combine that with, this creates an emotional alchemy that is easy to sell.

In our advanced state of civilization (depending on your perspective) we have an amazing array of choices. There are opportunities available to us that even a generation ago, wouldn't have been dreamed up. In this ever expanding atmosphere it seems likely that those of us who know how to access the core and our prospect's emotions are going to be the ones capable of rising to the top in our given fields. By elevating emotions and partially bypassing rationality, we find ourselves with incredible persuasion power.

Article Source: http://www.dummiesguideto.com

Kenrick Cleveland teaches strategies to earn the business of affluent prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion strategies.

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