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The Power of Need: Persuading Utilizing Your Prospect's Needs

"Nothing has more strength than dire necessity." ~ Euripides

One of the most basic strategies in sales and marketing is fulfilling a need. You always want to feed a hungry crowd. Every crowd has a different hunger, so how do you know who wants what? And how do you use this strategy to persuade your affluent prospects?

Think about what is consciously on your mind. You're reading this article, so it's possible these words are all that you're thinking about. But if I was writing an article about bananas, then you'd start picturing a banana, or thinking about bananas. If your doctor told you you had to start eating bananas or potassium, you'd probably think about them even more.

And unless we were involved in the growing and harvesting of bananas for a living, there would be really no use for us to think about them too very often, though when a doctor advises you to eat one a day, you're going to have them in the conscious part of your mind more often.

Consciousness is regulated by the part of the brain called the reticular activating system. This is considered to be central to motivation and arousal. It's involved in the central nervous system's activities and it helps us to pay attention to the most important things and store those we can reasonably disregard for a time.

Studies have shown that the conscious mind can hold about seven bits of information at any given point in time.

Think about the last time you took a long road trip. Maybe you had on the radio, you were singing along to an old song (whose lyrics you still remember from decades ago, but hadn't thought about consciously in years, maybe), and you're maybe thinking about where you're going, who you're going to see when you get there. You probably aren't thinking of having to go to the bathroom. You won't think about that until you need to. And maybe you aren't thinking about water or gas or food, unless you need them.

When you start needing something, however, like gas, or water, or food, all of the sudden that's what you're thinking about consciously. You start really paying attention to the road signs and billboards for restaurants. You calculate whether you're going to be able to make it to the next gas station before running out of gas. Need.

Why don't we have to contend with these needs all the time? Because they aren't relevant all the time. We can safely store them in our other-than-conscious until we require them, until they are again relevant.

By eliciting the criteria of our prospects, we bring their needs to the forefront. As we speak to their values, in relation to our products or services, we are fine tuning the reticular activating system to everyone's advantage--ours and theirs.

Criteria elicitation (finding the very deepest desires of your prospect) is crucial to pointing us in the right direction to satisfy those needs. Once you know the direction to take a person, persuading him/her will come naturally.

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

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

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