How to tap into the power of emotion to be a more successful salesperson.

“The Heart has its reasons that the head knows nothing of.” (Blaise Pascal)

The 17th century French Mathematician and Philosopher, Blaise Pascal may not have had the art of selling in mind when he made the statement above, however he was describing something that is very much at the heart of human behaviour when it comes to decision making and thus at the heart of Buyers behaviour when making buying decisions. (Buyers do have a heart, even though they may not often show it to Account Managers!)

On the face of it selling is correctly seen as a numbers game; if the numbers stack up for both parties in a selling or negotiation situation then a deal is there to be done. Nothing apparently can get in the way of doing the deal. However, experience has shown us that this is not always the case, and most salespeople can give countless examples of deals that didn’t get done when the numbers were right and many deals that did get done when it seemed impossible to close perceived gaps in the numbers.

Selling and influencing other humans has always been a blend of emotion and logic with the emotion factor the more predominant of the two. It can be one thing to be aware of the truth of this and another to use the knowledge in helping to achieve sales success.

Let me share three ideas that I believe can prove powerful aids to salespeople in connecting with the emotional needs of customers

1.     Turn up for your sales call as your authentic self. Often, we can overthink what type of behaviour we need to adopt to connect with our customer or prospective customer. We may be overly focused on something we have learned about personality types, or on some sales technique we have picked up from a training course or a book or even watching our colleagues. While none of these aspects in and of themselves are harmful, they can have the effect of making us try to be something we are not and thus we come across as not authentic or genuine to our customer and diminish the chances of appealing to the emotional side of their buying judgement.

2.     Prepare well for all sales calls then put your preparation to the back of your mind in the initial part of the call. Selling is first and foremost about connecting with the customer. If you go in determined to show them how well prepared you are, or to tell them about all your great benefits, you will not be connecting with their emotional side. Imagine how you would feel if someone attacked your familiar ideas or ways of doing things; you are likely to respond defensively and dig your heels in even firmer to the ideas you hold dear. Telling a customer about all your great benefits may appeal to their logic, however their emotional alarms will have been triggered and they will behave as if you have attacked their dearly held ideas.

3.     Include customer ideas in your final proposal and draw their attention to these ideas. Emotionally we are wired by our experiences to be in search of a story that doesn’t change our minds. More likely we are looking for the story that confirms what’s in our minds already. By incorporating the customers ideas, where possible, we are further heightening their emotional connection to the solution we are offering.

Selling is a blend of emotion and logic; therefore, we cannot afford to forget about quantifying our benefits to customers. However, the more qualitative but more powerful emotional aspect to selling really can be the secret to unlocking sales success.