Appealing To Buyers' Emotions Helps Win Sales Whether $250,000 or $250M

When dealing with B2B buyers, it's important to understand what emotions influence their rational purchase decisions. Even when it comes to negotiating price, emotions play a role.

Today we’re going to discuss how to use Aristotle’s Appeal to Emotion (pathos) to win over buyers. And we’re going to discuss how to think about buyers’ emotions in the context of purchases made on behalf of an organisation. If a private company’s buying committee makes the wrong decision, it could impact its competitiveness and profits. And for a government buying committee, their IT purchase decisions can impact citizens positively or negatively, thus even impacting which party stays in power or is voted out.

Differences in B2B and B2C Selling Influence Emotional Plays

Using the appeal to emotion in B2B should be subtlety played which is the opposite of the emotional blackmail we get served watching consumer ads on TV or YouTube. That’s because there are major differences between B2B and B2C sales.

Compared to a fast and straightforward B2C buying process, B2B’s purchasing cycle is anywhere between 3 to 12 months or longer. The price point is also much higher in B2B and requires the customer to commit to the vendor long-term. While this is getting shorter, 12 months to three or even five years is still common. In B2C, the decision-makers are one or two people, while B2B usually involves consensus from a large group of stakeholders.?Unlike the immediate gratification of most consumer purchases, B2B purchases don’t normally see a return on investment until 6 to 12 months later, which isn’t always guaranteed.?

There are Three Major Emotions in B2B

Due to the above, there are three fundamental emotions B2B buyers experience (in my opinion) at every stage of the buying cycle, and they are:

Fear –?There are two components to how your buyer approaches fear: fear of missing out and fear of change. Due to the ever-increasing pace of business today and constant disruption, your buyers fear they will not be able to compete and thrive. On the other hand, they fear change because it comes with risk. There is a chance their investment in you will fail or not deliver fast enough business results.

Safety –?because there is an inherent risk when implementing new technology and processes, buyers are looking for vendors that make them feel?safe and?secure. This is all about them wanting to believe you have the right experts with the right qualifications and experience. Or that you have access to a large pool of resources and partners, or your organisation is financially secure.?

Confidence –?Your B2B buyer needs to believe they can rely on you to deliver the goods, no matter the pressures or complexity of their IT project. Confidence is different to safety. From the buyer’s perspective, they're thinking, “just because you’re big doesn’t mean I can rely on you. If you’re a big, powerful IT vendor, you have many important customers who may take priority over me. I need to feel confident that you’ll stand by me and work with me as a true partner so I can fulfil my business objectives.”

Gauging the confidence of your prospective or current customers can be difficult. Still, out of the three emotions you need to appeal to, confidence (in my opinion) is the most important.?

There is No Truth. There is Only Perception

Lack of confidence in you or your organisation can result in losing a winnable deal or not progressing beyond the nurture stage of your sales cycle.?

Think about it, lack of confidence has played a big part in many financial panics and meltdowns simply based on rumour. Why should it be any different in B2B IT? So it’s essential to use confidence to your advantage rather than ignore it to your detriment.?

On a deeper level, confidence is closely tied to trust. So, how do you use The Appeal to Emotion to increase trust in you as the preferred vendor?

The Challenge Appealing To The Emotions Of Multiple Influencers

The appeal to fear, safety and confidence is incredibly challenging because you’re selling to many influencers, evaluators and decision-makers within your buyer organisation. Individuals may experience to a larger or lesser degree fear, hope, vulnerability, security or doubt and confidence. Nevertheless, you must strive to adjust your messaging and communications to match each stakeholder’s emotional journey.

Other Emotions To Take Into Account

There are other emotions your B2B buyer is experiencing at any stage of the buying cycle. They range from enthusiasm, pride, surprise and delight on the positive side and feeling confused, embarrassed, annoyed, indifferent or depressed on the negative side.??

What About The Emotional Rollercoaster of Uncertainty?

Since I originally wrote this piece (pre-pandemic), things have changed. Buyers’ uncertainty is now heightened. This means the most prevalent (conscious or unconscious) emotion controlling them might be insecurity manifesting as tentativeness or timidity in moving forward with purchase decisions.

Humans crave certainty even amid chaos. So, how do we use Aristotle’s Appeal to Emotion to offer buyers certainty?

On a deeper level, this is also about lack of confidence the buyer has in themself to make the right decision. So, how do we use The Appeal to Emotion to help the buyer feel more self-empowered to make the smartest decision? (And if we’re ethical, that decision might be to not choose us as the preferred vendor).

With all of the above in mind, which emotions will you provoke or stoke in your B2B buyer? It pays to think about it, as you don’t want to alienate buyers or have them lose confidence in you or in themself.

Listening To Buyer’s Emotional Cues

Have you ever heard a B2B buyer say something like, “this just doesn’t feel right”, or “We feel your offer didn’t connect to our unique situation”, or “I feel uncomfortable with some elements of the contract…”

Anytime someone prefaces “I feel” or “We feel” instead of “I think” or “we think”, pay attention because some emotion (often not recognised but attributed to a gut reaction) is at play. It’s important to explore this with a buyer to get to the root cause of discomfort.

Conclusion

From capturing a prospect’s attention and building rapport with a prospective customer to getting the decision-makers to sign the contract, it’s important to use Aristotle’s Appeal to Emotion, though in a genuine, non-manipulative way. Honing our Emotional Intelligence can also help us navigate buyers’ emotional triggers, positive or negative.

Finally, in addition to appealing to emotions and supporting our persuasive argument with logic and evidence, it’s important to appeal to our B2B buyer’s ethics and values, coming up in next week’s newsletter issue.?

Attribution: The sub-heading,?There is No Truth. There is Only Perception is a?Gustave Flaubert quote.

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This article was originally published on the now-retired relatable.IT blog.

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